Badenoch Quotes

“Doubtless what affected them in some degree was a foreboding of the part the Road would play in times of trouble with the Gall. They saw it used continually, so far as it was finished, by the redcoats and the Watches; standing, wrapped, themselves, in plaids, on thicket verges or the slopes of the hills in mist, like figures of some other clime or age, they watched, with gloomy brows, dragoons pass cantering, four abreast, or companies of footmen out of Ruthven Castle. Sometimes on it could be heard the roll of drums; up Blair of Athole once had come a house on wheels, glass-windowed, horses dragging it, a gentleman within it smoking, and a bigger gentleman they touched their cap to, driving. Never a day went past but someone could be seen upon the street (as Gaelic had it); here, in Badenoch, the world seemed coming to an end.”
― Neil Munro, The New Road

“The physical reclamation of the floodplain of the Spey involved a hugely ambitious series of localised engineering projects, surely equal to any undertaking in lowland Britain - perhaps more so considering the region's remoteness and economic difficulties.

...Around 40 miles of banks were constructed over five decades, reclaiming some 4,000 acres of the most fertile land in Badenoch, dramatically increasing the region's pastoral and arable yields to the benefit of all. Many of these floodbanks still protect the riverside fields, a monument not just to the ideology of Enlightenment and improvement, but to the vision and labour of all involved - lairds, tacksmen, tenants and labourers. Ironically, the huge Invereshie reclamation scheme, the great drain and riverbanks, are now - in response to a new ideological vision being re-converted into wetlands, the Invereshie Meadows reverting to the Insh Marshes.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“Badenoch encapsulates the dichotomy of the sporting estate. Rich southern incomers provided much-needed income and jobs, a new economic lifeline in difficult times, while at the same time riding roughshod over the last remnants of the traditional farming economy to suit their own interests - another blow to a way of life that had survived and evolved over countless generations.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“...while the troubles sweeping Europe and southern Britain comprised liberal and radical elements protesting against powerful elites to secure better rights, in Badenoch it was the opposite - a subtle exercise of power by a small but influential outsider elite seeking to sweep aside the long-established rights of the lower orders, whose mere presence disrupted their leisure pursuits. There was, of course, a measure of protest, but the scattered and impoverished nature of local communities rendered them powerless. Land-owners knew well enough which side their bread was buttered on - a trend that became increasingly evident over the next two decades.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“While the estate team's defence may have been relevant to some of the Belleville properties, when applied specifically the the farms of Easterton and Westerton of Glenbanchor it was at best a gross distortion of reality, at worst duplicitous and even dishonest. Their houses were not unsafe; their farms were not too small; their land was not unsuitable for cultivation; the people did not leave of their own volition. The laird was not acting in their best interest but in the estate's, while the claim that no-one was evicted who wished to remain was a downright lie. And, as Fraser-Mackintosh laid bare, the Colonel could have stopped the evictions, but chose not to.”
― Mary Mackenzie, Glen Banchor: A Highland Glen and its People