The Upland
Attribution: unknown (Procession in High Street for Diamond Jubilee 1897)
The Upland
This area takes in Tain Hill (Hill of Tain), Edderton Hill, Beinn nan Gearran and Cnocan t-Sabhail, which seem collectively to have been known in earlier times as Ben Garrick, and an offshoot, Rose Hill. Springs and wells are fairly numerous and a few minor burns flow off its slopes, of which the Red Burn near Edderton, the Black Burn near Tarlogie, the Morangie Burn and the Allt Clachach above the Lairgs of Tain are the most notable. The Allt Clachach has cut a marked ravine into the southern edge of the upland. Some of the springs are weakly chalybeate (ie. impregnated with or containing salts of iron). One or two small lochs lie on the upper levels, the two main ones being Lochan Uaine in a dip between Tain Hill and Cnocan t-Sabhail (321 m high) and Loch Lapagial north east of this highest point
Lochan Uaine with slopes of Cnocan t-Sabhail in background
Attribution: unknown
This hill mass slopes relatively gently to the east and south east and here is occupied by farmland and the most recent expansion of the town on the lowest slopes. Some recent house building has also taken place just above the Carnegie Lodge Motel and beside Viewfield Farm. To the north west, west and south west the edge of the upland is much steeper especially near Redburn where the upland reaches nearly to the shore and it forms a “lofty precipice of immense masses of stratified stone piled one upon another in regular ascent” according to the Rev. Charles Calder Mackintosh in the New Statistical Account of Scotland. These slopes are mostly forested with only the exposed plateau like tops of Tain Hill and Cnocan t-Sabhail (covered in heather and peat bog) and parts of the middle to lower slopes of Edderton Hill (rough grazing) unplanted.. A peat bank is still being worked in an area just not far below Loch Lapagial on the north side.
The top of Tain Hill
Attribution: unknown
