they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. There are plenty of crofters who are intent on milking their situation for every tear they can jerk, and when that is combined with an economy that is now based on hanging the cap out for the tourists, it isn't as if the situation is as black-and- white as it is usually painted.

The estate was sold by the Vesteys in 1988 to a Scandinavian property firm, which promptly went bust. “Crofting isn’t just about making money, people are drawn to this way of life because of the social benefits it offers and that is something we don’t want to lose.”. The filming forms part of a new prime-time BBC 2 programme called ‘This Farming Life’ that starts this Monday (07/03/16) and was filmed over the course of a year following life on five farms around Scotland, including the Granville croft. But this loss of pride, encouraged by dependence on landlords and government, is also spiked with a large measure of historical grievance, and it is often difficult to disentangle contemporary causes for crofters' complaints from mere historical prejudice. February 18, 2019. Probably the best definition is the old saying that a croft is a piece of land fenced around by regulations. It's based on a thousand years of wars with the English, and it ebbs and flows, but once the rest of the world moves on, it doesn't need you and you're left looking inward or backwards. continue to respect all commenters and create constructive debates.

It's a Pied Piper thing - the more people that leave, the more the remaining ones get restless. to your comment. A well-known name on the Island of Lewis is Donald MacSween, who runs three active crofts in Ness, all while balancing freelance work as a presenter with the BBC and exploring various agri-tourism ventures such as crofting tours.

the same level of attention, but we have preserved this area in the interests of open debate. Although the grouse-shooting industry alone pumps an estimated pounds 370m a year into the Scottish economy, these landlords continue to arouse the ire of the crofters, often simply for having money when there is so little around.

Contrary to popular misconception, crofts are not all scenic, wee whitewashed houses - a croft is simply a piece of land enshrouded in the labrynthine crofting laws, and can vary from the old black-house - still found on the Western Isles - to the modern 'telecroft', built as recently as the ubiquitous lochside caravan parks. Minorities are dangerous because they appeal to the conscience - they have to fight for things. Newest first, -1) ? Facebook. The remaining crofters, meanwhile, became increasingly dependent on fishing and on farming the barren, overcrowded land by the sea.

Loved this series, would love to see a Where Are They Now catch up, the crofters and the farming families really illustrate the hard work but thorough dedication they show to their families, their animals, and their future. Please Many Highlanders resent the fact that so much Scottish land can still be bought and sold as mini-empires on the open market. 'We're on the very edge of being viable here; I've got the sheep, the cows, the field of potatoes, the mussel farm and the tourists in the summer, but even then we're struggling.'. 'When we came here 10 years ago, two of those were working crofts, but the men got too old, and there was no one that would carry it on, so the place is just going to die. This does not mean that crofting is flourishing, but it does suggest that the situation is not quite as desperate as has been claimed. If young crofters are applying for funding for common grazing – for something which will benefit a much wider community – then they will receive an 80% grant up to a £125,000 claim. 'The Prebble view of the Highlands is the extreme end of the spectrum. ©Copyright 2001-2020. This is partly attributable to one particular crofting success story: Assynt. Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile, There are no comments yet - be the first to add your thoughts, There are no Independent Premium comments yet - be the first to add your thoughts. He runs nine breeding cows and followers and has started to build up a pedigree Aberdeen-Angus herd over the past year. Due to the sheer scale of this comment community, we are not able to give each post There is also a Croft House Grant Scheme available to active crofters which offers 40% support for up to £38,000 in refurbishing old crofts. To help those under 41 get a foothold, there are crofting grants available in the first five years of working the croft – these allow for an 80% grant for up to £25,000 per claim. She collects seaweed from the nearby beach, which she lies on top of the soil beds to create a mulch and swears by it as an effective pest control. Watch with BritBox. Some crofting communities have benefited from CAGS funding to invest in new sheep and cattle handling systems.

Despite the fact that they were no longer in control of North Lochinver when the crofters put forward their bid, many people resented the family's continuing ownership of other land in Sutherland, their alleged blocking of development and, above all, their absentee status. However, with the support of CAGS, individuals can claim 60% funding towards building a polycrub and up to 80% funding for common grazing applications. Want an ad-free experience?Subscribe to Independent Premium. Legislation now keeps the crofting population balanced, but this policy has its downside.

Angus also runs 350 ewes, making a change from Cheviots to Blackface on the basis that they were more suited to the rough ground. There is great tragedy in Scottish history, and it is sad to see the Highland Gael withering, but whether anything could have prevented that, I doubt. Visions of rich, tweedy Englishmen expropriating the land of the people for fair-weather bouts of shooting and pillage have always been emotive, but rarely has feeling against absentee southern landlords been stronger than it is today. The thousands of Cheviot sheep populating the mountains suddenly became financially untenable, and the landlords turned in desperation to other remedies - forestry, sport or fish- farming. Isolation, alcohol, long winter nights: all have contributed to a loss of morale which has lent some substance to the widespread view of the crofters and their neighbours as a bunch of moaning antiques, dependent on subsidy and so protected by legislation that they have lost their spirit. Crofter, Kenny Mackay, is a joiner by trade but his real passion lies in tending to his stock on a dramatic Northton peninsula in the south of Harris. If I could do this full time, I would, but it is not viable, so I’m a joiner to trade. Enter your email to follow new comments on this article. There are new kinds of landlord now, curious, shadowy people, but it's still not the same as the crofters owning their own land.'.

There are 70 acres attached to the croft, which is rented from the West Harris Trust, but Angus also has shares in three lots of common grazing which add up to 5000 ha and outwinters his stock on nearby Taransay island.

Luck and good government could have seen the Highlands in better shape, but it isn't a coincidence that there are probably more Macdonalds and MacGregors abroad than there are in Scotland, because many of them voted with their feet and left. try again, the name must be unique, Please

Published from its offices at 200 Renfield Street Glasgow and printed in Scotland by Newsquest (Herald & Times) a division of Newsquest Media Group Ltd, registered in England & Wales with number 01676637 at Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe HP10 9TY – a Gannett company. That the duke's policy was accomplished with considerable brutality is unquestioned; its impact can still be seen in the occasional huddles of stone marked by notices informing the tourist that this was once a Clearance village. John Prebble, Scotland's best-known historian and a prominent supporter of the Assynt Trust, sees the attitude of such groups as part of a general peevishness in Scotland as a whole at having been abused, ignored and experimented on during the Eighties. He points into the distance, to another line of small houses on the coast's edge.

'It's not surprising that the landlords have problems now; they have to realise that they don't just buy land, they inherit what it implies to other people - its history, not just its present value. 'It's a good place for children, because crime doesn't exist,' David Forbes says laconically.

“We also have 600 hens here which are my bread and butter throughout the year. They formed a co-operative, and - with the financial and moral support of their local MP, Robert Maclennan, the rock band Runrig and several other international sponsors - eventually bought the estate for pounds 300,000. “Unless you inherit a croft, there are few people who can afford the price of land and we need more people coming in to continue this tradition and to bring inactive crofts back to life. Outside in the damp, warm dusk, the lights of nearby Kinlochbervie and the sounds of rain and a few cows - still to be fed - are all that breaks the feeling of overwhelming isolation. Crofters club together to dip their sheep in insecticide before mating time. Sutherland, where most crofts are concentrated, is the largest county in Scotland.

Fishing, meanwhile, has been seriously undercut by the quota system; the oil industry on the east coast is unstable; and tourism is too seasonal to provide much more than summer pocket money. On one island, the depopulation problem recently became so bad that it took advertisements in the national press to attract settlers. It boasts a modern harbour development built for the fish that the EC no longer allows them to land, a series of ragged boathouses, several pubs with appropriately marine names, and a hotel, shut for the winter months. He is a slight, youthful man, but with that dullness around the eyes that comes from constant weariness. Man used to work out his connection to the land and the limitations of the environment. “Everything here is about making the most of provenance and we also trialled putting a Zwartbles ram to our bigger ewes to produce a browner coat and are now sending 40-50 skins per year to Skye Skins for tanning,” he explained. “We lose around 20% of our lambs to sea eagles and are having big issues with ravens.

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