Black Isle Road
Attribution: unknown or not recorded
Residential Homes of the Black isle Road
Much of the land from Tarradale Hotel, up Seaforth Road and East towards the Black isle was owned by Mrs Fraser of the Tarradale Hotel.
Below we record some of the older buildings and their earlier owner/tenants and some familiar names:
Caberfeidh - Inishbofin
This property was built between 1895 and 1905 and was the family home of the MacKenzie family.
William Mackenzie of Muir of Tarradale was married to Isabella Tolmie, Gilchrist, in 1865 and by the 1871 census, they were living on Whitewells Road, near Spittal wood, Killearnan. William was recorded as a Quarry contractor.
The 1885 valuation roll has William recorded as the tenant of the Tarradale Quarry and Quarry master on the 1891 census where the family were recorded as living at Hughston, next to the quarry.
Records also show that William’s name was also associated with the tenement building in the village that is now referred to as Mackenzie Building.
Attribution: not recorded or unknown
The Mackenzie Family
The family had moved into Caberfeidh by 1901 and William died in 1903, having been ill for some time.
The family remained at the property until around 1940. Isabella died in 1911 at Fife Lodge, Strathpeffer.
Fife lodge was the address of Misses Isabella and Margaret Mackenzie who were listed as owners of Caberfeidh, along with their brother Alexander.
Alexander remained at Caberfeidh until 1940.
The next family to take up residence at Cabefeidh were the Morrison family in 1940. Ian McLaren Morrison of Forfar married Helen Cameron of Dunellan, Muir of Ord in 1940.
The house is now named Inishbofin.
Carn a clarsair - Guisachen
Built by Mary Fraser of the Tarradale Hotel.
Mary was living here by 1901 with her daughter Mary.
The Muir of Ord/Tarradale map dated 1901 shows that Mary owned much of the land from the junction at the Tarradale Hotel, towards todays Highfield Circle and across to the Balvaird Road and Hawthorn Road and out towards the Braes of Tarradale.
The house is now known as Guisachen but may also have been known as Westmoreland.
Attribution: not recorded or unknown
Hawthornbank
This house was originally occupied by the MacLennan family.
Research continues to learn more about them, however we do think these are not the famous Maclennan Bone Setters.
In the 1930’s, a daughter, Annie had married an Andrew MacDonald who was recalled to have had a tailor’s shop in a shed on the property.
Attribution: not recorded or unknown
Sunnyside - Camperdown
It is not clear by the valuation roll when Sunnyside came into being.
It does not appear on the 1935 roll. However, by 1940 it was owned and occupied by a Mrs Dorothy Weir and her husband, Alexander Stewart Weir had died the previous year at the property.
Although her name was recorded as Dorothy, her name was actually Dolina Gillanders (Dolly), the daughter of a shepherd from Contin/Strathconon area.
On the 1891 census she was recorded as a housekeeper and was living with her sister and her family. There is nothing to indicate that she was their housekeeper, although they did have a servant.
Dolly’s husband was recorded as a grocer’s assistant on the 1891 census, and they were married in 1896.
By 1901 they had their own Grocer’s shop at Gilchrist Square, Dornoch.
Several of Dolly’s siblings appear to have emigrated to Australia and New Zealand, and in 1910 Dolly and Alexander appear to have done the same, returning around 1915. They settled at Brora, where they once again had a grocery shop and named their home ‘Sunnyside’.
The next we find the couple in Foyers in 1936, when they are placing their shop up for sale due to ill health.
They had been living in this area for around seven years.
It is highly likely this is when they moved to the property in Muir of Ord.
Alexander died at Sunnyside, Muir of Ord in 1939.
Dolly remained at Sunnyside and looked after her ailing sister, Emily, who died there in 1944.
Dolly died at County Hospital, Invergordon in 1963.
It is not known whether they had children or not or whether they kept ownership of the shop at Dornoch, however a year after Dolly’s death the licensed Grocers at Dornoch, named Weir & Company was up for sale, possibly as part of Dolly’s estate?
The Aird
The Aird was owned and occupied by the Rev Alexander Cameron who had retired from his ministry at Killearnan U.F. Church in 1933 after a tenure of almost 26 years. He arrived at Killearnan in 1909 and thus far it is not known where he had previously ministered but there was another Rev. Cameron at Avoch at the time (the two are not to be confused).
On his retiral, he was gifted with a walnut writing bureau and a well filled wallet. Hi sister, who also lived with him, was gifted with a leather travelling case. The siblings had a cousin, Donald Cameron, living in Inverness who was present at the retirement gathering and presentation. There may have been a connection with the West coast as the report of the presentation appeared in the Oban Times in 1933.
The Rev. Alexander Cameron died at Raigmore Hospital in 1957 in his 90th year, he was still living at The Aird at that time.
Georgia
Not much is known about this building . It is believed that an Andrew Gunn of Gairloch lived here in 1940.
His son John Gunn was an army career man and a newspaper report records him being left a sum of money from a former employer in Dingwall, where he had worked as a schoolboy.
Willan
Not much is known about this building . It is believed the first tenants were and Elizabeth Mann, named on the 1935 Valuation Roll.
If you can add anything to the story of this building then please get in touch.
N.B. There is a house, now named Beinn Dobhrain, between The Aird and Georgia. We are unsure whether this was once Willan or the house on the other side of Georgia, now named Wyvis House.
