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AUCHTAVAN.com - the new web site to provide information about the Ferm Toun project. Please take the time to interact with us and tell us what you think, what you would like to see, how you would like to be involved.
 
Welcome to AUCHTAVAN PDF Print E-mail
Written by JRS   
Tuesday, 02 December 2008
Image Auchtavan is a rare survival of a traditional Highland clachan or fermtoun. Small communities like these were homes to countless generations in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. Most of these settlements have disappeared and their houses and now only a scatter of stones in the countryside.Auchtavan is Gaelic for ‘the field of the two kids’. Traditionally, the rental paid for the land to the laird of Invercauld was two young goats.

Why here?

Auchtavan is located at the head of Glen Feardar (the ‘glen of high water’), some 450 metres above sea level and looking cross the River Dee to Lochnagar. The lands around the Dee are very fertile and good for agriculture. Even this high up on the mountainside the farmers could grow corn and raise livestock.

Who lived here?

People farmed here for at least two hundred years before the last occupant left in the mid-1900s. In 1861, William and Margory McHardy were living here with their seven children, a ploughman and two farm servants. Life at Auchtavan would never have been easy, and eventually everyone would have left to find jobs in the towns. Many people emigrated to find new opportunities in places like America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

 

Image The Horse Mill (In the centre of the painting)
You are standing in the horse mill. It was built in the mid-1800s to thresh the corn grown on the farm. It got its name from the horse which was used to power the machinery (you can see the horse walk outside the mill to the west). It is possible that after the grain was separated from the chaff, it was sent down to the mill at Ratlich to be ground into flour.
The Cottage (to the left of the Mill, with smoke from  the chimney)
The cottage to the north is older than the horse mill and has a number of rare architectural features. The roof was supported on large curved pieces of timber called crucks, and you can still see some of the original heather thatch under the corrugated iron. It also has one of the very few hinging lums left in Scotland. The chimney was not built into the wall, but instead was made out of wood and placed above the open fireplace.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 13 January 2009 )
 
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