The Clachan, Bettyhill

The Clachan, Bettyhill

ID: QZP40_CARD_1835 DESCRIPTION: A postcard showing the Clachan at Bettyhill. A Clachan is a commonly used term that usually refers to land with the following characteristics: 1. Small settlement of clustered houses. 2. No church, and usually, no shop or school. 3. Usually, considerable ties of kinship between the families in the clachan. 4. The land around the clachan was held under a system of land tenure often referred to as the Rundale System - whereby farmers within the clachan had scattered plots of good, medium and poorer quality land. 5. The better land was usually found close to the cluster of houses and was known as the infield - poorer quality land was found in what was often referred to as the outfield, since it was further away from the cluster. 6. Parts of the land were held 'in common' e.g. the land around the houses and the mountain land. 7. The mountain land was allocated in soums - e.g. one soum entitled a farmer to graze a cow or so many sheep. The number of soums that a farmer held was related to how much land he held in the infield/outfield area. Bettyhill is a fairly recent creation. The original village in the area was Farr, now a crofting settlement lying a mile east of Bettyhill beyond the sands of Farr Bay. What changed things was the coming of the Highland Clearances. The River Naver flows into the sea here from Strathnaver. Invernaver and Torisdale Bay to the west of Bettyhill comprise an important nature reserve. Between the mouths of the Rivers Borgie and Naver on the west side of Bettyhill is one of the most important botanical sites in Scotland The Invernaver National Nature Reserve, designated in 1960 but is now an SSSI. Sutherland is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic administrative county of Scotland. It is now within the Highland local government area. PLACENAME: Bettyhill DISTRICT: Tongue and Farr OLD COUNTY/PARISH: SUTHERLAND: Farr SOURCE: Highland Libraries COLLECTION: Highland Libraries' Postcard Collection Asset ID: 33756 KEYWORDS: