Auchindrain en fete

If ever a day summed up a seismic change in the body and heart of a place it was today at Auchindrain, Scotland’s last preserved farm township – more properly, as the new civic signage at the gate proclaims, Achadh an Droighinn, the Field of the Thorn Tree.

This is going to sound as if the team at Auchindrain, under Development  Manager, Bob Clark, has succeeded in squaring the circle – but here today we all witnessed a preserved historic township, reverberant with its once-upon-a time communities, become a living community of a new kind and with a definite future.

The blades from Inveraray Shinty Club, with Euan MacMurdo, played the game as it used to be played – with variable rules and on a rough mown, hilly, lumpy,  ground still soggy underneath in Argyll’s gluey clay. One voice was heard to say early on: ‘Ah canny play on this’. But they could, they did and they had a queue of novices asking for (and getting) instruction.

All the buildings were hosting individual activities and visitors toured the lucky dip, finding all sorts of things going on everywhere. There is a template here which the Auchindrain team is keenly aware that it has created and it could serve specialist corporate occasions.

The second of a two-day, all-day programme called Heritage and Home Life-  in glorious weather, saw hundreds of people flock to the township throughout the day.

They got up close and personal with shinty, wood turning, willow basket weaving, spinning and rag rugging, storytelling, waulking the tweed, dry stone walling, piping, fiddling, singing – and followed the pied-piper that is Argyll’s Walking Theatre Company around the township enthralled and entertained by its dramatisation of the history of the place.

Suffice it to say that Belle Pol (or Dirty Belle), a cottar from Auchindrain and one of its enduring characters, not far from living memory in the latter life of the township, figured spectacularly and often.

Then came the lotting – the first traditional drawing of lots for the rigs of land to be held here since 1847. Councilor Alison Hay (above centre), Chair of the Board of Trustees of Auchindrain hosted the ceremony. It was conducted by His Grace, the 13th Duke of Argyll with the Provost of Argyll and Bute Council, Councillor William Petrie (above right), who chose to wear the historic Inveraray Chain for the occasion.

Representative children from the three local Primary Schools at Inveraray, Furnace and Minard came forwards to draw lots under the Duke’s guidance.

The rest of us could not hear the exchanges between them but the children, the Duke and Auchindrain’s Development Manager Bob Clark, seemed to be having some fun.

Three lots of land have already been prepared for the children, with each school now to work its plot and make it productive. This is being done under Crofting Connections, the education project begun by Cabinet Secretary for Education, Michael Russell MSP, when he was Environment Minister.

For the historical record in this revival of long lost tradition, Inveraray drew Lot 1, Furnace Lot 2 and Minard Lot 3.

While we absorbed the thought of what lies ahead for these young crofters, two children from Inveraray Primary School sang in Gaelic, their hauntingly lovely voices hanging in the suddenly silent air.

Auchindrain’s car park has been full to bonnet rubbing for two days. Today, cars also stretched down the side road to Brenchoillie – on the other side of the A83 -  for as far as the eye could see.

Duncan Crawford’s Highland cattle, from bs Brenchoillie farm – which he lends to graze in the township over the summer, were a major magnet, especially with their three-day old newest arrival. Now steady on her feet, today must have been something of a cultural shock with such swarms of people, but let it be said that within a short time she was ready for her close ups.

The townships own hens showed energy and valour of the most senseless kind on the shinty pitch, mixing it large with the braves of the celebrated Inveraray Shinty Club.

Every time the ball hit the ground, the hens would lift their heads from pecking for food and literally leg it to get into the action. And every time there was a clash of shintys or a shout of triumph or rage, off zoomed the hens at speed – into the thick of it. Talk about a suicide mission.

The theory is that they think the ball is an egg and that they interpret shouts as someone calling them for food – and they are totally food fixated. Me – I thin k they’re unlikely would-be warriors.

In the end, Brian Wilkinson, President of the Inveraray Shinty Club, had to play sheepdog and drive them away to prevent everyone in the area having a chicken supper tonight.

The Walking Theatre Company toured the township with their audience in tow, bringing it alive in a powerful understanding of the nature of the outdoor and interactive performance work they have made their own. Strong, compelling and direct in their engagement with their audiences, this is a company to see.

Argyll now has the Walking Theatre Company and Three Wee Crows in Taynuilt – both highly creative and both doing site-specific work, puling the nature and history of place into contemporary performance in which audiences are actively involved.

All day there were two big reference points of activity – the continuing work by the West of Scotland Dry Stone Walling Association in their rebuilding of the Munro Barn for Auchindrain; and the piping of young Mara Lyon (below) from Slockavullin. She played for the picnic area in the morning, for the wall builders all day and piped the Duke from the lotting ceremony. And she told us the name of our favourite piping tune – The Drunken Piper.

The siege machine you can see in the background of the photograph above is really a traditional three-legged shear – carrying a block and tackle to lift the huge corner stones into position.

A great curiosity in what is happening at Auchindrain these days is that its visual oddity – the timbered Colt House on the top of a low hill in the middle of the traditional stone longhouses – and a listed building in its own right (see our earlier story of the township) has become an integrated, active part of the new life of the  township and is no longer closed and shunned as the stranger nobody knew.

Today, as the rubbish was burned, with its smoke curling past the Colt House, everything in the township felt comfortably together, preparing for a new communal life not previously envisioned.

For the rest of this story, we’re carrying it by captioned photographs – otherwise we’d be finished in time for next year’s lotting.

The action begins with the arrival of the Inveraray shinty team. These guys don’t hang about and are pretty neat at finding a short cut.

Councilor Alison Hay, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Auchindrain, buys a book from the west of Scotland Dry Stone Walling Association. You heard it here first – the book she chose was on building a retaining wall – surely an indication of her intent in next year’s Scottish Election, when she will fight the Argyll and  Bute seat for the Liberal Democrats.

One of the Inverclyde Gaelic Waulkers, having checked out basket weaving, comes down the hill from the Cottar’s cottaget o see the spinners at the dairy.

One of the dry stone wallers is glimpsed inside the new lintel over the back door to the Munro Barn. The answer to why the back door is so low is that this was a threshing barn and the back door was less of a door than a hoover set on blow. Both doors were opened during threshing, the back door facing the direction of the prevailing wind. The threshed corn was thrown into the breeze blowing through the barn, the chaff blown straight our the main door opposite and the the wheat falling to the floor. Simple.

Visitors relax in the picnic area and enjoy the demonstration of woodturning from Sid Wright and Ian Glendinning of Scottish Green Woodworkers.

This us a close up of the pole lathe the woodworkers have  brought to Auchindrain. Missing is the un-car friendly 20 foot long pole that gives the lathe its name and normally runs back on a diagonal to stay the machine. The smooth finish of wood turned on this lathe has to be felt to be credited.

Touring the township before the lotting ceremony, the Duke of Argyll and the Provost of Argyll and Bute Council make their own contributions to the rebuilding of the Munro Barn.

The Walking Theatre Company’s Queen Victoria also tours the township during her visit to Auchindrain while weekending with the 9th Duke of Argyll at nearby Inveraray Castle in 1875.

tThe Queen (aka Sadie Dixon-Spain who leads The Walking Theatre Company) finds it all primitive but interesting – rather like looking at a sample of something odd in a petri dish.

The storyteller, Seoras MacPherson, finds a peaceful moment by the new back door at the Munro Barn. George began telling stories at the age of three but was not allowed to tell them publicly until he was ten years old. This was a form of cultural quality control. The family, steeped in the tradition, listened to him until they were happy that he was secure in his material. He must have been precociously able, saying modestly and only in response to a question,  that many were a lot older before they were freed to an external audience.

They start them young in Inveraray – and they’ve already marked out some new young talent for the future from those who learned to play with them today.

The bonfire attracts attention as it crackles into life.

Kathy Potter-Irwin, the basket weaver, gets some willow withys together to start a demonstration, She says that basket weaving was traditionally a craft of the travelling people and that not all landowners welcomed them. Those who did were immediately identifiable by the fact that they maintained willow coppices. So here is a new way of producing a social map of Scotland. Where were the willow coppices?

Local residents will be interested to know that the Argyll Estates come out of this scrutiny rather well, often asking the Williamsons – as recorded in Duncan Williamson’s book, The Horsieman – to come and coppice the willows to make some baskets.

Some of the West of Scotland Dry Stone Walling Association members take a photocall to mark the end of this stage of their project to rebuild the Munro barn for Auchindrain. They’ll be back.

These are days to share with the the best of friends.

And this had to be our sign-off for the story – one of Auchindrain’s hen still looking for a stooshie, hell-bent in high-tailing it back to the shinty pitch.

Photographs accompanying this article are copyrighted by Lynda Henderson to For Argyll. The exceptions here are the two photographs showing the Duke of Argyll and of the Provost of Argyll and Bute Council contributing to the the rebuilding of the Munro Barn. These are  by copyright holder, Rebecca Martin.