Norman Tulloch wrote: > > It would also be quite a trek for the people of North Sandwick to cut, > tend and fetch home peats from Harray. Presumably back in the time > before 1729 roads would barely exist, and I'd guess that there would be > little (if any) use of wheeled traffic, so the peats might be brought > home in pannier baskets on the backs of ponies? Maybe I'm wrong about > that, though. I mentioned 1729 because a letter of that date survives in which the Laird of Breckness wrote to Hay, Tacksman of the Earldom Estates, asking him to allow his tenants in Northside of Sandwick to cast their peats in Birsay and Harray (OA D13/6/4). I used "probably" as this is only an inference that they had already had these rights. Two other documents in the archives throw more light on these rights: the 1854 map for the division of Harray Commonty shows the strip of ground allocated to peat cutting by Sandwick folk was in the extreme north of the Harray hills, west fo the farm of Wilderness (D8/4/17(C)), while a 1850 document implies that at this time the right was in exchange for Harray folk to use the Cruaday quarry in N.Sandwick (D20/3/4). Maybe by this time Harray folk had recognised the old agreement (1690s sounds very plausible) was no longer a good deal and they managed to renegotiate it! Yes, the distances were great, but I gather in those days folk were accustomed to long walks. Peats were indeed carried on the back, or on horses - Orcadians took great pride in their horses. The earliest record of a cart in Orkney is 1719. James Irvine.

James Irvine wrote: > Norman Tulloch wrote: >> It would also be quite a trek for the people of North Sandwick to cut, >> tend and fetch home peats from Harray. Presumably back in the time >> before 1729 roads would barely exist, and I'd guess that there would be >> little (if any) use of wheeled traffic, so the peats might be brought >> home in pannier baskets on the backs of ponies? Maybe I'm wrong about >> that, though. > > I mentioned 1729 because a letter of that date survives in which the Laird > of Breckness wrote to Hay, Tacksman of the Earldom Estates, asking him to > allow his tenants in Northside of Sandwick to cast their peats in Birsay and > Harray (OA D13/6/4). I used "probably" as this is only an inference that > they had already had these rights. Two other documents in the archives > throw more light on these rights: the 1854 map for the division of Harray > Commonty shows the strip of ground allocated to peat cutting by Sandwick > folk was in the extreme north of the Harray hills, west fo the farm of > Wilderness (D8/4/17(C)), while a 1850 document implies that at this time the > right was in exchange for Harray folk to use the Cruaday quarry in > N.Sandwick (D20/3/4). Maybe by this time Harray folk had recognised the old > agreement (1690s sounds very plausible) was no longer a good deal and they > managed to renegotiate it! > > Yes, the distances were great, but I gather in those days folk were > accustomed to long walks. Peats were indeed carried on the back, or on > horses - Orcadians took great pride in their horses. The earliest record of > a cart in Orkney is 1719. > > James Irvine. Thank you, James. I'm often impressed by your remarkable knowledge of old Orkney documents, and I was sure that you would have had a definite reason for specifically mentioning a particular year! You refer to the division of the Harray Commonty. I understand that the common land of Orkney was generally divided in the 19th century, but does any common land still remain or was it all allocated to various proprietors? Norman Tulloch