The revelations of teacups and taxes at a ruined farmstead on the Raiders Road

The revelations of teacups and taxes at a ruined farmstead on the Raider’s Road

Claire Williamson, Senior Archaeologist, Rathmell Archaeology

In February 2019 and with National Lottery Heritage Funding, Rathmell Archaeology was commissioned by Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership to deliver the Can You Dig It community archaeology project. After public consultation, they chose to investigate the abandoned post medieval farmstead at Upper Gairloch on the Raider’s Road, running between Clatteringshaws Loch and Mossdale.

The first stage was to clear vegetation from the old kiln. This three-day excavation revealed a structure typical of many small rural farms where heat from a peat fire set in the entrance would have been drawn into the kiln to dry grain prior to storage, grinding or malting. Further excavation revealed a storage barn. The First Edition Ordnance Survey map shows that the structures were in ruins by 1852 as mills began to build their own kilns and those on individual farms fell out of use.

The team of volunteers returned for a further eight days to examine the main steading. Excavations revealed two dry-stone constructions on either side of a cobbled courtyard. It is probable that the northerly feature housed livestock and the southerly one was the main dwelling.  500 pottery sherds were found, including part of a teacup dating from 1790 – 19820 and a bottle fragment from the same period. Most of the remaining pottery was from 1820 – 1860. There were also two metal finds, some Welsh and local roof slates, clay pipe stems and chimney pot fragments.

An examination of the records was restricted to those available on line due to the Covid-19 restrictions in place at the time. This revealed that the Gordon family acquired the land in 1297 and Blau’s “Atlas of Scotland” shows “o Gairlarr” in the vicinity in 1654. In 1682 there is a reference to “the lands of Overgarlarry” but it is not until the 1852 First Edition Ordnance Survey map that the features have any detail. The OS Name Book mentions a “farm house in bad repair, built on the site of an old mansion”. The dwelling excavated corresponded with one constructed during the 19th century improvement period and no evidence of an earlier structure was found. 

Finally, the team turned to the Census Records. In 1841 the Halliday family, comprising two adults, two children, possibly a grandfather and a lodger, were resident. By 1851 the Hallidays had moved to Minnigaff and now had five children but the grandfather was no longer recorded. The McQueens, with two children and a woman recorded as the head of the household, were now living at Upper Gairloch. Tannoch, an adjacent farm, had a 14 year old boy recorded as a “teacher”, it may be that he was employed to educate children from several farming households as they were too far from a school to travel.

Nineteenth century agricultural improvements meant that smaller farms were amalgamated to make larger sheep walks and by 1896 the Second Edition Ordnance Survey map shows Upper Gairloch, along with several other farm steadings along the Raiders Road, in ruins. 

In the 1940s 240 sq miles of land including Upper Gairloch was designated as forest park and it is now in the care of Forestry and Land Scotland.

SR