Duror
| Duror Gaelic: Dùrar | |
| Argyllshire | |
|---|---|
| |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NM992552 |
| Location: | 56°38’37"N, 5°16’37"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 726 |
| Post town: | Appin |
| Postcode: | PA38 |
| Dialling code: | 01631 74 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Highland |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Ross, Skye and Lochaber |
Duror, occasionally Duror of Appin, is a small, remote coastal village that sits at the base of Glen Duror, in district of Appin, in the north of Argyllshire. Its name is from the Gaelic An Dùrar, meaning 'hard water'.[1]
Duror is known for the first building of the Telford Parliamentary churches by the civil engineer, architect and stonemason, Thomas Telford, from 1826: that at Duror was the first in a series of 32, built for the Church of Scotland. William Thomson was the architect.[2]
Duror was the location of the infamous 'Appin Murder'. Although no direct evidence for this connection exists, the murder event and the kidnap of James Annesley, supposedly provided the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson writing the novel Kidnapped.
Contents
History
Duror is a very ancient settlement, at least 5,000 years old, the time when a standing stone, the Achara stone, was placed close to the shore of Loch Linnhe. Sea levels were some 46 feet higher, during that time in pre-history, indicating the Achara stone may have been sited next to the seashore. The Ballachulish figure was discovered in November 1880, buried in peat, at Alltshellach in North Ballachulish: the figure is on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.[3]
At the battle of Battle of Inverlochy in 1645, the third battle at Inverlochy, Daniel Colquhoun was granted land at Duror though most of Appin land was retained by the Clan Stewart of Appin (until 1766, when the Appin Estate was sold to Hugh Seton of Touch). In the 1760s, the primary school at Duror was established, where 29 scholars, from a wide range of backgrounds were declared in 1777 to have reached a satisfactory level in reading of English and writing.
In 1788, Hugh Seton employed the firm responsible for the Forth and Clyde Canal in project jointly funded by the Forfeited Estates Commission to improve the Water of Duror, which had been long subject to floods. Retaining walls and embankments were constructed at a cost of around £150. They were so robustly built, that they remained in place until they were badly damaged by a freak flood in 1953.[4] Seton also built an arched and stone built bridge that survived the flood and replaced the Wooden bridges that had been rebuilt over a period of 800 years. The bridge was put in place across the Water of Duror about a quarter of a mile downstream from Inshaig.[4] The bridge, now only used by walkers, helped make possible, or so it was reported an excellent line of road, from Shian Ferry to Glencoe Along this road, by the 1780s at a previous undreamed of speed. A local clergyman noted in amazement that it took two-and-a-half days to reach Duror from Edinburgh.[4]
Visitors and poets
The poet Anne Grant, herself a Highlander, sighted Duror when sailing up Loch Linnhe from Oban to Fort William in May 1773, declared:
- I never saw a place that had more attractions to me, It was wild without being savage; woody, but not gloomy; and fertile but not flat [5]
Dorothy Wordsworth, who visited Duror in September 1803, with her brother, the poet William Wordsworth, also complemented Duror. Riding north by way of Dalnarat and Keil, the Wordsworth's reached the vicinity of Insaig, where they found themselves, as Dorothy noted in:
- in a retired valley scattered over with many grey huts.. there were hay ground in the middle of this valley and everywhere there were trees growing irregularly or in clumps. We met a very stout man, a fine figure, in a Highland bonnet, with a little girl driving home their cow...He told us that the vale was called Strath of Duror and when we said it was a pretty place, he answered, Indeed it was[5]
Duror Parish Church
In 1826, the first Telford Parliamentary church was built in Duror.[6] Since the Reformation, a statuary procedure was in place in Parliament to build new churches which was overseen by the Commission for Plantation of Kirks. The Church of Scotland had been petitioning to build new churches, but the responsibility to pay for new churches lay with the heritor, but costs proved prohibitive.[7] In an attempt to meet the heritor's costs halfway, the Additional Places of Worship in the Highlands Act 1823 was passed by Parliament, which provided £50,000 to build not more than 40 churches in the Highlands, with an annual stipend of £120.[7] Eventually 32 churches and 41 manses were built.[8] To built the churches, the Commissioners called upon Thomas Telford, the civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder sucgh that he became known as 'The Collossus of Roads'. Telford chose Duror as the first location.[6] He employed the architect, William Thomson who designed the churches, with the stipulation that not more that £1,500 was to be spent on each church.[8] Telford managed the task by establish six districts and assigning men to each district. The churches had a classic T-Shape and oblong plan, either one or two storey, adaptable to the local site, and using local materials.[9] In May 1933, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed an act which provided new parishes for the churches.[10]
The church in Duror is still active with a healthy congregation.
The efforts at church-planting elsewhere were negated however by the Highland Clearances and disruption of 1843 which left churches stranded in remote locations with none or very few in the congregation.[10]
Village of Duror
The village of Duror was originally as a series of farming townships called Lagnaha, Achindarroch, Acharn, Achara, Cuil, Keil, and Dalnatrat in the mid 18th century. In the William Roy map of 1746, there is a collection of 6-8 houses clearly seen, located close to Inshaig, along with strips of arable land surrounding it.[11] On the Herman Moll map of 1714, Duror is absent from the map.[12] Dalnatrat, Cuil, Keil are located on the shores of Loch Linnhe. Acharn, Inshaig, Achara, Achindarroch and Lagnaha sit in the three-mile long valley, the Strath of Duror, which runs from Kentallen in the north about three miles from Duror to Glen Duror in south, before meeting the eastern end of Cuil Bay.
The main villages surrounding Duror are Ballachulish, by the abandoned slate quarries on the south shore of Loch Leven, three miles north-east Duror, Onich on the north shore of Loch Leven, and the small settlement of Kentallen, due northeast of Duror.[13] Portnacroish is six and a half miles to the south-west.
The Dram Shop
The dram shop in Inshaig stands on a strip of slightly elevated land, located, on the north bank of River Duror, between the old Mill and the small road that leads to Cuil Bay, was an 18th-century pub and Inn in Duror, that was run by Donald Carmicheal.[14] Taigh na h-Insaig was considered a congested place, it was also the home of Donald Carmicheal, as well as his business premises. The pub along with several other dwellings constituted Insaig Township, and who made their living farming the small strip of land. A typical highland pub was described by the engineer Edmund Burt who travelled extensively in the highlands, during the early 18th century. Burt described the pub as follows: Burt recalled having to stable his horses in an outbuilding so weak and small he feared the horses would knock it down. ..."On entering the dwelling house, there the landlady sat, with a parcel of children, some naked, by a little peat fire in the middle of the hut; and over the fireplace was a small hole for the chimney. The floor was common earth, uneven and nowhere dry. ...The walls were about four feet high, lined with sticks wattled like a hurdle, built on the outside with turf. For dinner it was typically 2 or 3 eggs, with nothing else. During dinner, the landlord not only sat down with you, but in some time, ask leaves to introduce his brother or cousin, who all drink your honours health in whisky, which was imbibed from a scallop shell."[14]
The Appin Murder
Behind Duror, lies Glen Duror, a short and steep valley that terminates at a bowl of a mountain, that has been eroded by glaciation, at Fraochaidh at 2,883 feet. At the head of the glen can be found the ruins of the home which belonged to James Stewart, or James Stewart of the Glen as history denotes him.[14]
On 14 May 1752, Colin Roy Campbell, the tacksman of Glenure was murdered. The murder occurred in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rising of 1745, and tensions were still running high between clans which had supported the rebellion and the Campbells who had staunchly adhered to the Crown.
The search for the killer targeted the Clan Stewart. The chief suspect, Alan Breck Stewart having fled, James Stewart of the Glens, the tanist of the Stewarts, was arrested for the crime and tried for the murder, in a trial dominated by Campbells: the presiding judge was Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll and chief of the clan and the 15-man jury contained Campbell clansmen. The conviction and execution of James Stewart of the Glan is often characterized as a notorious miscarriage of justice.
The murder inspired events in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel Kidnapped
What," cried I, "were you in the English army?" "That was I," said Alan. "But I deserted to the right side at Prestonpans, and that's some comfort.—Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped
Callander and Oban Railway
Duror had a railway station that was part of the Callander and Oban Railway. It opened on 24 August 1903 and closed in 1966.
About the village
The principal industry is now tourism in Duror.
Close to the start of the small road which leads to Cuil bay from Duror Primary School, from the main A828 road, between Duror and the ancient township of Achara, opposite the primary school, within a field, is an ancient single standing stone that has been there for least 5,000 years. The stone is twelve feet high, and gave its name to the Achara.[15] The stone is impressively large when standing next to it.
Duror's physical geography is dictated by the Ballachulish Igneous Complex, which is one of the world's most comprehensively studied plutonic-metamorphic systems.[16]
The area of Duror is dominated by Beinn a' Bheithir, a northward opening, horse-shoe shaped mountain comprising two main peaks: Sgorr Dhearg, a Munro at 3,360 feet, and Sgorr Dhonuill at 3,284 feet, also classed as a Munro. The mountain is a mile northwest of Duror. At the base of the northward opening is the tiny village of Lettermore and Ballachulish is located on the north side of Beinn a' Bheithir. To the southeast, across the head of Gleann an Fhiodh, is the peak of Sgorr a' Choise at 2,159 feet. To the south, across Glen Duror, is the peak of Fraochaidh at 2,884 feet, which is directly north of Duror.[13] To the east of Duror, on the Appin peninsula, the area is much flatter, with the shallow hills of Airds Hill and Beinn Donn being the tallest, at below 1,640 feet.
Glaciation has molded the area over the millennia. The hills and mountains contain arête ridges, cols, hanging valleys and truncated spurs. Glen Duror has a U-shaped valley.[13]
Outside links
References
- ↑ "Duror (Duror of Appin)". The Gazetteer for Scotland. http://www.scottish-places.info/towns/townfirst2192.html. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
- ↑ Ian Bradley (30 September 2015). Argyll: The Making of a Spiritual Landscape. Saint Andrew Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-86153-838-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=Ft6XCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA161. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
- ↑ History, Scottish; read, Archaeology 2 min. "Ballachulish figure" (in en). https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/ballachulish-figure/.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Hunter p. 197
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 James Hunter (30 September 2011). Culloden And The Last Clansman. Mainstream Publishing. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-78057-362-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=j-AOnlnWAP4C&pg=PT60.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Duror Parish Church". Scotlands Churches Trust. https://www.scotlandschurchestrust.org.uk/church/duror-parish-church. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Brian J ORR (2013). Children of the Fasti. Lulu.com. pp. 31–. ISBN 978-1-291-38929-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=opSNBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA31.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Barrett, Richard (3 February 2016). Cycling in the Hebrides. Cicerone Press Limited. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-78362-285-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=mt5_CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
- ↑ Christopher, John (15 April 2016). Thomas Telford Through Time. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-4456-5782-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=_0wdDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT52. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Stevenson, John (2 March 2012). Fulfilling a Vision: The Contribution of the Church of Scotland to School Education, 1772-1872. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-61097-344-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=dwlNAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57.
- ↑ "Roy Military Survey of Scotland, 1747-55". British Library. http://maps.nls.uk/geo/roy/#zoom=14&lat=56.6514&lon=-5.2847&layers=roy-highlands. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
- ↑ "Cuil, Appin". Historic Environment Scotland. http://scotlandsruralpast.org.uk/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=184. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Voll, Gerhard; Töpel, Jutta; Pattison, David R.M. (6 December 2012). Equilibrium and Kinetics in Contact Metamorphism: The Ballachulish Igneous Complex and Its Aureole. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 18. ISBN 978-3-642-76145-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=CvHvCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA18. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 James Hunter (30 September 2011). Culloden And The Last Clansman. Mainstream Publishing. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-78057-362-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=j-AOnlnWAP4C&pg=PT62. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- ↑ James Hunter (30 September 2011). Culloden And The Last Clansman. Mainstream Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-78057-362-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=j-AOnlnWAP4C&pg=PT9. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
- ↑ D R M, Pattison; B, Harte (2001). "Ballachulish Igneous Complex - setting and summary of geology". Earthwise. http://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Ballachulish_Igneous_Complex_-_setting_and_summary_of_geology. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
