Highland Archive Centre Update
Welcome to the Highland Archive Service Christmas newsletter, updating you on a very busy and rewarding few months for the service.
We are absolutely delighted to open this edition with the news that we have been named UK & Ireland ‘Recordkeeping Service of the Year 2024’ in the Archive and Records Association (ARA) Excellence Awards, receiving 63% of the public vote. The whole Highland Archive Service team take great pride in our work, and in the collections we care for and give access to, and we are very appreciative of the public support and professional recognition this award brings. In addition we were thrilled to win the first Highland Council/High Life Highland Partnership Award at the recent Highland Council Staff Recognition Awards. The Archive and Records Management team works very closely with the Council’s Health and Social Care Records Support team responding to requests from individuals who were formerly in care and who are seeking to find out information on their past. These requests have greatly increased in recent years with the advent of the Scottish Government’s Redress Scheme which offers redress payments to people abused in care in the past, and to some of their next of kin.
Education
Using our documents in educational settings is always a pleasure. In the last few months we have enjoyed helping Lochardil Primary School mark their 60th anniversary by giving tours and talks to multiple classes, and have shared our slavery-related materials with students from Inverness High School. We’ve welcomed students from further afield too, with a group visiting us from Argentina! Through the holidays we have thoroughly enjoyed partnering with High Life Highland countryside rangers, libraries, and active schools teams to share our collections in new and fun ways. We have continued to work closely with the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI), taking part in dissertation workshops and public history modules for students, and in September Community Engagement Officer, Lorna, was invited to be part of a panel discussion about using archives. This session was held at the University of Strathclyde and attended by students from across Scotland. Our partnership with Fife College and HMP Inverness continues to be incredibly rewarding and following our latest collaboration, looking at superstition, myth and folklore in the Highlands, prison learners have produced some fantastic artwork which we look forward to sharing with you in the new year. Our online series of talks, Learn With Lorna, designed to share stories from our collections with a wide audience, marked its 200th anniversary with a special Q&A episode in November. This, along with all previous episodes can be viewed here.
Group Visits, Talks, and Tours
As always, Lorna and Family Historian, Anne, have been busy giving talks and welcoming groups to the Highland Archive Centre for tours. Among those we have worked with in the last few months are Dingwall and Grantown U3As, the Clan Chisholm Society, the Captain’s Table, Inverness Macular Support Group, the Badenoch Heritage Festival, Rothiemurchus Sunshine Club, Glenurquhart Heritage Group, the Society of Australian Genealogists and many more! In addition we have enjoyed attending Highland games and clan gatherings, supporting the Northern Meeting Park redevelopment project, and taking part in national events such as Doors Open Days, the Jacobite Festival, and Silver Sunday. It’s been a whirlwind of events, some of which are pictured above and below.
If you’re a teacher or a member of a club or group and you would like to arrange a talk (in-person or online) or a visit please get in touch – we’d love to hear from you. And if you’d like to learn more about archives and family history then why not consider booking onto our upcoming classes?
Archives for Beginners Set – £44 (£36 with HLH membership)
Online (Wednesdays 2-4pm):
5th February: Crime Records
12th February: Poor Relief
19th February: Estate Papers
26th February: Family and Personal Papers
In-person (Fridays 10am-12pm):
31st January: Poor Relief Records
7th February: Crime Records
14th February: Estate Papers
21st February: Family and Personal Papers
Family History for Beginners Set – £44 (£36 with HLH membership)
In-person (Wednesdays 10am-12pm):
29th January: Introduction & Statutory Records
5th February: Census Records
12th February: Old Parish Records & Wills
19th February: ScotlandsPeople Network
Family History vouchers make wonderful presents and can be purchased by contacting us via the details below or by visiting our online shop. For more information, please contact us on [email protected] or [email protected].
Wishing all our users and supporters a peace-filled Christmas and a very happy New Year.
Am Baile – Highland History and Culture website
The latest organisation to partner with Am Baile is Dalwhinnie Community Council. In 2010, Dalwhinnie Past & Present, the community group which founded the Dalwhinnie Voices website, built up a wonderful collection of images and audio recordings about life in the village, its history, its inhabitants both past and present, as well as the spectacular surrounding area. This material is soon to be given a new home on Am Baile.
The name Dalwhinnie comes from the Gaelic, Dail Chuinnidh, meaning “Meeting Place”. The village grew up around an inn which was used by cattle drovers taking livestock to the market at Crieff. The Great North Road, the construction of which was overseen by General Wade in the late 1720s and early 1730s, ran through the middle of Dalwhinnie until the 1970s when the A9 was re-routed around the village. Dalwhinnie is situated between the north Loch Ericht and the southern end of Glen Truim, both of which feature in the photographs. At 350 metres above sea level, it is one of the highest villages in Scotland and the collection contains some spectacular wintry images featuring blizzards and heavy falls of snow.
Unsurprisingly, the Dalwhinnie Distillery, with its distinctive pagodas, features prominently in the collection. Established in 1897, the distillery uses the pure water from Lochan an Doire-Uaine to produce its distinctive and famous whiskies. The railway also featured heavily in the collection. Dalwhinnie Station opened as part of the Inverness & Perth Junction Railway in 1863. The station buildings, designed by Joseph Mitchell, opened a year later.
Shortly before the start of the Normandy campaign in 1944, General Bernard Montgomery paid a visit to Dalwhinnie with his son and spent a few days there. He wrote in his diary, “I left the Home Fleet [at Scapa Flow] on 9th May, and then had four days holiday in Scotland. I garaged my special trin (“Rapier”) at Dalwhinnie and walked on the mountains and fished. I had begun to feel the need of a rest, and it did me good.” The collection includes a few photographs of his visit.
The collections feature many photographs of people, past or present, who’ve lived in or have connections with Dalwhinnie (such as the image below). There are images of local wildlife including mountain hares, osprey, red deer, grouse and ptarmigan. The recordings feature local residents talking and reminiscing about different aspects of life in the area. Topics include the history and development of Dalwhinnie; working life on a Highland estate through interviews with a factor, a gamekeeper and an estate manager; working at the distillery and what it’s like to grow up there as a child.
Work on ingesting the images and metadata into Am Baile’s database is almost complete so keep an eye on the social media channels for an announcement that the content is live on the website.
The Am Baile website can be found here.
Conservation
It’s been a very busy few months for our conservation team both at home and overseas! After getting married in the summer Senior Conservator, Richard, spent part of his honeymoon visiting the conservation department of the National Archives of Mauritius. He was given a tour and thoroughly enjoyed sharing knowledge with, and learning from, the team led by Mrs Razeeah Dookhan, Head of Conservation (pictured below alongside other members of her department and Richard).
To enable the National Archives of Mauritius conservation department to carry out current techniques, training is given by colleagues from China. One of these techniques is the use of a leaf caster, which the archive had made bespoke at some expense. There is no air conditioning in the archive, except in one strong room, which is where the documents are housed and stored once they have been conserved. Previous documents conserved and used for exhibition include the Act of Capitulation, Oath of Allegiance Part 1 & 2, and the Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies. Richard was fascinated by his visit and very appreciative of the warm welcome he received – a busman’s honeymoon indeed!
Back in the studio in Inverness our conservation team have been busy with a range of work for both High Life Highland and external clients.
Argyll Estates were awarded a grant from National Manuscripts Conservation Trust (NMCT) to carry out the conservation of Tiree Estate Crop and Tiree Rental volumes, which were in very bad condition with extensive damp/mould damage and boards severely damaged or missing. The volumes required a phytate wash to help support and alkalise the iron gall ink as well as the paper. A phytate treatment involves washing the document in a bath of tap water 20mins; a 50/50 IMS and water bath for 20 minutes; a Phytate bath for 20 minutes, during which the solution was checked for ions; a tap water bath for 20 minutes; and finally, a calcium bicarbonate bath for 20 minutes. Once drip-dried, the document was sized with 2% gelatine size, and dried between Bondina and blotting paper under weights. Areas of loss were infilled using 40gsm Japanese paper and fragile areas and tears reinforced using 5gsm Japanese tissue. The volumes have been repaired, sewn on a sewing frame by hand and rebound in calf leather with green cloth sides. The process, and result, can be seen in the images below.
At the end of 2023 the High Life Highland Conservation Service was approached by the chair of the North of Scotland Archaeological Society (NOSAS) regarding a Tarradale plan that had been located in Bristol. The plan was transported to our studio for an assessment and the proposed conservation was awarded a GlenWyvis Goodwill Fund award later in 2024. The old linen lining was removed along with all self-adhesive repair tapes and the plan relined onto Japanese lining paper. Tears were supported using wheat starch paste and Tengucho Japanese repair tissue (see below for before and after).
The repaired plan was then stored an archival polyester roll, gifted by NOSAS and stored with the NOSAS collection already housed in the Highland Archive & Registration Centre’s secure environmentally controlled repository.
A very rewarding and productive few months for conservation!
For more information about our conservation work please visit https://www.highlifehighland.com/archives-service/conservation/
Contact The Highland Archive Centre
Postal Address: The Highland Archive Centre, Bught Road, Inverness, IV3 5SS
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01349 781 130
Facebook: @highlandarchives
Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archive Update
It’s been a busy few months for the team at Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives and we hope you enjoy reading about some of our recent activities below!
Following the Fish project – research and call for records:
For over 100 years the Herring Girls were the backbone of the UK’s fishing industry. Now funding has been secured for a joint project to be run by High Life Highland’s Archive Service in partnership with Suffolk Archives, the Norfolk Record Office, and Tasglann nan Eilean (the Hebridean Archives) to capture their stories
The Caithness Archive team have been delighted to hear from many locals after putting out a call for memories, stories and records relating to the herring gutters, their work, and life experiences. In the photograph below (fourth from right) is Agnes Murray (later Grant), one of the many fascinating women we’ve had the pleasure of learning more about.
Agnes, a herring gutter from Ness, Lewis, left home for her first herring season in 1927, aged 16. She later married a Wick man (Harry) in Lowestoft (1936) where they both regularly travelled ‘following the fish’. A huge thank you to Agnes’ daughter Margaret and son Henry for sharing their memories, photographs and oral history recording, they will all be invaluable in capturing these stories for posterity. If you have anything you’d like to contribute to this project please don’t hesitate to contact us – we’d love to hear from you.
Exhibitions
Thurso Camera Club
The Thurso Camera Club Exhibition, curated in the Community Room at Nucleus, was launched on 17th June and ran throughout the summer months. The exhibition displayed a fantastic selection of the club’s photographs across more than 60 physical prints, alongside digital displays. Feedback was amazing and future exhibitions with the club are planned.
Yarrows Heritage Trust
Nucleus was delighted to host an exhibition by Yarrows Heritage Trust from 18th October until 1st November. A launch event was held on 18th October in the Community Room and included a talk from ORCA Archaeological Project Officer Rick Barton of UHI. The exhibition explored digs at the Swartigill Iron Age site and Thurster Vernacular building near Sarclet.
Visions of Value
Nucleus hosted another exhibition by Westlakes Research Limited, ‘Visions of Value: a photographic exploration of the public sphere in Caithness and Sutherland from 1st-29th November. The exhibition focused upon the scope and substance of public value through photography. Physical prints and digital photo-reels explored the public sphere and our relationship with it; highlighting the places and spaces we live in and in which public value is created. The launch event on 5th November also featured a talk by Dr Rick Wylie, one of the leads from the project.
Talks
The team have also been busy delivering talks and spreading the word about Nucleus and the work we do. Archive Assistant Valerie visited the Caithness Macular Society Support Group and the Dunbeath and District Centre (pictured below) to give insight into the history and purpose of the Nucleus building, as well as the eclectic collections held by the Caithness Archives. Valerie also delivered an online talk to the Highland Senior Citizens Network as well as a session on Property Records as part of the Highland Archive Service ‘Archives for Beginners’ classes.
Care Home Visits
As part of a reminiscence programme offered to local care home facilities, Caithness Archive staff, in collaboration with Wick Voices, have been visiting Laurandy Day Care Centre, Riverside Nursing Home, Pulteney House Care Home and Seaview House Care Home in Wick. Recent sessions have focused on Christmas, food, and transport, with residents able to engage with reproductions of historical records, photographs and newspapers, as well as oral history recordings. Laurandy Day Care Centre also visited Nucleus and it was wonderful to listen to visitors reminisce over historic photographs and newspapers in the searchroom.
Dounreay Reminiscence Group:
The Dounreay Reminiscence Group is back for the 2024/2025 winter season!
Sessions are running once a month from November to March. This year there will be talks from current employees at Dounreay giving updates about some of the ongoing work on site. We’ll also be continuing our displays of photographs from the NDA archive as well. And as always, there will be a chance to catch up over tea, coffee and biscuits. If you are interested in attending look out for events posted on our Facebook page or get in touch with us at [email protected] to join our mailing list.
Vulcan Social Club visit:
Vulcan Social Club (pictured below) returned to Nucleus for a repeat visit on the evening of Wed 30th October. A bespoke selection of archives were put on display in the searchroom, alongside a chance to explore the Yarrows Heritage Trust exhibition in the Community Room.
If you are part of a group or organisation that would like to organise a visit to Nucleus, please get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!
Archive Afternoons:
Join the archive team at Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives every Wednesday to explore the past, reminisce with friends and enjoy a cuppa and a biscuit. Each week archives from our collections will be on display in the public searchroom. Everyone is invited to come and explore. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available at the front of the building, alongside displays of digitised videos and photographs showing Caithness in the past. Sessions run every Wednesday from 1pm-4pm. No need to book, everyone welcome!
Engage with us online
Our online exhibitions, including ‘Atomic Housing: Thurso Transformed’, ‘Atomic Recreation’, and ‘WK: History of a harbour’ can be found on our website along with all previous editions of our blog, ‘Stories From The Archive’, which take an in-depth look at our collections. Please do have a look and please follow us on Facebook to see a wealth of material from Caithness’ history!
Contact Nucleus
Nucleus is home to the archives of the UK civil nuclear industry and the historical archives of the county of Caithness. Please get in touch with us at:
Postal Address: Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archive, Airport Industrial Estate, Wick Airport, Wick, KW1 4QS
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01955 602 444
Facebook: @nucleuscaithnessarchive
Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre Update
Autumn remained an enjoyable and busy few months for Skye & Lochalsh Archive Centre as we moved into winter. The weather has often been pretty bleak but storms, rain, and snow mean that the Cuillins have been looking spectacular covered in snow.
Angus Og and the Environment
Angus Og made a special guest appearance at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery this autumn as part of the Highland & Islands Climate Festival. The exhibition (pictured above) explored Ewen Bain’s relationship with environmental concerns, digging into how comics intersect with environmental issues and political inaction on climate change. Displaying Angus Og stories relating to the environment not only showcased how well-informed and forward-thinking their creator was, with some topics covered that were not regularly part of the mainstream narrative at the time, but also demonstrated the enduring topicality of many of the issues explored across the cartoon series. The exhibition was launched with a community workshop where we enjoyed seeing the work of some future cartoonists from the Inverness area and wrapped up with an evening of Angus Og discussion and entertainment from playwright Alan Bissett, Archivist Catherine MacPhee and Archive Project Officer Katharine MacFarlane. A huge thank you to the team at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery for hosting Angus Og and the team from the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre and to the people of Inverness who so warmly shared their memories of Angus Og and hopes for the future of the cartoon. Further information can be found at www.highlifehighland.com/skye-and-Lochalsh-archive-centre/angus-og/
New Exhibition
Thank you to everyone who attended the opening, and visited the Seinn Spioradail: Sacred Soundscapes of the Highlands and Islands exhibition over the past few months (opening pictured below). It was a pleasure to share this material with you.
We are now busy planning our next exhibition which will open in early 2025. Iomain: An-dè, An-diugh agus A-màireach / Shinty; Past, Present and Future is a photography project capturing the faces of past, present, and future players of Skye Camanachd club. Isabelle Law, the artist behind the project, is a final-year photography student from Kylerhea whose focus is photographing different aspects of life in local communities to shed light on the way of life on our Island. Her work on this project can be seen at https://www.isabellelawskye.com/project-iomain. Shinty is a huge part of our Highland identity and something many people are involved in as players, spectators, or helpers. We’re really looking forward to sharing these images with our visitors in 2025.
As usual, we’ve been out and about giving talks and sharing our collections at village halls, schools, and local shows. The School of Plural Futures came to see us and Catherine took a trip to the Community Archives Conference at University College London to share ‘community-based cultural initiatives.’ In early October we went for a wander out in some rather dreich weather to Glendale and North Talisker, sharing stories of land resistance and the Land Settlement Act to explore past and present questions around land justice in North Skye for an event hosted by The Scottish Crofting Federation and Landworkers’ Alliance and Highlands & Islands Climate Hub.
It’s been a busy few months and we’re looking forward to a wee break over the festive period and then returning in the new year to welcome people back in.
Contact Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre
Postal Address: Elgin Hostel, Viewfield Road, Portree, IV51 9HA
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01478 614078
Facebook: @skyearchives
Lochaber Archive Centre Update
So far, the colder weather has not dissuaded people from popping into the Lochaber Archive Centre. Rather, we have enjoyed a steady stream of visitors, both first time and regulars, to keep us busy as we approach Christmas. These have been most welcome – not least to keep Archivist Rory company in the searchroom as the afternoons grow darker!
We have also been busy connecting with large and diverse groups of people at events and talks including the Arisaig Games and the Clan Cameron Gathering. In September Rory and Lorna welcomed a group of students and lecturers from Scotland and Canada to Lochaber Archive Centre as part of the project ‘One People, Two Islands: The historic entanglement of the islands of Eigg, Scotland, and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 1790-1830’. The group (pictured below), who were on their way to the Isle of Eigg, spent several hours delving into our collections, looking at documents, photographs and books relating to the Small Isles.
In October Lochaber Archive Centre and Am Baile joined the Annat Gathering, an event organised by Kilmallie Local History Group, to reconnect former inhabitants of Annat Village and to celebrate their past. The event was held at Caol Community Centre at which folk with connections to Annat shared memories and photographs. With the help of Am Baile, the Lochaber Archive Centre facilitated the creation of an Annat Gathering digital photograph collection, which continues to grow as more people share their photographs. An photo of the event can be seen below, along with one of the images gathered on the day (“Children in Annat village, late-1940s, courtesy of Bobby Mather”).
In November we delivered an online talk for the Friends of the Argyll Papers about Argyll-related material held at the Lochaber Archive Centre and the ways in which this archive material can be used in family history research. The audience was an international one and the talk was well attended and well received. In the following week Rory delivered another online talk – part of the Highland Archive Service’s ‘Archives For Beginners’ classes – on the topic of Education Records. We’re looking forward to taking part in the next run of online classes in the new year (details in the Highland Archive Centre section above).
Until we see you again, wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Contact Lochaber Archive Centre
Postal Address: Alexander Ross House, Achintore Road, Fort William, Inverness-shire, PH33 6RQ
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01397 707050
Facebook: @LochaberArchiveCentre
Your donation can make a difference
Did you know that by making a donation you can play a part in helping the Highland Archive Service preserve, conserve and make accessible over 700 years of Highland history?
High Life Highland is a charity and we rely on your donations now more than ever. You can make a donation to any one of our archive centres or Am Baile and help us to continue our work as well as delivering extra services such as the events, talks and exhibitions you have been reading about in this newsletter.
To make a donation please click on this link, select your archive centre, and select your donation amount. All contributions are very gratefully received.
Thank you
Join Highlife
A highlife membership offers you and your family access to a range of health and fitness opportunities in leisure centres throughout the Highlands. In addition to swimming pools and gyms, your membership allows access to court activities, swimming lessons and a huge range of group exercise classes for people of all abilities and interests. Your membership also secures access to great range of local benefits as well as accessing libraries and other facilities.
For more information, or to join, please visit https://www.highlifehighland.com/join-high-life-highland/
