View allAll Photos Tagged Forfeitures
...HFF!!
I feel like I need to apologize to people here in Flickr. Unbeknownst to me, a social medial group, which I'm a member of, sent out invitations to several of my contacts here in Flickr. The group is called Linkedin. Please just block any communication from them. Thanks.
The old court house in San Marcos, Texas. Just underwent a remodel a few years back. The old court house cleaned up pretty well..;) It was built in 1908. I'm pretty sure it's not used as a courthouse anymore.
More info:
When Hays County originated in 1848, its one public building was a log church-schoolhouse that had to serve as the courthouse, along with its other uses.
Although the San Marcos townsite, platted in 1851, contained a court square donated to the county, the forfeiture of a $2,000.00 criminal bond later gave the county funds for building, and in 1861 officials employed contractor C. F. Millett to erect on the Square a 36 x 40-foot, 2-story frame courthouse with a hearing room, jury rooms, and 4 offices. That pine building burned in 1868, and county officials operated from rented quarters until a courthouse of soft, locally quarried limestone was completed in 1871. Damaged by earth shiftings, that 2-story, 45 x 53-foot building was razed (1881) and replaced by a 50 x 60-foot, 2-story building of harder limestone designed by F. E. Ruffini, architect for University of Texas buildings and for courthouses in several other counties. After that 1882-83 structure lost its top story in a fire on Feb. 28, 1908, it also was razed.
The fourth and present courthouse, in eclectic style, was designed by C. H. Page & Brother, of Austin. Completed and accepted by the county court on Dec. 13, 1909, it has had interior alterations; it was restored in 1972.
1974
The first Nunnington Hall was mentioned in the thirteenth century and the site has had many different owners. They include William Parr, Dr Robert Huicke, Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston, the Rutson family and the Fife family. The present building is a combination of seventeenth and eighteenth century work. Most of the building seen today was created during the 1680s, when Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston, was its owner. It was William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton, brother of queen consort Catherine Parr, who built the oldest parts of the surviving house of Nunnington, which now form part of the west front. Following the forfeiture of the estate after his death in 1571 (for his part in setting Lady Jane Grey on the throne), Nunnington was again subject to let. One of the tenants was Dr Robert Huicke, who was physician to both Catherine Parr and Elizabeth I. Dr Huicke was to be the one to tell the Queen that she would never have children.
Dunbar Castle was one of the strongest fortresses in Scotland, situated in a prominent position overlooking the harbour of the town of Dunbar, in East Lothian. Several fortifications were built successively on the site, near the English-Scottish border. The last was slighted in 1567; it is a ruin today.
The Castle remained the stronghold of the Earls of Dunbar until the forfeiture of George, Earl of March, in 1457, when the Castle was dismantled to prevent its occupation by the English. It was restored by James IV later in the century. In April 1497 the "Hannis tower" was roofed and the master mason Walter Merlioun was completeing the gatehouse or "fore work". In 1501 new iron window grills or yetts were provided. The castle came under the control of the Duke of Albany and it was during this period that the bulwark to the west was built. It may have been designed by Antoine d'Arces, Sieur de la Bastie who was placed in charge of the castle in December 1514. Albany organised further repairs and amendments in July 1527.
An Italian drawing for a fortification of this period by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, marked as an opinion for "il Duca D'Albania," has been associated with Dunbar. An article by the historian Bryony Coombs further explores the activities of the Duke of Albany and his architectural and artistic connections that informed the design of the blockhouse and situates the building in a European context, and highlights the resemblance of the drawing to the Fort de Salses as built for Ferdinand II of Aragon. James V came to the castle frequently in the summer of 1537 after the death of his first wife, Madeleine of Valois, and oversaw the arrangement of his artillery.
© 2015 by Wil Wardle.
Do not use this or any of my images without my permission.
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Guess who has been digging in the yard? This guy!
(For our non-US friends: The Fifth Amendment protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves. To "plead the Fifth" is to refuse to answer a question because the response could provide self-incriminating evidence of an illegal conduct punished by fines, penalties or forfeiture.)
---//INCOMING MESSAGE: PRIORITY 1//---
:
We've received multiple reports of rampaging mechsuits in the port district, likely perpetrated by local gangs. The port police are not equipped to handle mechs, and the Armored Response Unit is currently tied up suppressing riots in District 23. Your mission: locate and eliminate any gang-affiliated mechsuits. Lethal force authorized. Standard bounty payment rate applies, excessive collateral damage to infrastructure will result in forfeiture of "clean kill" bonuses. Immediate response requested.
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The final group shot! I hadn't originally planned to build as much scenery as I did, but I think it really enhances the mechs to see them in the "natural" environment.
The Magenta Mavericks are:
Artemis (Sniper)
Athena (Fast Attack)
Minerva (Hack+Slash)
Eris (Heavy Artillery)
Just a random shot as I was in lower Manhattan as I was taking care of some business. Though the name of the tower is a joke in the era of the Patriot Act, NSA domestic spying and the National Defense Authorization Act especially the infamous section 1021 which suspends your right to Habeas Corpus or the horrid abuse of civil forfeiture laws which essentially allows police to seize (Steal) money from someone on the most vague superstition of criminal intention.
www.youtube.com/watchv=w8scZhdZbF4&feature=share
Hughenden Manor, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, England, is a Victorian mansion, with earlier origins, that served as the country house of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. It sits on the brow of the hill to the west of the main A4128 road that links Hughenden to High Wycombe.
History
The manor of Hughenden is first recorded in 1086, as part of Queen Edith's lands, and held by William, son of Oger the Bishop of Bayeux, and was assessed for tax at 10 hides. After his forfeiture, the lands were held by the Crown, until King Henry I of England gave the lands to his chamberlain and treasurer, Geoffrey de Clinton.[1] Clinton, whose main home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the lands tenanted by Geoffrey de Sancto Roerio, who resultantly changed his surname to the Anglicised Hughenden.[1] After passing through that family, with successive Kings having to confirm the gift of the lands, the manor returned to the Crown in the 14th century.[1] In 1539, the Crown granted the manor and lands to Sir Robert Dormer, and it passed through his family until 1737 when it was sold by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield to Charles Savage.[1]
After passing through his extended family following a series of deaths and resultant devises by will, by 1816 the manor and lands were owned by John Norris, a distinguished antiquary and scholar.[1] Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868 and 1874–1880, and Earl of Beaconsfield 1876), had for some time rented the nearby Bradenham Manor and, following Norris's death in 1845, bought the manor and lands from his executors in 1847.[1] The purchase was supported with the help of a loan of £25,000 (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) from Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield. This was because at the time, as Disraeli was the leader of the Conservative Party, "it was essential to represent a county," and county members had to be landowners.[2] Taking ownership of the manor on the death of his father in 1848, Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, alternated between Hughenden and several homes in London. Wikipedia
Estate history[edit]
The original Hall formed part of a Saxon estate owned by Wulfric Spott, who died in 1002 and left the estate to Burton-on-Trent Abbey. In the Domesday Book the estate was owned by Roger de Poitou. In 1225 the Lordship of Sutton-in-the-Dale had been given by King Henry III to Peter de Hareston, but by 1401 it had been purchased by John Leke of Gotham.[2]
A later John Leke was made a knight by King Henry VIII. His son Francis Leke was created a Baronet by King James I in 1611, and elevated to Earl of Scarsdale by King Charles I in 1640. When the English Civil War broke out, Leke joined the Cavaliers and the Hall's structure was strengthened, particularly so with Bolsover Castle on the opposite hillside swearing loyalty to the Roundheads. When a Parliamentarian force of 500 men led by Sir John Gell surrounded the estate, Leke resisted until the house was stormed and he was taken prisoner. With the estate seized by Oliver Cromwell's forces, after the end of the war a forfeiture fine of £18,000 was levied and paid for Leke's support of the imprisoned King Charles.[2]
House history[edit]
The existing structure is believed to be the fourth or fifth built on the site. In 1724, Nicholas Leke, 4th Earl of Scarsdale commissioned the building of a design by architect Francis Smith, to develop a Georgian mansion with gardens, using parts of the existing structure.[2]
On a scale and quality with Chatsworth House, internally it featured both oak ornamental panels and stucco plasterwork by Italian craftsmen Francesco Vassalli and the brothers Giuseppe and Adalberto Artari;[3] carved Adamesque fireplaces in both marble and Blue John, and a carved mahogany staircase.[4]
Following the death of the 4th Earl, Member of Parliament Godfrey Clarke purchased the estate in 1740. Some time after his son's death in 1774, Walter Butler, 1st Marquess of Ormonde gained ownership by marriage, and after his death in 1824, Richard Arkwright Junior of Cromford Mill fame, became the owner.[4] William Arkwright of Sutton Scarsdale was High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1890.
01 April 2018
Its into the 9th year since I shot this and the situation in the DTES has only deteriorated. Governments have worsened the situation by piling more social housing in the area adding to the “customers with no cash” syndrome. The area is named “Canada’s poorest postal code” by activists and the poverty pimps love the situation making the area one of “Canada’s richest postal codes”, the only differenence being the pimp money goes home at night. Helpful groups support too many by offering them food daily with zero obligation. Its become an impossible sitiuation to address given the current state of political governance.
I wish this was just a sick April Fools Day joke but unfortuantely not.
Sleeping on a sidewalk in the Downtown East Side (DTES) of Vancouver BC takes on a different sense of survival than is observed in many west side sleepers. A combination of mental issues, drug sale and use, area resident poverty and the resulting community of "Customers With No Cash" combine for a perfect locale to take advantage of people on the edge where living is not comparable to what most of us bring to mind in our own comfortable world. Prostitution and drugs are a large part of this community. One can not help feel sorry and remorseful this exists in self important Vancouver.
The irony of this photo is it was shot about 10 feet from the entrance of BC Housing's recently opened Orange Hall office (open 10 am to 4 pm Monday to Friday) 297 Hastings Street at Gore Ave. This situation has steadily gone downhill since the Federal Governemt cut back funding for social housing.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH:
From BC Housing website:
October 3rd, 2014
VICTORIA – The B.C. government is strengthening the non-profit housing sector by transferring provincially-owned properties to non-profit housing providers.
The Province owns approximately 350 parcels of land throughout British Columbia that are currently leased long-term to non-profit housing providers who own and operate social housing buildings on these properties.
The non-profit housing sector has been asking for this step for many years. Having ownership of the land will improve a non-profit’s ability to support better long-term planning and selfsufficiency. Owning the lands they operate on will also help non-profits secure the financing they need to be sustainable.
In order to transfer title, the Province will end these leases, and then transfer ownership of the land to the societies. The properties will be transferred at fair market value. The Province will assist the societies to secure mortgages on the properties. The current operating agreement that BC Housing has with each non-profit society will remain in place. Approximately 115 properties will be transferred by March 31, 2015, and the rest will be transferred over the next three years.
In addition, the Province is looking to transfer ownership of two properties currently managed by BC Housing to non-profit societies. The Province will begin the process by posting Expressions of Interest for Nicholson Tower and Stamps Place in Vancouver shortly.
Tenants will not be impacted by these transfers, and the amount of affordable housing stock will remain stable. Non-profit societies have been providing social housing in B.C. for more than 60 years. Today more than 90% of social housing is managed by non-profit societies.
THE GLOBE & MAIL:
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 13 2014
Vancouver won’t solve street homelessness until both the city and province focus on targeting the limited supply of expensive social housing to those who need it most, say experts.
That means help can’t go to anyone who passes through a shelter or an outdoor camp or even to someone who sleeps outside temporarily. In the vast majority of cases, people who become homeless experience it briefly and are able to avoid losing housing again.
But people working on eliminating homelessness do not always understand that the thousands of people who experience homelessness in a year don’t all need expensive subsidized housing. That should be reserved for the chronically homeless, who are not sufficiently helped by temporary assistance with rent or other social supports.
“For nearly 90 per cent of people counted as homeless, they’ll get themselves out of homelessness on their own,” says Tim Richter, who led Calgary’s 10-year plan to end homelessness and is now the president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. “It’s critical to set priorities. It shouldn’t be first-come, first-served.”
One of the region’s most experienced homelessness researchers, former Vancouver city-hall staffer Judy Graves, said the city is reaping the results of city and provincial staff not always setting the right priorities for the past six years. This past winter, Vancouver still had a count of 533 people sleeping outside (less than in 2008, but more than in 2011), even though the province and city have opened up thousands of new social-housing units rented at welfare-level rates.
It’s an issue that is returning to haunt Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who promised in 2008 to end street homelessness by 2015, during this fall’s civic-election campaign.
His administration, which has pushed the issue non-stop since he was first elected, has recently exceeded previous efforts by jumping last month into paying for all the costs of converting a downtown Quality Inn to transitional housing, as well as all the costs of a new shelter nearby. Usually the province covers the majority of costs for both of those kinds of housing.
But Ms. Graves said even that unusual effort, accompanied by several hundred other new provincial units about to open, isn’t going to solve the problem by January, 2015.
That’s because the province is only committed to using half of the incoming housing units for the chronically homeless. And city staff also don’t always correctly identify who is the most in need.
“Both the city and province have bought into housing by wait lists,” said Ms. Graves. “It just can’t work. You have to work as though you’re in a disaster zone.”
She said she had doubts that the majority of people who camped in Oppenheimer Park over the summer were homeless, but they got priority for the scarce number of rooms available.
As well, in the early stages of the province’s big social-housing construction push, which will see 14 towers completed with around 1,400 units by the end, non-profit operators were simply moving people from residential hotel rooms into the new buildings.
That meant the housing didn’t go to the chronically homeless and the most in need, but worse, it then allowed landlords in the residential hotels to do renovations, raise rents, or refuse new low-income tenants once the former tenants were relocated to social housing.
That then reduced the overall number of private, low-cost housing units in the city. Ms. Graves said the whole region is experiencing an acute shortage of those kinds of private units now. It has become a game of musical chairs for housing-outreach workers to get a low-cost unit for someone trying to get out of shelters or off the street, she said.
All cities are grappling with constant pressures that create more homelessness at the front end: low working-class incomes that can’t keep up with gentrification and rising rents key among them, said Ms. Graves. That has left cities trying to solve the problem at the back end, trying to house all the people made homeless as a result of many larger forces.
24 HRS VANCOUVER - 16 OCT 14
16 Oct 2014 24 Hours VancouverJANE DEACON Comment at vancouver.24hrs.c
Laura Dilley, PACE Society Action Week, PACE plans to draft housing recommendations for city council before the coming election.
“Oftentimes we will create housing models not including the voices of those we would be housing,” said Dilley.
Rising rent prices that force people out of SROs is a significant factor, as well as landlords who refuse to rent to sex workers out of legal concerns, said Dilley. Low- income housing conditions that require tenants stay in at night or guests to sign in are also significant barriers. She estimates between 10 to 15% of sex workers fall under the category of “survival” or street- based prostitution. For that vulnerable population, simply switching professions is often not an option, said Dilley.
“They’re really forced and entrenched to continuously do that work because they have no options out of it, because we have such stigma in our society that they can’t seek help, they can’t find affordable housing, so they’re really stuck in that situation,” she said.
17 April 2019:
B.C. drug users demand clean supply, but fear they won’t live to see it happen
By David P. BallStar Vancouver
Tues., April 16, 2019
VANCOUVER—Several hundred Vancouverites marked three years since the province declared a public health emergency over the thousands of people killed by overdoses.
But as they marched Tuesday from the safe-injection clinic Insite through downtown Vancouver, advocates say “contaminated” drugs have taken a toll on their own leaders.
For B.C. Association of People on Methadone member Garth Mullins, the losses are mounting, and it’s been destabilizing and “disorganizing” for the drug-reform movement.
“We’ve lost rank and file members and leaders in such high numbers over the last five years,” he said, wearing a distinctive black case of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone on his belt. “It’s hard to organize or think strategically when you’re always doing triage, planning a memorial.”
Just last month the president of his organization, Chereece Keewatin, died from a fentanyl overdose. Mullins knew Keewatin for at least six years, and invited her to join the editorial board of the podcast Crackdown, of which he is executive producer.
“Chereece was really little, but she had this tremendous capacity to lift people’s spirits,” he said in an interview. “You’d have meetings where we talk about really, really bleak subjects, but she had these funny asides to cut through the bleakness.
“She made people laugh. In that way, she took responsibility for the whole collective emotional state of the group.”
It’s not just the B.C. Association of People on Methadone that’s seen the direct “casualties” of what Mullins called “a war.” The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the national Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs have also lost high-ranking board members in recent years.
Since 2016, nearly 11,000 people have died across Canada from opioid overdoses, according to the most recent federal and provincial data. The majority of those deaths were from opioids such as fentanyl or its more deadly variants, but B.C. remains the epicentre for roughly a third of those deaths, 1,500 of them last year alone.
On average, four British Columbians died every day from overdoses last year, much higher than the national average and largely unchanged since the province’s April 2016 declaration of a public health emergency.
11 May 2020
.
A wall mural in the DTES poses a valid question, "how do we end the drug crisis"? A more basic question, how did we get here?
Vancouver, B.C. is consistently ranked at the top of the list for the world’s most liveable cities - but not for many in the DTES.
The city has a dirty little secret that it has been trying to suppress for decades. The historic four-block area near East Hastings and Main Street — the DTES — known as one of the “poorest postal codes” in Canada, has a combination of drug use, HIV, homelessness, prostitution, mental illness, and crime all making up this poor off neighbourhood.
To be successful as a drug lord you need a steady, reliable, cheap supply of product, a location where you can operate relatively free from prosecution and away you go. The prime location ingredients Vancouver offers is the DTES.
Over the decades continuing city administrations have built a community of “customers with no cash” by loading the DTES with blocks of not for profit social housing. Along with the myriad of Single Room Occupancy hotels (SRO's) the area is prime territory for the drug trade.
Social housing should be spread throughout the city to provide a society of different financial means for common support - IMO.
Administrations over the years have been loath to attempt social housing in the rich city enclaves due to onerous push back. It was and still is more expedient to keep adding more social housing in the DTES where there is minimal opposition.
***** Today there are at least 6 City of Vancouver development permit applications on file for more social housing in the DTES.
The process is welcomed by the myriad of DTES support service groups who like their clientele close at hand and the clientele are fine with it as services are nearby.
DTES government and service support groups along with poverty pimp lawyers who have a hissy fit if anyone tries to change the dial, while also making money off the situation, has resulted in the perfect condition for drug dealers to flourish.
Social housing residents, many older, Asian and often mentally challenged are living in a hell hole neighbourhood with little individual voice.
In recent years, the area is seeing an east creeping gentrification. This is causing the DTES street population to be squeezed into a smaller footprint resulting in more confrontation and the appearance of a worsening situation even though overall the numbers of street people remains fairly constant.
The amount of taxpayer dollars spent in the area is staggering with little to show for the investment.
Vancouver has always had a drug problem. The opioids of choice — and the increasingly staggering death toll — have changed over the years.
In 2017 Fentanyl killed so many Canadians it caused the average life expectancy in B.C. to drop for the first time in decades. But for crime kingpins, it became a source of such astonishing wealth it disrupted the Vancouver-area real estate market.
SOME BACKGROUND:
Excerpt from the Province Newspaper by reporter Randy Shore 18 March, 2017.
When members of the Royal Commission to Investigate Chinese and Japanese Immigration came to Vancouver in 1901, they got an eyeful.
“There were whole rooms of Chinese lying stretched out on beds with the opium apparatus laid out before them — all unmindful that their attitudes and surrounding conditions are being taken note of to assist in keeping the remainder of their countrymen entirely out of Canada,” reported the Vancouver World newspaper.
The fringes of Vancouver’s Chinatown have always been the centre of Canada’s opiate trade. Ever more potent and easily smuggled versions emerged through the decades, culminating in the scourge of synthetic opiates — fentanyl and carfentanil — thousands of times more powerful and many times more deadly than opium.
Opium was a source of revenue for governments of the day. A federal duty imposed on importers fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars between 1874 and 1899. In B.C. ports, and cities charged hundreds of dollars to purveyors in the form of business licences.
Between 1923 and 1932, more than 700 Chinese men were deported for drug-related violations.
Under constant pressure from the police, opium users began to inject their hit, as the technique created no smoke or aroma and used smaller equipment, which could be easily hidden. In the 1920s and 1930s, white users tended to be young criminals, “racetrack hands, and circus and show people” who smoked opium or sniffed heroin.
By the mid-1930s, heroin was one of the most common drugs in circulation and white users were increasingly taking the drug intravenously, especially as prices rose due to scarcity brought about by vigorous law enforcement.
The outbreak of the Second World War put opiate addicts into a state of crisis, as opiate drugs were required in great quantities for the war wounded. The street price of a hit — whether heroin, morphine or codeine — shot up and crime along with it.
In the post-war period, right through to the mid-’60s, Vancouver was ground zero for Canada’s intravenous drug scene, made up mainly of petty criminals, troubled youths fed by drug lords.
Before the ’40s were over, highly refined white heroin had appeared and it was coming from overseas to satisfy a hungry market in Vancouver, home to half of the country’s drug users.
Heroin use remained a constant undercurrent in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside during the ’70s and ’80s, even as alcohol was the neighbourhood’s real drug of choice.
But a flood of a new and even more potent “China White” heroin arriving into the city reignited public outrage in the early ’90s. A spate of 331 overdose deaths in 1993 spurred B.C. coroner Vince Cain to call for the decriminalization of heroin and addicts be prescribed the drug to legally maintain their habit.
It would be nearly 15 years before the Study to Assess Long-term Opioid Maintenance Effectiveness (SALOME) began in Vancouver, just about the time a new threat emerged.
Up to 80 times as powerful as heroin, fentanyl hit the streets and reduced the risk for traffickers as it was so concentrated, transportation was easier.
The carnage wrought by fentanyl has been without precedent.
Heroin seized in drug busts is routinely cut with fentanyl and in recent months the presence of carfentanil.
SUMMARY:
Where will this go next, who knows ?
The richest of societies should be especially judged by how they treat their least fortunate, and Vancouver has its challenge set out for the foreseeable future.
UPDATE 23 MAY 2020 - VANCOUVER SUN
John Mackie: The Downtown Eastside is a war zone disaster — stop ghettoizing it.
John Mackie, Vancouver Sun 23 May 2020
Twenty years ago local musician Kuba Oms was recording at the Miller Block, a now defunct Hastings Street recording studio near Save-On-Meats.
He jaywalked and was stopped by a cop, who handed him a ticket.
“I said ‘Are you kidding me?’” Oms recounts. “You know there’s a guy shooting up over there, and a crack dealer over there. And the cop said ‘That’s a health issue.’”
That story pretty much sums up the city’s attitude toward the Downtown Eastside over the past few decades.
In some ways the cop was right — it is a Vancouver health issue. But letting people openly do drugs in public and turn Hastings and the wider Downtown Eastside into a ghetto is political correctness gone mad.
Drive down Hastings Street between Abbott and Gore and you’ll see dozens, even hundreds of people hanging out on the street, in various states of sobriety. They are definitely not social distancing. It’s a miracle that COVID-19 hasn’t swept the entire area.
The height of this madness was the recent occupation of Oppenheimer Park. Vancouver has real issues of homelessness, but to some degree Oppenheimer was about a fringe group of politicos manipulating the homeless.
Many police resources were diverted to the park and there was a crime wave in nearby Chinatown — one business closed because they were being robbed a dozen times a day.
The province recently made hotel rooms available for the homeless people occupying Oppenheimer Park, so things have calmed down somewhat. But the big question is what happens in a few months? Is government going to find permanent homes for them?
Odds are if they do, it will be in highrises in the Downtown Eastside. For decades that’s where the city and province have been concentrating social housing, especially for the mentally ill and drug addicted.
Their argument is these residents feel comfortable there. But the reality is the more poverty is concentrated, the worse the area seems to become.
Maybe it’s time for the city of Vancouver to give its head a shake and realize that its much-ballyhooed Downtown Eastside Plan is actually part of the problem, not the solution.
Part of the plan decrees you can’t build condos on Hastings between Carrall Street in Gastown and Heatley Avenue in Strathcona, or in historic Japantown around Oppenheimer Park.
Development in those areas has to be rental only, with at least 60 per cent social housing. This pretty much ensures that no market housing is built in the poorest area of the city.
When the plan was unveiled in 2014, Vancouver’s former head planner Brian Jackson said the aim was to ensure that low-income people in the Downtown Eastside weren’t displaced.
“The plan is attempting to achieve balance,” he explained then.
In fact, the plan does the exact opposite. There is no balance in the Downtown Eastside: It’s been turned into a ghetto. A friend who’s worked there for two decades calls it a war zone.
The city desperately need some market housing, co-ops and development on Hastings and around Oppenheimer. The anti-poverty activists will scream blue murder that it’s gentrification, but it’s actually normalization. You don’t have to displace anybody, you just have add a different mix to make it safer.
I live in Strathcona, where about 6,500 people live in social housing and about 3,500 in market homes. It’s a close-knit neighbourhood that has the balance Brian Jackson was taking about — it’s diverse and features a variety of incomes.
Japantown and the Downtown Eastside could be a real neighbourhood again if the city retained its stock of handsome historic buildings but allowed some development of its many non-descript structures.
It could be like Strathcona, even the West End. But I fear it could get even worse, if the planners and politicians continue to concentrate all the Lower Mainland’s poverty and social ills in one small area.
jmackie@postmedia.com
John Mackie is a veteran Postmedia reporter who has written several stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Plan.
13 JULY, 2020
Vancouver can’t catch up to its housing crisis
ADRIENNE TANNER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED 13 JULY 2020
It is obvious now the cheers that erupted when Vancouver’s longest running tent city was dismantled were wildly premature. Fearing a COVID-19 outbreak would take hold in the overcrowded inner-city camp, the provincial government in April acquired emergency housing in hotels for homeless people living there and cleared the site.
Many camp residents embraced the offer of a clean room. Some refused and relocated outdoors. The camp shifted, first to some empty Port of Vancouver land, and when a court order quickly shut it down, finally landed in Strathcona Park. With each move, it grew.
Today there are about 150 tents Strathcona Park, roughly double the number there were in Oppenheimer Park. How many inhabitants are truly homeless is anyone’s guess. Some of the tents were erected by activists with homes. Others belong to people living in single room occupancy hotels, the worst of which are noisy, bug-infested and so hot that some residents prefer to spend summer outside.
There is already an air of permanence to the camp; the city has installed porta-potties, fresh drinking water and handwashing stations. Park rangers drop by a few times daily. The area is reasonably clean, but these are early days.
Strathcona residents are largely sympathetic to homeless people, but are understandably unhappy about losing a large chunk of park space. They fear the same violence and social disorder that cropped up at Oppenheimer is inevitable; there has already been a small fire and there appears to be a bike chop shop on site. There are cries for the city to sanction a permanent tent city location – elsewhere, of course.
So how exactly did the province’s efforts to shut down a tent city and house homeless people backfire so badly? The city and provincial officials have been out-manoeuvered and out-organized by anti-poverty activists who seized a COVID-19 opportunity when they saw it.
The pandemic raised fears the Oppenheimer tent city would turn into a reservoir of disease that could overwhelm the health system. The activists know that’s why the government cleared the camp and purchased hotels for social housing. They understand this is the moment to highlight society’s failure to solve homelessness, even if their end goals seem to differ. Some are calling for permanent housing – others prefer the idea of a permanent, free-wheeling tent city.
The sorry truth is, even with the addition of 600 units of temporary modular housing and, more recently, the purchase of three downtown hotels, there are still more homeless people than homes. Successions of governments at all levels have allowed this crisis to grow. They’ve failed to build enough social housing. Failed to provide adequate mental health services. Failed to fund enough drug rehabilitation programs for those who want to quit and provide a safe drug supply for those who can’t.
So, now here we are with the largest homeless camp the city has ever seen and another stressed-out neighbourhood. Legally, the new tent city may prove more difficult to dismantle – it’s a large park and the tents are well spaced so the pandemic may not wash as a valid reason. And unless housing is available for everyone who is homeless, it is unlikely the courts would grant an injunction.
Solving problems associated with homelessness is a huge challenge. We can start with housing, but that alone is not nearly enough. Many of the people living in the hotels and park are drug users. Many are mentally ill. Some are both. It takes money – and lots of it – to provide decent housing and supports for this segment of society.
But to cave to demands for a permanent tent city is an American-style admission of defeat. The park board seems resigned to tent cities in parks and is considering a bylaw seeking to control locations. City council has resisted sanctioning a permanent spot, instead offering up land for new social housing. The province has stepped up with money for temporary modular housing and purchases of hotels.
It will be tough to keep neighbourhoods onside if more parks are rendered unusable for recreation. There is only one palatable solution; the provincial government must stay the course and keep adding decent, affordable housing. It won’t be cheap or easy. Catchup never is.
01 APRIL 2022
More than 2,200 British Columbians lost to illicit drugs in 2021
The toxic illicit drug supply claimed the lives of at least 2,224 British Columbians in 2021, according to preliminary data released by the BC Coroners Service.
“Over the past seven years, our province has experienced a devastating loss of life due to a toxic illicit drug supply,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner. “This public health emergency has impacted families and communities across the province and shows no sign of abating. In 2021 alone, more than 2,200 families experienced the devastating loss of a loved one. In the past seven years, the rate of death due to illicit drug toxicity in our province has risen more than 400%. Drug toxicity is now second only to cancers in B.C. for potential years of life lost. We cannot simply hope that things will improve. It is long past time to end the chaos and devastation in our communities resulting from the flourishing illicit drug market, and to ensure, on an urgent basis, access across the province to a safe, reliable regulated drug supply.”
The last two months of 2021 saw the largest number of suspected illicit drug deaths ever recorded in the province, with 210 deaths in November and an additional 215 in December. The 2,224 total number of deaths is 26% more than the 1,767 illicit drug-related deaths investigated by the BC Coroners Service in 2020, and equates to an average of 6.1 lives lost every day.
The provincewide death rate in 2021 was 42.8 per 100,000 residents. Every health authority in B.C. experienced a record loss of lives.
Since the public health emergency into substance-related harms was first declared in April 2016, more than 8,800 British Columbians have been lost to toxic drugs.
Toxicological testing once again underscores the reality that the illicit drug supply continues to be unstable and increasingly toxic. Fentanyl was detected in 83% of samples tested in 2021. Carfentanil was present in 187 results, almost triple the number recorded in 2020 (66).
Additionally, 50% of samples in December tested positive for etizolam, more than three times the rate of detection in July 2020 (15%). Benzodiazepines create significant challenges for life-saving efforts as naloxone does not reverse its effects. As with previous reporting, almost all test results included the presence of multiple substances.
“We need decision-makers at all levels to recognize and respond to this public health emergency with the level of urgency it demands,” Lapointe said. “The reality is this: every day we wait to act, six more people will die. COVID-19 has shown what is possible when goverments act decisively to save lives. And in order to save lives in this public-heath emergency, we need to provide people with access to the substances they need, where and when they need them. Time has run out for research and discussion. It is time to take action.”
Additional key preliminary findings are below. Data is subject to change as additional toxicology results are received:
In 2021, 71% of those who died as a result of suspected drug toxicity were between 30 to 59, and 78% were male.
The townships that experienced the highest number of illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2021 were Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest numbers of illicit drug toxicity deaths were in the Fraser and Vancouver Coastal health authorities (765 and 615 deaths, respectively), making up 62% of all such deaths during this period.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver Coastal Health (49 deaths per 100,000 individuals) and Northern Health (48 per 100,000).
By Health Service Delivery Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver, Thompson Cariboo, Northwest, Northern Interior and Fraser East.
By Local Health Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Upper Skeena, Merritt, Enderby, Lillooet and North Thompson.
Quotes:
Dr. Nel Wieman, deputy chief medical officer, First Nations Health Authority –
“The number of deaths due to toxic drug poisonings for 2021 translates to devastating losses of First Nations people: daughters and sons, aunties and uncles, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers. These are people who loved and were loved. In every year since this public health emergency was declared, B.C. First Nations people have been over-represented in toxic drug-poisoning events and deaths. We must change our understanding of the root causes of substance use and addiction, and work together to address the stigmas surrounding toxic drug use and the people who use drugs. We must continue to invest in Indigenous-specific, culturally safe harm-reduction, treatment and recovery services that are accessible, timely and free from discrimination and racism.”
Guy Felicella, peer clinical adviser, Vancouver Coastal Health –
“I join the thousands of British Columbians who are heartbroken, frustrated and angry over this unfathomable loss. Every one of these deaths was preventable and represents a failure to act, a failure to learn from mistakes. Change nothing and nothing changes. That’s been the story now for years as the approach throughout this crisis has been to meet policies where they’re at, rather than meeting people who use drugs where they’re at. This approach is killing and continues to kill people. Who has the courage to step forward and make this stop?”
AUGUST 2023
Today’s release of the report on drug toxicity deaths for the month of July 2023 by the BC Coroners Service is a stark reminder that the ongoing toxic-drug crisis continues to have a devastating impact on communities across our province. We hold in our hearts the memories of the 198 people lost in July in British Columbia.
The coroners service said the 1,455 deaths from January to July are the most ever reported in the first seven months of the year since a public health emergency over drug poisoning deaths in the province was declared in 2016.
It puts the province on pace to potentially exceed the 2,383 deaths recorded in 2022. A total of 12,739 people in the province have died from drug overdoses in the seven years.
30 NOVEMBER, 2023
At least 2,039 British Columbians have died from toxic drugs so far this year, according to preliminary figures released by the B.C. Coroners Service on Thursday, 29 November, 2023.
Of those, 189 people died in October, which is about 6.1 deaths a day. Most of the dead were between 30 and 59 years of age, and more than three-quarters were men, according to the coroner.
While the largest number of deaths reported so far has been in urban centres, such as Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria, the health authority with the highest rate of death in 2023 is Northern Health, with 61 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to the coroner.
As in previous months, fentanyl was found in most — 85 per cent — of the illicit drugs tested, often combined with other opioids or stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
Earlier this month, Interior Health issued a drug advisory warning for people who use drugs that some substances being advertised as hydromorphone on the black market contain isotonitazine, a drug the coroner says is as potent as fentanyl.
Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural disease combined, the coroner said.
Since a public health emergency was declared in 2016, more than 13,000 people have died.
JANUARY 2024:
Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, has released the following statement regarding the BC Coroners Service year-end report on illicit drug toxicity deaths:
“Today, as we reflect on the year behind us, our hearts are heavy with the loss of 2,511 people in British Columbia to toxic drugs. Each of these lives was precious and important, each with their own story, their own dreams and people who love them. They were part of our community, and their loss is felt deeply by us all.
So what is the game plane to stop it?
C. seeks to keep cash seized from Downtown Eastside gang
Courtesy Kim Bolan and the Vancouver Sun.
Kim Bolan is an experienced and award-winning journalist who has covered gangs in British Columbia for the past 40 years. Bolan also investigated the Air India bombing for 25 years until the publication in 2005 of her book, Loss of Faith.
The B.C. government has filed a lawsuit against a group of alleged Downtown Eastside drug traffickers, seeking the forfeiture of more than $150,000 seized from them.
The lawsuit, filed this week by the director of civil forfeiture, names four defendants that it alleges are part of a criminal organization investigated by the Vancouver Police Department.
While the group is not named in the statement of claim, details of the VPD probe outlined in the court document match an investigation into Zone 43 — a gang that originated in Montreal but has taken over the Downtown Eastside in recent years. Zone 43 has connections to B.C.’s notorious Wolfpack gang alliance.
In June, the VPD announced arrests of several Zone 43 gangsters, though they were released pending approval of charges.
The VPD said it had seized firearms, 24 kilos of drugs and $150,000 in cash during searches on May 14 in Vancouver and Burnaby.
The civil forfeiture lawsuit refers to three VPD searches done on the same date in the same cities and alleges Shayne Cozier-Flanagan, Evantee Jevontee Eustace Stoney, Tristin Johnson and Raimon Geday were “participating in the activities of a criminal organization.”
When police searched Stoney’s apartment on the 30th floor at 2388 Madison Ave. in Burnaby, they found $143,910.75 in Canadian currency and $607 in U.S. currency, the lawsuit said.
Officers seized another $5,800 at Cozier-Flanagan’s suite, also on the 30th floor, at 5665 Boundary Rd. in Vancouver, it said.
About $3,417 was seized from Johnson, who also lives in the Madison apartment, when he was arrested in the 300-block of East Hastings. Another $1,920 was found in Geday’s room in a supportive housing building on Kaslo Street, the lawsuit said.
The VPD also seized a 2017 Acura RDX, of which Stoney is the registered owner and which was used “to facilitate the trafficking of controlled substances,” the civil forfeiture director alleged.
The statement of claim notes that both Stoney and Geday have previous trafficking convictions and are banned from possessing firearms.
All four men named in the lawsuit “trafficked in controlled substances in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the surrounding areas,” the lawsuit alleges.
In the Boundary apartment, police also found a money counter and business cards with the number to call to purchase drugs — known as a ‘dialer’ number.
In the Madison suite, the VPD also found dilaudid pills, oxycodone pills and “score sheets” documenting drug sales, collection and debts.
In Geday’s room, police found crack cocaine, powdered cocaine, crystal methamphetamine and another 275 dilaudid pills, as well as score sheets, bear spray and “miscellaneous drug packaging materials.”
The cash and car should be forfeited to the government because they are proceeds of or were used for unlawful activity, the lawsuit alleged.
The crimes committed include possession for the purpose of trafficking and trafficking, committing offences for the benefit of a criminal organization, conspiracy, money laundering and failure to declare taxable income, it alleged
No statements of defence have yet been filed on behalf of the four men.
Vancouver Police Insp. Phil Heard said at the June news conference that Zone 43 gangsters “pose a very significant risk to the public. They’re involved in a well-documented conflict ongoing in the province of Quebec with a rival group.”
Sources say the gang is still selling drugs in the Downtown Eastside.
AUGUST 2025:
The law protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair
Pete McMartin: I'm tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse.
Published Aug 03, 2025
In 2014, Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert and I wrote a weeklong series of stories identifying the government social welfare programs — and their cost to taxpayers — in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Over 100 programs existed just for housing. Thirty provided health care, 30 offered family services and a miscellany of another 100 services — including a food bank for pets — brought the total to 260 social welfare agencies operating solely within the eight square blocks of the DTES.
Those 260 programs served just 6,500 clients.
Five years earlier, in 2009, Province reporter David Carrigg also did a survey of the programs available in the DTES, and he identified 174 social welfare agencies offering services to about 5,000 clients.
In other words, in the five years between Carrigg’s survey and Culbert’s and mine, not only had the number of people needing help grown but so had the number of agencies serving them.
And the cost to taxpayers?
Over $360 million annually.
That astounding figure — almost a million dollars a day — did little to satisfy the DTES’s voracious appetite for tax dollars. More to the point, it did nothing to eradicate the misery and living conditions of the people who lived there.
Rather than winning the war on poverty — and what a quaint phrase that seems now — governments engineered a truce, with the unstated understanding that if they couldn’t solve the problem or spend their way out of it, they could contain it. Those 260 social service bureaucracies weren’t solutions to an intractable problem; they were barricades. They ghettoized their impoverished clientele by concentrating the services on which they depended.
And let’s be honest: The public was complicit in this, and content for it to continue as long as the misery stayed confined within the borders of the DTES.
And yet here we are. The squalor spreads. It corrodes a once-vibrant downtown core. It infiltrates the suburbs. Daily acts of random violence and vandalism have become normalized, while a cornucopia of drugs — some decriminalized, some tolerated, many deadly — act as accelerants.
In 2016, a year after our survey, provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall declared a public health emergency under the Public Health Act due to the alarming rise in opioid-related overdose deaths. Since then, over 16,000 people have died from those opioids. That’s not progress. It’s a plague.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, has worked. Over the decades, the problem has been studied to death — admittedly, a poor choice of words — with consultants and academics and the legions of poverty industry advocates offering up solutions that ultimately fail. They fail because they’re predicated on two simple criteria:
1. Give us more money.
2. Give us more of everything — housing, hospital beds, food banks, drugs, injection sites, counselling or — and this is always implicit — empathy, with a side order of collective guilt.
I’ve seen this in my own newspaper.
In one recent opinion piece, the author laments that it has been the public’s and governments’ norm “to daily bypass our downtrodden, our homeless, our addicted or mentally ill on the street as though they are either invisible or merely equivalent to lampposts” — to which I have to reply: ‘Are you f—ng kidding me?’
The public and its governments have done exactly the opposite and, short of bathing their feet with Christ-like piety, have directed billions of tax dollars not only to ease the suffering of the homeless, the addicted and the mentally ill, but also to make them completely dependent upon those dollars.
Another Sun story — this one again by Culbert — examined the merits of involuntary care through the experiences of three addicts who underwent the process, and while two saw it as beneficial and helped them get clean, the third condemned it as “dehumanizing” and a cause of her PTSD. Though she no longer does drugs, she said that if she relapses she would prefer to take her chances with street drugs that could possibly kill her rather than be readmitted to hospital against her will.
Well, OK, I thought, ‘You’re an adult. Good for you for having the honesty to express that choice, however idiotic I may find it.’
But what I thought was missing in her testimonial was (a) any appreciation of the monumentally expensive efforts governments and the public had tried to make on her behalf, however ill-informed she may have believed those attempts to be, and (b) her failure to recognize the destructive effects that a relapse would have not just on her own health and family, but, more importantly, also on the collective health of the public, who would be asked to offer up yet more money, and deal yet again with her relapse — providing she survives it.
Finally, in The Sun, there was another column, this one by Sam Sullivan, who wrote that, after 52 years, it was time to end the DTES “experiment” and the restrictive housing policies that he believes led to the homelessness and violence bedevilling it.
Funny thing about that.
Between 1993 and 2005, Sullivan was a Vancouver city councillor, and for three years after that, he was mayor. Yet despite the fact that his 15-year tenure at city hall placed him in the midst of that DTES experiment, if not close to its helm, it is only now, 20 years later, that he publicly declares the experiment to be a failure, and — as far as I could tell from reading his opinion piece — without taking any responsibility for it.
I will refrain here, in my own column, from claiming to speak for the public or with any inkling of what popular sentiment might be.
But this is how I feel:
My patience is Exhausted.
I’m tired of the endless, self-regenerating calls for more studies and more funding when all I see is a colossal waste of money and effort leading to no improvement. I’m tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse. I’m tired of civil rights that supersede my own, and treat the right to defecate in the streets with greater regard than my right to be offended by it.
Finally, I’m tired of a social welfare system that not only encourages dependency, but refuses, out of moral timidity, to also admit its complicity in it, and which shies away from asking hard questions about personal responsibility and the consideration of measures more draconian than safe injection sites — measures like a return to complete drug criminalization, a higher threshold of minimum sentences for trafficking, the establishment of rehabilitation centres or work camps exclusively in wilderness areas far from the temptations of cities, the discontinuation of any efforts that facilitate drug use, and yes, the robust expansion of an involuntary care system.
It’s also my opinion that none of these measures, given the current legal climate, will become reality, at least for the foreseeable future. Under our Constitution and the Criminal Code, the law, in its majestic equality, protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair, and, as so often happens, bring about their own deaths.
How enlightened we have become! What progress we have made! We’ve reached that point when now sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing one’s daily bread are no longer evidence of a system’s failure.
They are the system.
Hughenden Manor, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, England, is a Victorian mansion, with earlier origins, that served as the country house of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. It sits on the brow of the hill to the west of the main A4128 road that links Hughenden to High Wycombe.
History
The manor of Hughenden is first recorded in 1086, as part of Queen Edith's lands, and held by William, son of Oger the Bishop of Bayeux, and was assessed for tax at 10 hides. After his forfeiture, the lands were held by the Crown, until King Henry I of England gave the lands to his chamberlain and treasurer, Geoffrey de Clinton.[1] Clinton, whose main home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the lands tenanted by Geoffrey de Sancto Roerio, who resultantly changed his surname to the Anglicised Hughenden.[1] After passing through that family, with successive Kings having to confirm the gift of the lands, the manor returned to the Crown in the 14th century.[1] In 1539, the Crown granted the manor and lands to Sir Robert Dormer, and it passed through his family until 1737 when it was sold by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield to Charles Savage.[1]
After passing through his extended family following a series of deaths and resultant devises by will, by 1816 the manor and lands were owned by John Norris, a distinguished antiquary and scholar.[1] Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868 and 1874–1880, and Earl of Beaconsfield 1876), had for some time rented the nearby Bradenham Manor and, following Norris's death in 1845, bought the manor and lands from his executors in 1847.[1] The purchase was supported with the help of a loan of £25,000 (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) from Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield. This was because at the time, as Disraeli was the leader of the Conservative Party, "it was essential to represent a county," and county members had to be landowners.[2] Taking ownership of the manor on the death of his father in 1848, Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, alternated between Hughenden and several homes in London. Wikipedia
Hot Cross Buns
A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins and marked with a cross on the top, traditionally eaten on Good Friday.
In many historically Christian countries, plain buns made without dairy products (forbidden in Lent until Palm Sunday) are traditionally eaten hot or toasted during Lent, beginning with the evening of Shrove Tuesday (the evening before Ash Wednesday) to midday Good Friday.
The ancient Greeks may have marked cakes with a cross.
In the time of Elizabeth I of England (1592), the London Clerk of Markets issued a decree forbidding the sale of hot cross buns and other spiced breads except at burials, on Good Friday, or at Christmas. The punishment for transgressing the decree was forfeiture of all the forbidden product to the poor. As a result of this decree, hot cross buns at the time were primarily made in home kitchens. Further attempts to suppress the sale of these items took place during the reign of James I of England/James VI of Scotland (1603–1625).
Harsh Inquisitor.
(Linoleum Cut).
Серьезные внимательные мировые соображения несезонные суждения Доводы, вызванные коррупцией,
Kommunizierende Gefahr gleichgültige Unvollkommenheiten anspruchsvolle Unvollkommenheiten Streit unehrenhafte Aufträge abergläubisch predigen Kontroversen Kirchen,
Reclamações contrárias queixas acusações acusações falando heresias erros exames reunidos inquisições punir santos,
Consapevolezza frecce forti pregiudizi toccare captious forfeitures condannati particolari disturbi falsi profani termini impropri,
Αντίθετοι λόγοι άδικοι ουίσκοι στρεβλώνουν τις αρχές παράλογες αντιλήψεις που συνιστούν διαφορές σκοτάδι δύναμη κακό κλίσεις παραπάτημα ερωτήσεις παγίδες,
mentibus adaequatio intellectus animalis deflectable voluntate humana ius legum ferendarum, contemplatio vera conjuncta coniunctionibus malis praecepta contemplators,
投機的な良心は嘘をついている汚い判断を詮索する理論的な助言演技の行為理由を調べる秘密は証人の偽りを燃やす.
Steve.D.Hammond.
Hughenden Manor, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, England, is a Victorian mansion, with earlier origins, that served as the country house of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. It sits on the brow of the hill to the west of the main A4128 road that links Hughenden to High Wycombe.
History
The manor of Hughenden is first recorded in 1086, as part of Queen Edith's lands, and held by William, son of Oger the Bishop of Bayeux, and was assessed for tax at 10 hides. After his forfeiture, the lands were held by the Crown, until King Henry I of England gave the lands to his chamberlain and treasurer, Geoffrey de Clinton.[1] Clinton, whose main home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the lands tenanted by Geoffrey de Sancto Roerio, who resultantly changed his surname to the Anglicised Hughenden.[1] After passing through that family, with successive Kings having to confirm the gift of the lands, the manor returned to the Crown in the 14th century.[1] In 1539, the Crown granted the manor and lands to Sir Robert Dormer, and it passed through his family until 1737 when it was sold by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield to Charles Savage.[1]
After passing through his extended family following a series of deaths and resultant devises by will, by 1816 the manor and lands were owned by John Norris, a distinguished antiquary and scholar.[1] Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868 and 1874–1880, and Earl of Beaconsfield 1876), had for some time rented the nearby Bradenham Manor and, following Norris's death in 1845, bought the manor and lands from his executors in 1847.[1] The purchase was supported with the help of a loan of £25,000 (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) from Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield. This was because at the time, as Disraeli was the leader of the Conservative Party, "it was essential to represent a county," and county members had to be landowners.[2] Taking ownership of the manor on the death of his father in 1848, Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, alternated between Hughenden and several homes in London.
Hughenden Manor, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, England, is a Victorian mansion, with earlier origins, that served as the country house of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. It sits on the brow of the hill to the west of the main A4128 road that links Hughenden to High Wycombe.
History
The manor of Hughenden is first recorded in 1086, as part of Queen Edith's lands, and held by William, son of Oger the Bishop of Bayeux, and was assessed for tax at 10 hides. After his forfeiture, the lands were held by the Crown, until King Henry I of England gave the lands to his chamberlain and treasurer, Geoffrey de Clinton.[1] Clinton, whose main home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the lands tenanted by Geoffrey de Sancto Roerio, who resultantly changed his surname to the Anglicised Hughenden.[1] After passing through that family, with successive Kings having to confirm the gift of the lands, the manor returned to the Crown in the 14th century.[1] In 1539, the Crown granted the manor and lands to Sir Robert Dormer, and it passed through his family until 1737 when it was sold by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield to Charles Savage.[1]
After passing through his extended family following a series of deaths and resultant devises by will, by 1816 the manor and lands were owned by John Norris, a distinguished antiquary and scholar.[1] Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868 and 1874–1880, and Earl of Beaconsfield 1876), had for some time rented the nearby Bradenham Manor and, following Norris's death in 1845, bought the manor and lands from his executors in 1847.[1] The purchase was supported with the help of a loan of £25,000 (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) from Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield. This was because at the time, as Disraeli was the leader of the Conservative Party, "it was essential to represent a county," and county members had to be landowners.[2] Taking ownership of the manor on the death of his father in 1848, Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, alternated between Hughenden and several homes in London.
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Hughenden Manor, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, England, is a Victorian mansion, with earlier origins, that served as the country house of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. It sits on the brow of the hill to the west of the main A4128 road that links Hughenden to High Wycombe.
History
The manor of Hughenden is first recorded in 1086, as part of Queen Edith's lands, and held by William, son of Oger the Bishop of Bayeux, and was assessed for tax at 10 hides. After his forfeiture, the lands were held by the Crown, until King Henry I of England gave the lands to his chamberlain and treasurer, Geoffrey de Clinton.[1] Clinton, whose main home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the lands tenanted by Geoffrey de Sancto Roerio, who resultantly changed his surname to the Anglicised Hughenden.[1] After passing through that family, with successive Kings having to confirm the gift of the lands, the manor returned to the Crown in the 14th century.[1] In 1539, the Crown granted the manor and lands to Sir Robert Dormer, and it passed through his family until 1737 when it was sold by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield to Charles Savage.[1]
After passing through his extended family following a series of deaths and resultant devises by will, by 1816 the manor and lands were owned by John Norris, a distinguished antiquary and scholar.[1] Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868 and 1874–1880, and Earl of Beaconsfield 1876), had for some time rented the nearby Bradenham Manor and, following Norris's death in 1845, bought the manor and lands from his executors in 1847.[1] The purchase was supported with the help of a loan of £25,000 (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) from Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield. This was because at the time, as Disraeli was the leader of the Conservative Party, "it was essential to represent a county," and county members had to be landowners.[2] Taking ownership of the manor on the death of his father in 1848, Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, alternated between Hughenden and several homes in London.
Pictured is a The Victoria Cross.
The Victoria Cross (VC) was introduced as the premier award for gallantry, available for all ranks, to cover all actions since the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, it was allegedly created on the suggestion of Prince Albert, the Prince Consort.
The design is of is a cross pattee with a lion statant gardant on the Royal Crown, with the words, “FOR VALOUR” on the semi-circular scroll. The Cross is suspended by a ring from a seriffed V attached to a suspension bar decorated with laurel leaves.
If awarded a second time a bar is worn on the medal. The facility for posthumous awards, made retrospective to 1856, began in 1902 and was confirmed in 1907, while the early practice of forfeitures was discontinued after the First World War. Two posthumous awards were made in the Falklands War.
The metal used is bronze, originally from Russian guns captured in the Crimea..The diameter width is 36mm, with a height of 41mm.
The ribbon is Crimson. A miniature cross emblem is worn on the ribbon alone in undress uniform.
Date of issue was January 1856.
-------------------------------------------------------
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Curiously, for such an impressive house, and one so close to the seat of government, not a lot is known about its history. Even the origin of its name is something of a mystery. The date of construction is not known and ranges from "late 16th century" to "early 17th century." We know from the date above the entrance that it had been built by 1610, and for reasons I will go into, a late 16th century date is very likely (contrary to what Canmore states).
Prior to the construction of the house, the estate was owned, between 1526 and his execution in 1540, by Sir James Hamilton of Finnart, the illegitimate son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran. The Hamiltons owned extensive lands around here at that time, centred on Kinneil House. Finnart obtained Ochiltree following the forfeiture of Stirling of Keir - a consequence of taking Margaret Tudor's side in the contest for possession (control) of her son her son - King James V.
Finnart's nephew, James Hamilton became 3rd Earl of Arran on the death of his father, who died in 1575, however, because of insanity he was kept confined in the care of his brother. (His mother, Margaret Douglas, and aunts Elizabeth Douglas (the wife of Regent Morton) and Janet or Beatrix Douglas wife of Lord Maxwell, his sister Anne (mother of the Earl of Huntly), and youngest brother David were all also affected by mental ill-health.)
The 3rd earl lived a secluded life and stayed out of trouble until 1581, when owing to his family's support of Mary Queen of Scots, the former Regent Morton seized Hamilton and Craignethan and his estates were taken over by the government and the earldom put under attainder.
In 1581 Capt. James Stewart of Ochiltree (James VI's notorious favourite) was created 4th Earl of Arran and Chancellor of Scotland. He then acquired, by very dubious means, most of the Hamilton property. Whether he obtained Ochiltree as well, is not known, but it seems probable that he did and that he or more probably a member of his family built the castle.
I usually try to give a reasonably detailed outline of the owners of the castles I write about. With the Gordons, this is too detailed a task, particularly as there have been so many of them, with so many branches of the family, over such a long period of time. So I will give an outline!
The Gordons were a Lowland family originally, the early generations being Lords of the Barony of Gordon, in the Merse. Like many other families back then, they took their name from their property. In the late 12th or early 13th, one branch of the family moved north to Huntly in Aberdeenshire, while the other remained on the Borders, but three generations later, the two families integrated (by marriage) and thereafter were based at Huntly.
During the Wars of Scottish Independence Sir Adam Gordon became a staunch supporter of Robert the Bruce. In reward for his faithful services, Bruce granted to him and his heirs the noble lordship of Strathbolgie (now Strathbogie), in Aberdeenshire, then in the Crown, by the forfeiture of David de Strathbogie, Earl of Athole.
Four generations later, a genealogical crisis occurred! Sir John Gordon of that ilk was killed at the Battle of Otterburn in 1388. He had no legitimate sons, only two 'natural' sons - 'Jock' Gordon of Scurdargue (now the village of Rhynie) and Thomas 'Tam' Gordon of Rivven (Ruthven). All Gordon families descended directly in the male line from the early Gordons of Huntly, are descended from this pair.
His brother (some genealogies say son), Sir Adam Gordon of that ilk, was killed at the Battle of Homildon Hill in 1402. Adam's only son died childless shortly afterwards, leaving a daughter, Elizabeth, who inherited everything and married Sir Alexander de Seton. Their son Alexander Seton, was created 1st Earl of Huntly. For reasons I am not sure of and can't be bothered to look up, the 1st earl's eldest son, who kept the name Seton, inherited the property of Touch, while the 2nd son, who (like his younger siblings) changed his name to Gordon, inherited the Huntly earldom.
Thereafter, the picture is fairly uncomplicated. The Earldom of Huntly continued to the 6th Earl, who was raised to be 1st Marquess of Huntly. The 4th Marquess of Huntly was made a Duke - Duke of Gordon, and all went well until the 5th Duke, who had no male heir (nor were there any surviving heirs of the previous dukes, in consequence of which, the dukedom became extinct.
Fortunately for the pretensions of the Gordon family, the younger brother of George, 2nd Marquess of Huntly, was made 1st Earl of Aboyne, and because he was the son of a marquess, his descendant inherited the marquessate when the 5th duke died. So Charles, 5th Earl of Aboyne also became 9th Marquess of Huntly. The current owner, and indeed the restorer of this fine castle, is Granville Charles Gomer Gordon, 13th and current Marquess of Huntly. His son and heir Alastair used the Earl of Aboyne title.
2 humans, 2 bicycles, 2 picnic tables.
Couple taking a bike break on the seawall in Hugh Taylor Birch State Park.
And the history of the park from the "Friends of Birch State Park" website:
The park’s Contemporary History begins at the point of contact between Europeans and Native Americans.
Ponce de Leon “discovered” Florida for Europe in 1513 as he returned from a number of brutal conquests in the “New World.” Archeological evidence suggests local sites among the sea grapes as the first Spanish contact with Florida. Fresh water was a tremendous find for the seafarers. The fragmented Coastal Dune Lakes that still exist within the park were a treasure pull for everything from wildlife to humans.
It took Spain nearly 100 years of failed attempts to take foothold on the peninsula of Florida. The original tribes of Florida, which numbered in a couple dozen, had learned first-hand about the slaving trade mitigated throughout the Caribbean and Central America. Spanish ships were nearly always met with a war party on our Florida coastline.
Once Spain took hold of the peninsula, there were two centuries of European battle for ownership of Florida shifting between Spain and Britain (with some French influence). Eventually the then “territory” was shifted to the young United States. Florida was a remote outpost accessible by sea with activity centering around Key West and the Port of Miami.
Roughly the same time that the Seminoles began to arrive in what was eventually to become Broward County (first it was to become Dade and Palm Beach Counties roughly dividing the territory in half), two families arrived and set up homes along the New River—the Lewis family (Carles or Surlie and Frankee Lewis)and the Robbins family, who had arrived in Florida from the Bahamas.
The First Seminole War (1814 to 1819) coincides with the Spanish Crown ceding the territory to the United States in 1821. Several years earlier, tensions had been inflamed between the colonists and the Seminole Indians relating to General Andrew Jackson’s attack and destruction of Negro Fort in Florida in 1816. Jackson also attacked the Spanish at Pensacola killing over 350 people. Ultimately, the Spanish Crown ceded the colony to United States rule. The British had had also enlisted many native people to resist the U.S. army. Resentment had further grown between the tribes for a number of reasons, including the Creek Wars that had ended in 1814 pushing many native further south to join as the Seminole people.
In 1821 The Adams-Onis Treaty – between Spain and the United States ceded Florida to the United States in exchange for U.S. forfeiture of a $5 million debt owed by Spain. Florida became a U.S. Territory.
The Second Seminole War was from 1835 to 1842: It largely resulted from further frustration from a series of continued broken treaties and removal acts prompted by the US Government on the Seminole people. Osceola arose as one of the most powerful forces of resistance against the US interests.
1845 – Florida becomes the 27th State in the Union.
1847 – Hugh Taylor Birch was born on August 2, 1847.
1854 – August – Secretary of War Jefferson Davis initiated a program to force the Seminole into a final conflict (more initiatives to force them to leave Florida). The plan included a trade embargo against them, the survey and sale of land in southern Florida (currently reservation land) to European-American settlers, and a stronger Army presence to protect the new settlers.
1855 – 1858 – The Third Seminole War.
1861 – Florida secedes from the Union, Civil War begins. Florida coast blockaded by Union Navy.
In 1876, the U.S. Life Saving Service built “Houses of Refuge” for shipwrecked sailors. These Houses of Refuge were staffed usually be a family. Local archeologists suggest that the Service mistakenly built the House of Refuge on what is now Hugh Taylor Birch State Park property. Surveys have not been made to date. The idea for these Houses of Refuge was to provide a string of un-staffed shelter-shacks along the coast for those who came ashore.
Hugh Taylor Birch was a Chicago attorney and legal counsel for Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. In the early 1890s, he had traveled by rail to Titusville, the end of the line, and rented a sloop to make his way further down the Atlantic Coast. A storm forced him ashore at an inlet called Lake Mabel. He loved the area’s stark beauty and it’s isolation even more. Mr.Birch was a bit of an eccentric and did not like crowds, and this new Florida life style appealed to him.
In 1893, Mr. Birch was inspired by Henry Flagler’s exposition at the Chicago World Fair on “Florida.” He had been “in the business” to buy more property in a remote area. He traveled to Titusville, Florida, rented a small sail boat and sailed down the coastline. Being forced inland from an oncoming storm, he took shelter in the House of Refuge that had been constructed near the New River inlet. Here is where Mr. Birch found the property that he described as, “the most beautiful that I have seen on all of my travels.”
In 1894 Mr. Birch returned to Florida with business partner McGregor Adams. The two men began purchase of their first oceanfront property parcels in what is now Fort Lauderdale. Some suggest that some of this land sold for less than $1.00 per acre. Other acreage sold for more, but in today’s standards of prime realestate there is no comparison.
In 1896, Henry Flagler’s railroad connected Miami with Jacksonville and the North. Six years later, the railroad reached Key West. In 1911, the City of Fort Lauderdale was incorporated. Lake Mabel later became Port Everglades.
In 1919, his daughter married a Chicago artist of some note: Frederic Clay Bartlett. As a wedding present, Mr. Birch gifted the newlyweds thirty acres from his Florida estate. Here they build the magnificent Bonnet House, just south of the park’s location. He continued to winter with them until he had his most recent beach-front home, built in 1940 on his remaining land to the north. That house now serves as the park’s Terramar Visitor Center and meeting place for the Friends of Birch State Park.
Much history transpired from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century, but eventually the properties of Hugh Taylor Birch State Park and the Bonnet House became more and more defined amidst an abrupt urban development. The property which is now Hugh Taylor Birch State Park he called “Terramar” which is a play upon words meaning land and sea. In 1940 Mr. Birch built his final winter home, The Terramar Estate, which can be found as the historical iconic building in the State park today.
Thanks to the generous donation of Hugh Taylor Birch, the 180-acre Birch State Park will remain an Island Paradise in the middle of urban Fort Lauderdale. The park contains several natural areas including mangrove swamp, hardwood hammock, beach, and coastal dune lake system. It is home to many threatened and endangered plant and animal species. This green oasis provides for excellent environmental education and nature study opportunities as well as resource-based recreational opportunities such as walking, running, canoeing, biking, fishing, inline skating, picnicking and beach swimming.
Just about as remote as you can get in the UK these days... This view shows the row of houses which is often referred to as 'Applecross', and is marked as Applecross on some maps, but which is actually called 'Shore Street' and is referred to locally just as 'The Street'.
The name Applecross applies to all the settlements around the peninsula, including Toscaig, Culduie, Camusterrach, Milltown (just off the frame to the right), Sand, 'The Street', Lonbain and many others. Applecross is also the name of the local estate and the civil parish, which includes Shieldaig and Torridon, and has a population of 544. The small River Applecross flows into the bay in front of "The Street," as seen above.
Extremely isolated, Applecross was only accessible by boat until the early 20th century, and for many years after that the only road access was over one of Scotland's most notoriously treacherous roads, the Bealach na Ba ('Pass of the Cattle'), which crosses the peninsula and reaches a maximum height of 626m, below the 774m-high Sgùrr a' Chaorachain.
The settlement is now connected via a winding coastal road which travels around the edge of the peninsula to Shieldaig and Torridon. The road skirts the shore of the Inner Sound and Loch Torridon.
Applecross's name is an anglicisation of the Pictish name Aporcrosan, 'confluence of the [river] Crossan' (Obar Crosain in modern Gaelic). Historically, the settlement is linked with St. Máelrubai (Old Irish form) or Maelrubha, who came to Scotland in 671 from the major Irish monastery of Bangor, County Down. He founded Aporcrosan in 672 in what was then Pictish territory, and was the monastery's first abbot, dying on 21 April 722 in his eightieth year. The deaths of several of his successors as abbot are recorded in the Irish Annals into the early ninth century.
The early monastery was located around the site of the later parish church (present building erected 1817). A large, unfinished cross-slab standing in the churchyard and three extremely finely carved fragments of another (or more than one?) preserved within the church are evidence of the early monastery. The surrounding district is known as a' Chomraich 'the sanctuary' in Gaelic. Its boundaries were once marked by crosses. The stub of one, destroyed in 1870, survives among farm buildings at Camusterrach.
The area around Applecross is believed to be one of the earliest settled parts of Scotland. The coastal settlement of Sand, just to the north of Applecross, is the location of a major archaeological site.
The Applecross estate extends to approximately 280 km2 and covers most of the peninsula. In the second half of the 16th century, the lands of Applecross came into the possession of Alexander Mackenzie (died 1650), an illegitimate son of Colin Cam Mackenzie of Kintail. With a brief interruption between 1715 and 1724 (a period of forfeiture caused by Applecross's part in the 1715 Uprising), the estate remained in the ownership of Mackenzie's heirs until the mid-19th century, when it was sold to the Duke of Leeds. In the early 1860s, the estate was sold to Lord Middleton, but following the death of the 10th Baron Middleton in 1924, the estate was sold to the Wills family.
The Estate is now owned by the Applecross Trust, a registered Scottish charity with the declared aim of preserving "the special character of the Applecross peninsula in a responsible and progressive manner whilst acknowledging its wilderness heritage and its importance as an area of outstanding natural beauty". The Applecross Trust is controlled by seven people and chaired by Richard Wills, of Andover, Hampshire. None of the members live in Applecross.
Notwithstanding the "Buses Turn Here" notice, it was not unusual to arrive at the Harry Stoke terminus of the 313 service and find some prat parked in the not over-generous provision of reversing space. One so yearned for the justification to hit his wing mirror off and leave a nice NBC leaf green-coloured gouge along his door panels. But, of course, in law there is no excuse for clobbering a stationary vehicle; it would have meant filling out an Accident Report Form and the forfeiture of one's safe driving record. So, softly swearing, one reversed part-way across the narrow bridge on the left, which spanned the South Wales main line and gave access to Pearce's ...and, as we see from the signboard, a number of lesser firms... on the site of the Beaufort Brick Works. These had been established during construction of the Badminton cut-off route to provide bricks for the numerous viaducts and bridges spanning the Frome valley. Those seen at the left edge would have been among its products.
The photograph dates from Thursday 20th July 1978 and the working had been the 13:00 departure from Bristol's bus station; it was therefore taken at some point between the 13:37 arrival and 13:43 departure. It is satisfying to be able to determine precisely where one was and what one was doing during a six-minute interval some thirty-nine years ago. 1028 was a nice motor; not an especial favourite, but always very acceptable. There was a period ...it lasted a matter of days... when they Did Something With It ...I've no idea what. Jeezus K. Reist it went like the clappers! I recall in particular a trip out to Keynsham and back. I drove it twice in this condition and then it reverted to normal. Something similar happened with one of the ex-London Country VRTs. I managed to nudge sixty on the flat between Begger Bush Lane and Abbots Leigh. Going back a bit, the same thing occurred with one of the Bristol-engined FLFs, I think either C7060 or C7090 ...I always tended to confuse the two. I found that it was possible to pull away up Blackboy Hill in third, no problem at all. I am a complete ignoramus where engineering matters are concerned, but it seemed plain to me that the engines were capable of producing far more power than was normally made available. Actually, it was probably just as well.
A sunrise view of the Old Courthouse, part of Gateway Arch National Park. The courthouse has become a place where the national park interprets injustice. The parties argued the Dred Scott case here twice as part of its extended legal history (1846-57). Enslaved people taken in tax forfeiture cases were auctioned on the courthouse steps.
As it looks toward Gateway Arch, the Old Courthouse provides a counterpoint to the more triumphal stories of westward expansion across the way.
Model --> Choka
"she has a very interesting expression, like if she had been caught by surprise."
Comment from M 65
also called: Red Mary's (Máire Rua) House
The manor house was erected in 1648 by Conor O'Brien and his wife, Máire ní Mahon, one of the most infamous women in Irish folklore who, due to her flaming red hair, was commonly known as "Máire Rúa" (Red Mary). Conor, was another member of the large O'Brien family which had ruled much of Clare for several hundred years. She born in 1615 or 1616. Her father was Sir Torlach Rúa MacMahon, Lord of Clonderlaw and her mother was Lady Mary O'Brien, daughter of the third Earl of Thomond. Her first husband, Daniel O'Neylan (also written O'Neillan) of Dysert O'Dea Castle in north Clare died young and upon his death, she gained control of his substantial estate and a £1,000 fortune. This wealth enabled her and Conor to build a more comfortable mansion on to the tower house. It was, without doubt, Clare's most magnificent seventeenth century house. The multi-gabled manor house was very modern for its time.
In 1651 Conor was killed in battle against the Cromwellians. His widow realized that the punishment for his rebellion against the English would be the forfeiture of their property. Therefore, in a desperate attempt to retain her lands and estates, she offered to marry any Cromwellian officer who would take her hand. (This is refuted in other versions of the story which state that Máire Rúa didn't marry until 1653, two years after Conor's death.)
Her third husband, Cornet John Cooper was a Cromwellian soldier and through this marriage Máire Rúa successfully retained her estates. Cooper left the army and amassed some wealth through land and property speculation. However, he later ran into financial difficulty and, as a result, Leamaneh was mortgaged.
Newtown Castle is a 16th-century tower house, located close to the village of Ballyvaughan within the Burren area of County Clare, Ireland. Uniquely for a tower house of its type in Ireland, Newtown Castle is round but rises from a square pyramidical base.
Newtown Castle was built circa 1550 for the O'Brien clan. In the Forfeitures and Distribution books of 1641 it was listed as property of Donogh O'Brien. However, Newtown Castle soon passed into possession of the O'Loughlin (or O'Loghlen) family, the most powerful clan of the area. The Ordnance Survey of 1839 names Charles O'Loghlen as inhabitant of the castle and describes the tower as being in good repair. Charles O'Loghlen was locally known as the "King of the Burren".
In 1848, the landlord, the then Marquess of Buckingham who had been bankrupted sold the local lands. The Buckingham estates in County Clare, around 7,000 acres in the Barony of Burren were purchased for 30,000 pounds by one Richard Samuel Guinness, acting as agent for Colonel Henry White. At the time of the Griffith's valuation in the 1850s, the building next to the castle, erected c. 1820, was a rectory inhabited by the Reverend Hugh B. Howlett. At the end of the 19th century Peter O'Loghlen lived in the castle. He was referred to as the "Prince of the Burren".
Property of Strathmore Estates (Holding) Ltd. Thought to date from the 11th century, Glamis Castle has been in the same family since 1372 when Robert II granted the barony to Sir John Lyon who later married Joanna, the king?s daughter. During the earlier part of the 16th century, King James V with his queen, two sons and court occupied Glamis during forfeiture of the Lyon family, and by 1562 when Mary Queen of Scots rested here the castle consisted of a keep (4-storey, L-plan tower house) and enceinte wall with towers and outbuildings. The Castle (largely as seen today) was remodelled in 1606 by Patrick, 9th Lord Glamis and 1st Earl of Kinghorne, an inscription on the central tower reads "Built by Patrick, Lord Glamis, and D (dame) Anna Murray". Tradition says Inigo Jones was the architect involved, but William Schaw (master mason to the king's works) is regarded as a more likely candidate owing to the 'Scottish' nature of the designs. Work continued under John (2nd Earl), but Patrick (3rd Earl) was only 4 years old at his succession in 1646 and both Castle and Estate were sadly neglected during this time. By 1653 Commonwealth soldiers were at the castle, and when Patrick (1st Earl of Strathmore and 3rd of Kinghorne) returned in 1670 serious restoration was necessary. Completed by 1689, the Castle repairs and improvements are recorded in the Earl's 'Book of Record'. During the 1770s the 9th Earl was responsible for remodelling the grounds in the style of Capability Brown, removing the garden walls and re-siting three gates (all listed separately). 19th century fashion led to the stripping of harl and external plaster to reveal medieval rubble, and the creation of a Dining Room which Gow considers "one of finest Scotch Baronial revival interiors". In 1914 the Castle provided a hospital for convalescent soldiers, and in 1916 a fire in the upper floors of central tower is still evident with charred doors and woodwork. Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon (youngest daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore) married Prince Albert on 26th April, 1932, and Princess Margaret was born at Glamis in 1930. Michael, 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, now (1998) lives at the Castle with his wife and three sons.
Calgary is a hamlet on the northwest coast of the Isle of Mull, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, United Kingdom. The hamlet is within the parish of Kilninian and Kilmore. It was the origin of the name of Fort Calgary in Canada, which became the city of Calgary, Alberta.
Calgary is situated on the B8073 about 5 miles (8 kilometres) west of Dervaig, and 12 mi (19 km) from the island's capital Tobermory. The settlement is a small community of houses scattered near a hotel and the Calgary Farmhouse.
The hamlet is at the eastern end of Calgary Bay and is framed by low hills, partly wooded. A broad area of machair (a grassy meadow growing on calcareous sand) lies between the land and the beach. As the tide falls a river meanders across the sands. The beach is served by a small car parking area and public toilets. It is not an official campsite but there is a designated area for short-stay wild camping in tents. Calgary Castle overlooks the bay.
The name comes from the Gaelic, Cala ghearraidh, meaning Beach of the meadow (pasture). "Cala" is the word specifically used for a hard, sandy beach suitable for landing a boat, which relates plausibly to the location. However, the museum on the Isle of Mull explains that kald and gart are similar Old Norse words, meaning "cold" and "garden", that were likely used when named by the Vikings who inhabited the Inner Hebrides. A small stone pier, originally built to allow "Clyde puffers" (small steam-driven cargo boats) to deliver coal to the Mornish Estate, was also used to take sheep to and from grazing on the Treshnish Isles and gives a further possible reason for the name of the bay.
Just up the hill from the pier the deserted village of Inivea remains as roofless stone ruins, an atmospheric relic of the Highland clearances. David Tennant (the former Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who) traced his family back to here in the BBC programme, Who Do You Think You Are? Around 24 buildings of the township can be seen, several of them still standing to wall head level. These included houses and barns, with enclosures probably forming kailyards. A flattish area to the north, higher than the houses, shows signs of rig and furrow cultivation and a drying kiln. A rocky knoll above the houses still has the remains of a dun, though many of its stones were taken to build the houses.
On the East side of the bay Calgary House, now called Calgary Castle, was built in 1817 extending an earlier Calgary Estate laird's house. Colonel James Macleod, Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, was a summer guest here. In 1876, shortly after returning to Canada, he suggested its name for Fort Calgary which gave rise to the city of Calgary, Alberta, a metropolis of 1,400,000 residents and the Greater Calgary Region, which has a population of 1.5 million.
The second verse of Sorley Maclean's poem Tràighean (from Dàin do Eimhir) opens with a powerful invocation of the natural beauty of Calgary bay as symbolic of spending eternity with a loved one:
Agus nan robh sinn cuideachd
air tràigh Chalgaraidh am Muile,
eadar Alba is Tiriodh,
eadar an saoghal 's a'bhiothbhuan,
dh'fhuirichinn an siud gu luan
a' tomhas gainmhich bruan air bhruan.
And if we were together
on Calgary shore in Mull,
between Scotland and Tiree,
between the world and eternity,
I would stay there till doom,
measuring sand, grain by grain.
The Isle of Mull is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute.
Covering 875.35 square kilometres (338 sq mi), Mull is the fourth-largest island in Scotland and Great Britain. From 2001 to 2020, the population has gradually increased: during 2020 the populace was estimated to be 3,000, in the 2011 census it was approximately 2,800, and in 2001, it was measured at 2,667 people. It has the eighth largest Island population in Scotland. In the summer, these numbers are augmented by an influx of many tourists. Much of the year-round population lives in the colourful main settlement of Tobermory.
There are two distilleries on the island: the Tobermory distillery, formerly named Ledaig, produces single malt Scotch whisky and another, opened in 2019 and located in the vicinity of Tiroran, which produces Whitetail Gin. Mull is host to numerous sports competitions, notably the Highland Games competition, held annually in July. The isle is home to four castles, including the towering keep of Moy Castle. On the south coast, a stone circle is located in the settlement of Lochbuie.
The Isle of Mull has probably been inhabited since shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,000 years ago. This is evidenced by radiocarbon dating done in a mesolithic hut at Crieth Dubh on the northwest coast of the island. Later, Bronze Age and Iron Age inhabitants built brochs at Dun Nan Gall and An Sean Chaisteal, and a stone circle at Lochbuie along with numerous burial cairns. Two crannogs there have been dated to the Iron Age.
In the 6th century AD, Irish migrants invaded Mull and the surrounding coast and established the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata. The kingdom was divided into a number of regions, each controlled by a different kinship group one of these, the Cenél Loairn, controlled Mull and the adjacent mainland to the east.
Dál Riata was a springboard for the Christianisation of the mainland; the pivotal point was in AD 563, when Columba, an Irish missionary, arrived on the island of Iona – just off the southwest point of Mull – and founded a monastery there from which to start evangelising the local population.
In the 9th century, Viking invasions led to the destruction of Dál Riata and its replacement by the Norse Kingdom of the Isles, which became part of the kingdom of Norway following Norwegian unification around 872. The Kingdom of the Isles was much more extensive than Dál Riata, encompassing also the Outer Hebrides and Skye. The island kingdom became known as the Suðreyjar, meaning southern isles in Old Norse. The former lands of Dál Riata acquired the geographic description "Argyle" (now "Argyll"): the Gaelic coast.
In the late 11th century, Magnus Barefoot, the Norwegian king, launched a military campaign which in 1098 led the king of Scotland to quitclaim to Magnus all claim of sovereign authority over the territory of the Kingdom of the Isles. However, a coup some 60 years later, led by a Norse-Gael named Somerled, detached the whole of the Suðreyjar from Norway and transformed it into an independent kingdom. After Somerled's death in 1164, nominal Norwegian authority was established, but practical control of the realm was divided between Somerled's sons and the heirs of Somerled's brother-in-law, the Crovan Dynasty. His son Dougall received the former territory of the Cenél Loairn, now known as Lorn, of which Mull formed part.
Meanwhile, the Crovan dynasty had retained the title "king of the Isles" and control of Lewis, Harris, and the Isle of Man. After a few decades, they acknowledged the English kings as their overlords, so Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls) complained to Haakon, the Norwegian king, and in 1237 were rewarded by the kingship being split; rule of the Hebrides was transferred to the MacDougall line, and they were made the "kings of the Hebrides". They established the twin castles of Aros (in Mull) and Ardtornish (on the mainland, opposite), which together controlled the Sound of Mull.
Throughout the early 13th century, the king of Scots, Alexander II, had aggressively tried to expand his realm into the Suðreyjar, despite Edgar's earlier quitclaim. This led to hostility between Norway and Scotland, which continued under Alexander III. King Haakon IV of Norway died shortly after the indecisive Battle of Largs. In 1266, his more peaceable successor ceded his nominal authority over the Suðreyjar to Alexander III by the Treaty of Perth in return for a very large sum of money. Alexander generally acknowledged the semi-independent authority of Somerled's heirs; the former Suðreyjar had become Scottish crown dependencies rather than parts of Scotland.
At the end of the 13th century, a violent dispute arose over the Scottish kingship between King John Balliol and Robert de Bruys. By then, Somerled's descendants had formed into three families: as well as Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls), there were also the heirs of his nephew Donald (the MacDonalds) and those of Donald's brother (the MacRory or MacRuairi); the MacDougalls backed Balliol, while the MacDonalds and MacRory backed de Bruys. When Robert I defeated his Scots enemies, including the Comyns and MacDougalls, he declared their lands forfeit, dividing them between his friend, Angus Og Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, and Christina MacRory, King Robert's kinswoman. The latter acquired Lorn and some of the smaller Isles, but Angus Og, who fought beside King Robert at Bannockburn, was given the lion's share: The Isles of Islay, Jura, Gigha, Colonsay and Mull, and the mainland territories of Duror, Glencoe, Ardnamurchan, Lochaber, Morvern and Kintyre. After Bannockburn, Alexander Macdonald, Angus Og’s eldest son, then still alive, was granted Mull and Tiree. Angus Og's younger son John of Islay, became Lord of the Isles after his father's and his elder brother's deaths. He first married Amy MacRuairi of Garmoran, the heiress of the MacRory family, thereby consolidating the remains of Somerled's realm.
In 1354, though in exile and without control of his ancestral lands, John, the MacDougall heir, quitclaimed any rights he had over Mull to the Lord of the Isles. When Robert's son David II became king, he spent some time in English captivity; after his release, in 1357, he restored MacDougall authority over Lorn, effectively cancelling Robert's grant to the MacRory. The 1354 quitclaim, which seems to have been an attempt to ensure peace in just such an eventuality, took automatic effect, splitting Mull from Lorn and making it subject to the Lordship of the Isles.
In 1437, the Lordship was substantially expanded when Alexander, the Lord of the Isles, inherited the rule of Ross maternally. The expansion led the MacDonalds to move their centre of power from Islay to the twin castles of Aros and Ardtornish.
In 1462, the most ambitious of the Lords of the Isles, John MacDonald, struck an alliance with Edward IV of England to conquer Scotland. Civil war in England prevented this from taking effect and from being discovered until 1475, when the English court voluntarily revealed its existence. Calls for forfeiture of the Lordship naturally followed, but they were calmed when John quitclaimed most of his mainland territories. However, John's nephew launched a severe raid on Ross, but it ultimately failed. Within two years of the raid, in 1493, James IV of Scotland declared the Lordship of the Isles forfeit, transforming the realm into an intrinsic part of Scotland rather than a dependency.
Throughout this time, the descendants of the Cenél Loairn retained their identity; they were now the MacLeans. Now that John MacDonald was exiled, James IV restored the authority of the MacLeans over Mull. An earlier chief of the MacLeans had married the daughter of the first Lord of the Isles and received Duart Castle as the dowry; this now became the stronghold of MacLean control of Mull. The cadet branch of the family constructed a tower house at Moy on the southern side of Mull, while the senior branch retained Duart Castle.
Legend has it that the wreck of a Spanish galleon, laden with gold, lies somewhere in the mud at the bottom of Tobermory Bay. By some accounts, the Florencia (or Florida or San Francisco), a ship of the defeated Spanish Armada fleeing the English fleet in 1588, anchored in Tobermory to take on provisions. After a dispute over payment, the ship caught fire and the gunpowder magazine exploded, sinking the vessel. In her hold, reputedly, was £300,000 in gold bullion. Other sources claim the vessel was the San Juan de Sicilia (or San Juan de Baptista), which carried troops, not treasure. According to that account, the island's chief, Lachlan Mor Maclean, struck a deal with the Spanish commander to re-provision and refit the ship in return for military intervention on the side of the MacLeans in their feud with enemies on nearby islands. There have been numerous searches for the wreck and its rumoured treasure from the mid-17th century to the end of the 20th century. No significant treasure has been recovered in Tobermory Bay.
Following the Scottish Reformation, the MacLeans became supporters of Protestantism. By the mid-17th century, they had become promoters of conventicles, opposed to king Charles II's repudiation of the Solemn League and Covenant and supporting acts of civil disobedience. Though personally opposed to persecution of such people, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, was specifically ordered by the Scottish privy council to suppress conventicles within his lands, which included Lorn. The atmosphere of hostility soon spread to Mull, where opponents of the conventicles felt emboldened, leading to outbreaks of violence between the two religious factions.
In 1678, Campbell was specifically instructed to seize Mull and suppress both the violence and conventicles. It took Clan Campbell until 1681 to gain possession of the whole island. Campbell took charge of Duart Castle and ejected the MacLean leadership from Mull; they moved to Cairnburgh Castle in the Treshnish Islands off the north-west of Mull. Campbell's own position was somewhat undermined when he instigated Argyll's Rising against the reign of James VII. The loyalty of subsequent Campbell leaders ensured the Campbells retained possession of Duart (it was only after the Campbells sold it, and it had spent a century under other owners, that the MacLeans were able to recover it by purchase). Under Campbell pressure, shrieval authority was established under the sheriff of Argyll, which they controlled.
Following Jacobite insurrections, the Heritable Jurisdictions Act abolished comital authority in Mull and Campbell control of the Argyll sheriffdom; the Campbells could now only assert influence as landlords. Many castles that had been in the hands of the MacLeans (such as Moy) had been slighted by the Campbells or fallen into disrepair, but more comfortable homes were built nearby.
During the 18th century, the island was home to a Gaelic Bard, whom Father Charles MacDonald describes only as "The Mull Satirist." The Satirist is said to have been a vocal enemy of the Jacobite Bard Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair and to have attacked the latter in many poems that have survived. When the Jacobite poet converted from the Calvinist Church of Scotland to the Roman Catholic Church, the Mull Satirist accused him of doing so, not out of serious conviction, but to curry favour with the exiled House of Stuart.
In 1773 the island was visited by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell during their tour of the Western Islands. Farming, fishing, and burning seaweed for kelp ash (used in the manufacture of soap and glass) were the main economic activities on the island until the 19th century. Tobermory was built by the British Fisheries Society in 1788 as a planned settlement to support the fishing industry.
The Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in people being evicted to make space for sheep and the Highland Potato Famine (1846–1847) encouraged mass emigration. These factors caused the population to decline from 10,000 to less than 4,000 and then to 3,000 by the 20th Century; this had a serious impact on the economy. Despite this, several grand houses were built on Mull in the period, including Torosay Castle.
In 1889, counties were formally created in Scotland on shrieval boundaries by a dedicated Local Government Act; Mull therefore became part of the newly created County of Argyll.
The whole island became a Restricted Area during World War II. The bay at Tobermory became a naval base commanded from HMS Western Isles. The base and the Restricted Area were under Commodore (later Vice Admiral) Sir Gilbert Stephenson, whose strict discipline and ferocious temper earned him the nickname "The Terror of Tobermory". The base was used to train Escort Groups in anti-submarine warfare. 911 ships passed through the base between 1940 and 1945. Following late 20th century reforms, Mull is now part of the wider area of Argyll and Bute.
According to a July 2020 article in Country Life, "The Benmore Estate occupies 32,000 acres of the Isle of Mull" and includes Knock House, a Victorian hunting lodge where tourists can stay. Guests can book rides on the estate boat, the Benmore Lady. Much of the lodge was built by the ninth Duke of Argyll for his wife, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria; they married in 1871. Reports indicate that the Queen stayed there, as did others including Wordsworth, Keats, JM Barrie and Sir Walter Scott.
According to the 2011 Scottish census, the Isle of Mull had a usual residents population of 2,800 with 1,271 households. Including the offshore islands, the population of Mull was 2,996.
In Mull and the adjacent islands Gaelic had been the traditional language since the early Middle Ages. However, the 20th century in particular saw a reduction in the number of speakers, with a significant fall (20%) in Mull after the Second World War. This was associated with strong emigration and abandonment of the language by the younger generation. In the 1951 census only 10 people said they could not speak English.
The following decades saw the beginnings of a revival. Gaelic medium education was introduced in 1996 after a long dispute with the authorities. A Gaelic-medium unit was introduced in Salen Primary School, followed by a second unit at Bunessan Primary School; the language began to be taught in the first two years of secondary school; and Gaelic playgroups were introduced. By 2006 it was found that, though only 10% of the working-age cohort spoke or understood Gaelic, language ability at school age was much higher. There was great local variation in the number of speakers, from around 25% in Craignure (Creag an Iubhair) to 4% in Aros. It has been argued, however, that in terms of language survival, there is reason for optimism in Mull.
There is a small amount of farming, aquaculture, and fishing, and Forestry and Land Scotland has several plantations on the island. Tobermory also has one whisky distillery (Tobermory distillery) and from 2005 to 2009 had a brewery (Isle of Mull Brewing Company). Tiroran is home to the island's other distillery (Whitetail Gin) which was established as the isle's first new distillery in over 220 years in 2019.
Tourism is definitely significant. The economy began to revive when the construction of Craignure Pier in 1964 started to bring tourists. Tourism is now the mainstay of the island's economy. Ecotourism became popular from the 1990s, and the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles in 2005 became a particular ecotourist attraction. The island is one of the few places to see sea eagles; there were at least 22 pairs as of April 2020.
Isle of Mull cheese is Scottish cheddar cheese made from raw cow milk produced on the Isle of Mull.
Apart from traversing the Ross of Mull on the way to Iona, visitors typically spend time in Tobermory, visit Glengorm Castle[citation needed] and then enjoy one of the beaches. One report states that "the south-west holds more white beaches, famous for their pink granite skerries and stunning sunsets, that are also perfect for kayaking". Accommodations for tourists include self-catering holiday cottages, a few hotels, and some campsites.
Tourism was negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and into 2021. A September 2020 report stated that "The Highlands and Islands region has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to date, when compared to Scotland and the UK as a whole". The industry required short-term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions". A scheme called Island Equivalent was introduced by the Scottish government in early 2021 to financially assist hospitality and retail businesses "affected by Level 3 coronavirus restrictions". Previous schemes in 2020 included the Strategic Framework Business Fund and the Coronavirus Business Support Fund.
Tobermory – with just over a thousand people, the largest settlement on Mull – is home to the only whisky distillery on the island.
Ferry links to Mull from the mainland include:
The most-used ferry, from Oban to Craignure (approx. 45 minutes),
Kilchoan to Tobermory (approx. 35 minutes)
Lochaline to Fishnish (approx. 15 minutes).
Advance bookings are not required for the Kilchoan or Fishnish ferries; access to those two ferry terminals on the mainland side is via single-track roads.
There are also ferry links from Fionnphort on Mull to the neighbouring island of Iona and from Oskamull to Ulva. In past years there were direct sailings to Oban (calling at Drimnin, Salen, Lochaline, and Craignure), and to Barra, Coll, and Tiree from Tobermory. During the summer there was also a sailing to Staffa and Iona from Oban that called at Tobermory.
Buses
Buses are operated by West Coast Motors Ltd. There are routes from Tobermory to Calgary via Dervaig (Service 494), Tobermory to Craignure via Salen (Service 495), and Craignure to Fionnphort via Bunessan (Service 496). Limited services operate to Lochbuie and Gruline. West Coast Motors also provide guided tours around Mull, Iona, and Staffa, including boat transfers from Oban.
A minibus service also operates seasonally from Craignure to Duart Castle.
There is also a community-run service from Calgary to Salen via Ulva Ferry.
There is a landing strip for private light aircraft near Salen. There was a seaplane that linked Tobermory with Glasgow and Oban. The regular scheduled service terminated in 2009. Loganair operated a scheduled service to Glasgow in the 1960s from Glenforsa airfield, a 780-metre-long (2,560 ft) grass airstrip constructed by the Royal Engineers in 1965 near Salen. The airstrip has been operated since 2014 by Brendan and Allison Walsh, owners of the adjacent Glenforsa Hotel.
Tourist railway
The Isle of Mull Railway ran from Craignure to Torosay Castle but closed in 2011.
There is one secondary school on the island (Tobermory High School) and six primary schools. Salen Primary School has a Gaelic medium education unit. Secondary pupils (age 11–18) from Iona, Bunessan and Fionnphort in the south-west attend Oban High School, staying in an Oban hostel from Monday to Thursday.
Mull was connected to the mainland by a submarine telegraph cable between Oban and Grass Point in 1871. There were telegraph offices at Tobermory, Dervaig, Calgary, Craignure, Pennyghael, Tiroran, Fionnphort, Bunessan, and Iona.
The Post Office built an experimental wireless telegraph station on Meall an Inbhire near Tobermory in 1892.
In 2014, fibre optic cables for support of high speed internet were laid between Kilchoan (in Ardnamurchan) and Tobermory and between Dunstaffnage (near Oban) and Torosay. In February 2015 additional cables were laid underground between Tobermory and Torosay to complete the link.
AM radio, broadcast from Oban, came to the island in 1930 and television in 1954. New AM radio and UHF television transmitters were constructed on Druim Mòr, one mile (1.6 km) west of Torosay Castle, in 1978. Digital transmissions commenced on 15 November 1998 and analogue transmissions ceased on 27 October 2010. The digital transmitters have 22 relays on Mull, surrounding islands, and parts of the mainland, collectively the Torosay Transmitter Group.
Mull Theatre is a professional theatre company based in a 2008 theatre production centre on the outskirts of Tobermory. The company commissions plays, tours throughout Scotland and beyond, and runs an education and outreach programme. It started at the "Mull Little Theatre" at Dervaig in 1966 and was the "Smallest Professional Theatre in the World" according to the Guinness World Records. The National Theatre of Scotland were in residence at the Mull Theatre in April 2009.
An Tobar ("The Well"), based in Tobermory, is the only publicly funded multidisciplinary arts centre in Argyll. Established in 1997, it is a centre for visual arts, crafts and music. With effect from 1 April 2013, An Tobar and the Mull Theatre were brought together as Comar.
The Isle of Mull is a popular destination for naturalists and photographers for seeing some of Britain's more elusive species.
Mull has over 800 species of vascular plant (684 native and 171 naturalised) including 33 species of fern, at least 18 species of orchid and 22 native species of tree. There are about 700 species of lichen, 571 liverworts and mosses, and 247 marine algae (seaweeds), making a total of 2,388 species of plant recorded from the island. In addition, more than 2,000 species of fungi have been recorded on Mull: Dennis and Watling write, "When one speaks of the Inner Hebridean fungi one is referring to the floras of Mull and Rhum".
The island has 261 different bird species, including the white-tailed eagle, which was reintroduced to the nearby island of Rùm and migrated to Mull, where it now has a stronghold. Basking sharks, minke whales, porpoises, and dolphins are among the sea life nearby.
The island is home to a population of otters that live in coastal habitat, hunting during the day. The Mull Otter Group was established for the conservation needs of otters on the Isle of Mull.
The island also has several birds of prey, such as hen harriers, golden eagles, and short eared owls, all difficult species to see throughout the rest of the UK. Pine martens have also recently become established on Mull; based on sighting records and from resulting modelling exercises, it is believed the species arrived in 2004 through accidental transportation on timber boats from the mainland. It is unlikely that pine martens have ever been native to the Isle of Mull.
The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust was established in 1994 and is a marine conservation charity that takes action through community based research and education. The Trust carries out long-term monitoring programmes on cetaceans in the Hebrides, by collating sightings reported by the public and running live-aboard research expeditions on their sailing yacht, Silurian. The Trust covers the west coast of Scotland, and is based in Tobermory, where it has its main office, Discovery Centre and the mooring of their research vessel.
There are also a number of invasive species on the island, including plant species such as Japanese knotweed and animals such as feral cats and American mink that are believed to be causing damage to the indigenous species populations through competition and predation.
Lochdon Free Church, built in 1852
The Tour of Mull is a road-closing rally around the island every October. It has been sponsored since 2005 by Tunnock's, the Lanarkshire teacake and biscuit manufacturer. A five-year sponsorship deal with Beatson's Building Supplies started in 2015.
There are several shipwrecks around the shores that offer scuba diving.
There is an Isle of Mull Cycling Club.
The Cross at the Castle cyclocross event is held annually at Glengorm Castle near Tobermory and features the World Santacross Championships and the Scottish Singlespeed Cylocross Championships.
Mull Runners organise a half marathon and 10K run each August between Craignure and Salen.
Rugby is played at Garmony (beside the Craignure to Salen road 6+1⁄2 mi or 10.5 km north of Craignure). The Mull Rugby 7s Competition takes place annually in May at The Isle of Mull R.F.C's rugby club.
There are golf courses at Tobermory (Erray Park), Craignure (beside the Craignure to Salen road 1 mi or 1.5 km north of Craignure) and on Iona.
Mull Highland Games are held each July in the grounds of Tobermory Golf Club (Erray Park). Events include Heavy Weights, Light Field, and Highland Dance.
The swimming pool at the Isle of Mull Hotel, Craignure is open to the paying public.
Tobermory has some free tennis courts.
Football is played, mainly in the south end. Bunessan F.C. play a number of games during the summer, most notably against arch rivals Iona FC, the island just off the south west end. Bunessan F.C. also hold an annual 5-a-side tournament in July.
Following research and community consultation in 1996/97, a development trust was created to identify key goals for the communities of Mull and Iona. Mull & Iona Community Trust was formed in 1997 and published a "Community Regeneration Strategy" for the islands. They purchased the only butcher's shop on the island (closed February 2010), created a community-run Countryside Ranger service, instigated various recycling initiatives, and provide a fundraising and training consultancy.
Martyn Bennett (1971–2005), Canadian-Scottish musician, lived on Mull, buried in Calgary Bay cemetery
Peter Bonetti, (1941–2020), English footballer (goalkeeper)
Major General Colin Gubbins, head of Special Operations Executive during World War II
Duncan Livingstone (1877–1964) Scottish Gaelic Bard, born at Torloisk, emigrated to South Africa in 1903. Continued to write Gaelic verse in Pretoria until his death.
Agnes Maxwell MacLeod (1783–1879) poet and minister's wife
Colin MacIntyre (b. 1971), Scottish musician who frequently goes under the name "Mull Historical Society"
Margaret McKellar (1861–1941), medical missionary
John McLean (1799–1890), Canadian-Scottish explorer and one of the chief traders of the Hudson's Bay Company
Norman Maclean (1902–1990), acclaimed Scottish-American author from Missoula, Montana, who explored the alcoholism and gambling addictions of his ancestors, Scottish Gaelic-speaking Presbyterians on the Isle, in the 1976 novella A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Mary Macleod, 17th-century poet said to have been banished to Mull
Lachlan Macquarie, (1762–1824), Governor of New South Wales, born on the nearby island of Ulva[
A bread oven in the basement of the north-east tower, equipped so that the baker could multitask - shoot people while the dough was rising!
The fall of the Crichtons was as abrupt as their rise had been. William, 3rd lord Crichton joined Alexander Duke of Albany in his rebellion against his brother, James the Third, and garrisoned Crichton Castle on the duke's behalf. The rebellion failed, and he was attainted for treason by parliament, 24th February 1483-4. Albany fled to France, where he was killed in 1485 in a duel with the Duke of Orléans in Paris, by a splinter from the dooks' lance.
On his forfeiture, Crichton was granted to Sir John Ramsay of Balmain, but following his forfeiture, it was granted by King James IV to Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Lord Hales and subsequently 1st Earl of Bothwell. Life was probably fairly quiet at Crichton during the first half of the 16th century. Adam Hepburn, 2nd Earl of Bothwell followed his king and benefactor to Flodden in 1513 and never came back again, following which his widow lived here. Her son Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell, was imprisoned in 1529 for two years for harbouring robbers. Once released he decided to exact revenge by beginning a treasonable correspondence with England. He then spent much of the next few years in England and after James V died, Hepburn signed a pact with Henry VIII promising to serve him and aid the commitment of the then infant Mary, Queen of Scots, into Henry's custody. He died in 1556.
The brick built Manor house used to have white stucco front and back which was removed by Disraeli's builders to keep in tune with the current fashion of brick build mansions
Hughenden Manor, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, England, is a Victorian mansion, with earlier origins, that served as the country house of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. It sits on the brow of the hill to the west of the main A4128 road that links Hughenden to High Wycombe.
History
The manor of Hughenden is first recorded in 1086, as part of Queen Edith's lands, and held by William, son of Oger the Bishop of Bayeux, and was assessed for tax at 10 hides. After his forfeiture, the lands were held by the Crown, until King Henry I of England gave the lands to his chamberlain and treasurer, Geoffrey de Clinton.[1] Clinton, whose main home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the lands tenanted by Geoffrey de Sancto Roerio, who resultantly changed his surname to the Anglicised Hughenden.[1] After passing through that family, with successive Kings having to confirm the gift of the lands, the manor returned to the Crown in the 14th century.[1] In 1539, the Crown granted the manor and lands to Sir Robert Dormer, and it passed through his family until 1737 when it was sold by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield to Charles Savage.[1]
After passing through his extended family following a series of deaths and resultant devises by will, by 1816 the manor and lands were owned by John Norris, a distinguished antiquary and scholar.[1] Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868 and 1874–1880, and Earl of Beaconsfield 1876), had for some time rented the nearby Bradenham Manor and, following Norris's death in 1845, bought the manor and lands from his executors in 1847.[1] The purchase was supported with the help of a loan of £25,000 (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) from Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield. This was because at the time, as Disraeli was the leader of the Conservative Party, "it was essential to represent a county," and county members had to be landowners.[2] Taking ownership of the manor on the death of his father in 1848, Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, alternated between Hughenden and several homes in London.
The Isle of Mull is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute.
Covering 875.35 square kilometres (338 sq mi), Mull is the fourth-largest island in Scotland and Great Britain. From 2001 to 2020, the population has gradually increased: during 2020 the populace was estimated to be 3,000, in the 2011 census it was approximately 2,800, and in 2001, it was measured at 2,667 people. It has the eighth largest Island population in Scotland. In the summer, these numbers are augmented by an influx of many tourists. Much of the year-round population lives in the colourful main settlement of Tobermory.
There are two distilleries on the island: the Tobermory distillery, formerly named Ledaig, produces single malt Scotch whisky and another, opened in 2019 and located in the vicinity of Tiroran, which produces Whitetail Gin. Mull is host to numerous sports competitions, notably the Highland Games competition, held annually in July. The isle is home to four castles, including the towering keep of Moy Castle. On the south coast, a stone circle is located in the settlement of Lochbuie.
The Isle of Mull has probably been inhabited since shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,000 years ago. This is evidenced by radiocarbon dating done in a mesolithic hut at Crieth Dubh on the northwest coast of the island. Later, Bronze Age and Iron Age inhabitants built brochs at Dun Nan Gall and An Sean Chaisteal, and a stone circle at Lochbuie along with numerous burial cairns. Two crannogs there have been dated to the Iron Age.
In the 6th century AD, Irish migrants invaded Mull and the surrounding coast and established the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata. The kingdom was divided into a number of regions, each controlled by a different kinship group one of these, the Cenél Loairn, controlled Mull and the adjacent mainland to the east.
Dál Riata was a springboard for the Christianisation of the mainland; the pivotal point was in AD 563, when Columba, an Irish missionary, arrived on the island of Iona – just off the southwest point of Mull – and founded a monastery there from which to start evangelising the local population.
In the 9th century, Viking invasions led to the destruction of Dál Riata and its replacement by the Norse Kingdom of the Isles, which became part of the kingdom of Norway following Norwegian unification around 872. The Kingdom of the Isles was much more extensive than Dál Riata, encompassing also the Outer Hebrides and Skye. The island kingdom became known as the Suðreyjar, meaning southern isles in Old Norse. The former lands of Dál Riata acquired the geographic description "Argyle" (now "Argyll"): the Gaelic coast.
In the late 11th century, Magnus Barefoot, the Norwegian king, launched a military campaign which in 1098 led the king of Scotland to quitclaim to Magnus all claim of sovereign authority over the territory of the Kingdom of the Isles. However, a coup some 60 years later, led by a Norse-Gael named Somerled, detached the whole of the Suðreyjar from Norway and transformed it into an independent kingdom. After Somerled's death in 1164, nominal Norwegian authority was established, but practical control of the realm was divided between Somerled's sons and the heirs of Somerled's brother-in-law, the Crovan Dynasty. His son Dougall received the former territory of the Cenél Loairn, now known as Lorn, of which Mull formed part.
Meanwhile, the Crovan dynasty had retained the title "king of the Isles" and control of Lewis, Harris, and the Isle of Man. After a few decades, they acknowledged the English kings as their overlords, so Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls) complained to Haakon, the Norwegian king, and in 1237 were rewarded by the kingship being split; rule of the Hebrides was transferred to the MacDougall line, and they were made the "kings of the Hebrides". They established the twin castles of Aros (in Mull) and Ardtornish (on the mainland, opposite), which together controlled the Sound of Mull.
Throughout the early 13th century, the king of Scots, Alexander II, had aggressively tried to expand his realm into the Suðreyjar, despite Edgar's earlier quitclaim. This led to hostility between Norway and Scotland, which continued under Alexander III. King Haakon IV of Norway died shortly after the indecisive Battle of Largs. In 1266, his more peaceable successor ceded his nominal authority over the Suðreyjar to Alexander III by the Treaty of Perth in return for a very large sum of money. Alexander generally acknowledged the semi-independent authority of Somerled's heirs; the former Suðreyjar had become Scottish crown dependencies rather than parts of Scotland.
At the end of the 13th century, a violent dispute arose over the Scottish kingship between King John Balliol and Robert de Bruys. By then, Somerled's descendants had formed into three families: as well as Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls), there were also the heirs of his nephew Donald (the MacDonalds) and those of Donald's brother (the MacRory or MacRuairi); the MacDougalls backed Balliol, while the MacDonalds and MacRory backed de Bruys. When Robert I defeated his Scots enemies, including the Comyns and MacDougalls, he declared their lands forfeit, dividing them between his friend, Angus Og Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, and Christina MacRory, King Robert's kinswoman. The latter acquired Lorn and some of the smaller Isles, but Angus Og, who fought beside King Robert at Bannockburn, was given the lion's share: The Isles of Islay, Jura, Gigha, Colonsay and Mull, and the mainland territories of Duror, Glencoe, Ardnamurchan, Lochaber, Morvern and Kintyre. After Bannockburn, Alexander Macdonald, Angus Og’s eldest son, then still alive, was granted Mull and Tiree. Angus Og's younger son John of Islay, became Lord of the Isles after his father's and his elder brother's deaths. He first married Amy MacRuairi of Garmoran, the heiress of the MacRory family, thereby consolidating the remains of Somerled's realm.
In 1354, though in exile and without control of his ancestral lands, John, the MacDougall heir, quitclaimed any rights he had over Mull to the Lord of the Isles. When Robert's son David II became king, he spent some time in English captivity; after his release, in 1357, he restored MacDougall authority over Lorn, effectively cancelling Robert's grant to the MacRory. The 1354 quitclaim, which seems to have been an attempt to ensure peace in just such an eventuality, took automatic effect, splitting Mull from Lorn and making it subject to the Lordship of the Isles.
In 1437, the Lordship was substantially expanded when Alexander, the Lord of the Isles, inherited the rule of Ross maternally. The expansion led the MacDonalds to move their centre of power from Islay to the twin castles of Aros and Ardtornish.
In 1462, the most ambitious of the Lords of the Isles, John MacDonald, struck an alliance with Edward IV of England to conquer Scotland. Civil war in England prevented this from taking effect and from being discovered until 1475, when the English court voluntarily revealed its existence. Calls for forfeiture of the Lordship naturally followed, but they were calmed when John quitclaimed most of his mainland territories. However, John's nephew launched a severe raid on Ross, but it ultimately failed. Within two years of the raid, in 1493, James IV of Scotland declared the Lordship of the Isles forfeit, transforming the realm into an intrinsic part of Scotland rather than a dependency.
Throughout this time, the descendants of the Cenél Loairn retained their identity; they were now the MacLeans. Now that John MacDonald was exiled, James IV restored the authority of the MacLeans over Mull. An earlier chief of the MacLeans had married the daughter of the first Lord of the Isles and received Duart Castle as the dowry; this now became the stronghold of MacLean control of Mull. The cadet branch of the family constructed a tower house at Moy on the southern side of Mull, while the senior branch retained Duart Castle.
Legend has it that the wreck of a Spanish galleon, laden with gold, lies somewhere in the mud at the bottom of Tobermory Bay. By some accounts, the Florencia (or Florida or San Francisco), a ship of the defeated Spanish Armada fleeing the English fleet in 1588, anchored in Tobermory to take on provisions. After a dispute over payment, the ship caught fire and the gunpowder magazine exploded, sinking the vessel. In her hold, reputedly, was £300,000 in gold bullion. Other sources claim the vessel was the San Juan de Sicilia (or San Juan de Baptista), which carried troops, not treasure. According to that account, the island's chief, Lachlan Mor Maclean, struck a deal with the Spanish commander to re-provision and refit the ship in return for military intervention on the side of the MacLeans in their feud with enemies on nearby islands. There have been numerous searches for the wreck and its rumoured treasure from the mid-17th century to the end of the 20th century. No significant treasure has been recovered in Tobermory Bay.
Following the Scottish Reformation, the MacLeans became supporters of Protestantism. By the mid-17th century, they had become promoters of conventicles, opposed to king Charles II's repudiation of the Solemn League and Covenant and supporting acts of civil disobedience. Though personally opposed to persecution of such people, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, was specifically ordered by the Scottish privy council to suppress conventicles within his lands, which included Lorn. The atmosphere of hostility soon spread to Mull, where opponents of the conventicles felt emboldened, leading to outbreaks of violence between the two religious factions.
In 1678, Campbell was specifically instructed to seize Mull and suppress both the violence and conventicles. It took Clan Campbell until 1681 to gain possession of the whole island. Campbell took charge of Duart Castle and ejected the MacLean leadership from Mull; they moved to Cairnburgh Castle in the Treshnish Islands off the north-west of Mull. Campbell's own position was somewhat undermined when he instigated Argyll's Rising against the reign of James VII. The loyalty of subsequent Campbell leaders ensured the Campbells retained possession of Duart (it was only after the Campbells sold it, and it had spent a century under other owners, that the MacLeans were able to recover it by purchase). Under Campbell pressure, shrieval authority was established under the sheriff of Argyll, which they controlled.
Following Jacobite insurrections, the Heritable Jurisdictions Act abolished comital authority in Mull and Campbell control of the Argyll sheriffdom; the Campbells could now only assert influence as landlords. Many castles that had been in the hands of the MacLeans (such as Moy) had been slighted by the Campbells or fallen into disrepair, but more comfortable homes were built nearby.
During the 18th century, the island was home to a Gaelic Bard, whom Father Charles MacDonald describes only as "The Mull Satirist." The Satirist is said to have been a vocal enemy of the Jacobite Bard Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair and to have attacked the latter in many poems that have survived. When the Jacobite poet converted from the Calvinist Church of Scotland to the Roman Catholic Church, the Mull Satirist accused him of doing so, not out of serious conviction, but to curry favour with the exiled House of Stuart.
In 1773 the island was visited by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell during their tour of the Western Islands. Farming, fishing, and burning seaweed for kelp ash (used in the manufacture of soap and glass) were the main economic activities on the island until the 19th century. Tobermory was built by the British Fisheries Society in 1788 as a planned settlement to support the fishing industry.
The Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in people being evicted to make space for sheep and the Highland Potato Famine (1846–1847) encouraged mass emigration. These factors caused the population to decline from 10,000 to less than 4,000 and then to 3,000 by the 20th Century; this had a serious impact on the economy. Despite this, several grand houses were built on Mull in the period, including Torosay Castle.
In 1889, counties were formally created in Scotland on shrieval boundaries by a dedicated Local Government Act; Mull therefore became part of the newly created County of Argyll.
The whole island became a Restricted Area during World War II. The bay at Tobermory became a naval base commanded from HMS Western Isles. The base and the Restricted Area were under Commodore (later Vice Admiral) Sir Gilbert Stephenson, whose strict discipline and ferocious temper earned him the nickname "The Terror of Tobermory". The base was used to train Escort Groups in anti-submarine warfare. 911 ships passed through the base between 1940 and 1945. Following late 20th century reforms, Mull is now part of the wider area of Argyll and Bute.
According to a July 2020 article in Country Life, "The Benmore Estate occupies 32,000 acres of the Isle of Mull" and includes Knock House, a Victorian hunting lodge where tourists can stay. Guests can book rides on the estate boat, the Benmore Lady. Much of the lodge was built by the ninth Duke of Argyll for his wife, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria; they married in 1871. Reports indicate that the Queen stayed there, as did others including Wordsworth, Keats, JM Barrie and Sir Walter Scott.
According to the 2011 Scottish census, the Isle of Mull had a usual residents population of 2,800 with 1,271 households. Including the offshore islands, the population of Mull was 2,996.
In Mull and the adjacent islands Gaelic had been the traditional language since the early Middle Ages. However, the 20th century in particular saw a reduction in the number of speakers, with a significant fall (20%) in Mull after the Second World War. This was associated with strong emigration and abandonment of the language by the younger generation. In the 1951 census only 10 people said they could not speak English.
The following decades saw the beginnings of a revival. Gaelic medium education was introduced in 1996 after a long dispute with the authorities. A Gaelic-medium unit was introduced in Salen Primary School, followed by a second unit at Bunessan Primary School; the language began to be taught in the first two years of secondary school; and Gaelic playgroups were introduced. By 2006 it was found that, though only 10% of the working-age cohort spoke or understood Gaelic, language ability at school age was much higher. There was great local variation in the number of speakers, from around 25% in Craignure (Creag an Iubhair) to 4% in Aros. It has been argued, however, that in terms of language survival, there is reason for optimism in Mull.
There is a small amount of farming, aquaculture, and fishing, and Forestry and Land Scotland has several plantations on the island. Tobermory also has one whisky distillery (Tobermory distillery) and from 2005 to 2009 had a brewery (Isle of Mull Brewing Company). Tiroran is home to the island's other distillery (Whitetail Gin) which was established as the isle's first new distillery in over 220 years in 2019.
Tourism is definitely significant. The economy began to revive when the construction of Craignure Pier in 1964 started to bring tourists. Tourism is now the mainstay of the island's economy. Ecotourism became popular from the 1990s, and the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles in 2005 became a particular ecotourist attraction. The island is one of the few places to see sea eagles; there were at least 22 pairs as of April 2020.
Isle of Mull cheese is Scottish cheddar cheese made from raw cow milk produced on the Isle of Mull.
Apart from traversing the Ross of Mull on the way to Iona, visitors typically spend time in Tobermory, visit Glengorm Castle[citation needed] and then enjoy one of the beaches. One report states that "the south-west holds more white beaches, famous for their pink granite skerries and stunning sunsets, that are also perfect for kayaking". Accommodations for tourists include self-catering holiday cottages, a few hotels, and some campsites.
Tourism was negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and into 2021. A September 2020 report stated that "The Highlands and Islands region has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to date, when compared to Scotland and the UK as a whole". The industry required short-term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions". A scheme called Island Equivalent was introduced by the Scottish government in early 2021 to financially assist hospitality and retail businesses "affected by Level 3 coronavirus restrictions". Previous schemes in 2020 included the Strategic Framework Business Fund and the Coronavirus Business Support Fund.
Tobermory – with just over a thousand people, the largest settlement on Mull – is home to the only whisky distillery on the island.
Ferry links to Mull from the mainland include:
The most-used ferry, from Oban to Craignure (approx. 45 minutes),
Kilchoan to Tobermory (approx. 35 minutes)
Lochaline to Fishnish (approx. 15 minutes).
Advance bookings are not required for the Kilchoan or Fishnish ferries; access to those two ferry terminals on the mainland side is via single-track roads.
There are also ferry links from Fionnphort on Mull to the neighbouring island of Iona and from Oskamull to Ulva. In past years there were direct sailings to Oban (calling at Drimnin, Salen, Lochaline, and Craignure), and to Barra, Coll, and Tiree from Tobermory. During the summer there was also a sailing to Staffa and Iona from Oban that called at Tobermory.
Buses
Buses are operated by West Coast Motors Ltd. There are routes from Tobermory to Calgary via Dervaig (Service 494), Tobermory to Craignure via Salen (Service 495), and Craignure to Fionnphort via Bunessan (Service 496). Limited services operate to Lochbuie and Gruline. West Coast Motors also provide guided tours around Mull, Iona, and Staffa, including boat transfers from Oban.
A minibus service also operates seasonally from Craignure to Duart Castle.
There is also a community-run service from Calgary to Salen via Ulva Ferry.
There is a landing strip for private light aircraft near Salen. There was a seaplane that linked Tobermory with Glasgow and Oban. The regular scheduled service terminated in 2009. Loganair operated a scheduled service to Glasgow in the 1960s from Glenforsa airfield, a 780-metre-long (2,560 ft) grass airstrip constructed by the Royal Engineers in 1965 near Salen. The airstrip has been operated since 2014 by Brendan and Allison Walsh, owners of the adjacent Glenforsa Hotel.
Tourist railway
The Isle of Mull Railway ran from Craignure to Torosay Castle but closed in 2011.
There is one secondary school on the island (Tobermory High School) and six primary schools. Salen Primary School has a Gaelic medium education unit. Secondary pupils (age 11–18) from Iona, Bunessan and Fionnphort in the south-west attend Oban High School, staying in an Oban hostel from Monday to Thursday.
Mull was connected to the mainland by a submarine telegraph cable between Oban and Grass Point in 1871. There were telegraph offices at Tobermory, Dervaig, Calgary, Craignure, Pennyghael, Tiroran, Fionnphort, Bunessan, and Iona.
The Post Office built an experimental wireless telegraph station on Meall an Inbhire near Tobermory in 1892.
In 2014, fibre optic cables for support of high speed internet were laid between Kilchoan (in Ardnamurchan) and Tobermory and between Dunstaffnage (near Oban) and Torosay. In February 2015 additional cables were laid underground between Tobermory and Torosay to complete the link.
AM radio, broadcast from Oban, came to the island in 1930 and television in 1954. New AM radio and UHF television transmitters were constructed on Druim Mòr, one mile (1.6 km) west of Torosay Castle, in 1978. Digital transmissions commenced on 15 November 1998 and analogue transmissions ceased on 27 October 2010. The digital transmitters have 22 relays on Mull, surrounding islands, and parts of the mainland, collectively the Torosay Transmitter Group.
Mull Theatre is a professional theatre company based in a 2008 theatre production centre on the outskirts of Tobermory. The company commissions plays, tours throughout Scotland and beyond, and runs an education and outreach programme. It started at the "Mull Little Theatre" at Dervaig in 1966 and was the "Smallest Professional Theatre in the World" according to the Guinness World Records. The National Theatre of Scotland were in residence at the Mull Theatre in April 2009.
An Tobar ("The Well"), based in Tobermory, is the only publicly funded multidisciplinary arts centre in Argyll. Established in 1997, it is a centre for visual arts, crafts and music. With effect from 1 April 2013, An Tobar and the Mull Theatre were brought together as Comar.
The Isle of Mull is a popular destination for naturalists and photographers for seeing some of Britain's more elusive species.
Mull has over 800 species of vascular plant (684 native and 171 naturalised) including 33 species of fern, at least 18 species of orchid and 22 native species of tree. There are about 700 species of lichen, 571 liverworts and mosses, and 247 marine algae (seaweeds), making a total of 2,388 species of plant recorded from the island. In addition, more than 2,000 species of fungi have been recorded on Mull: Dennis and Watling write, "When one speaks of the Inner Hebridean fungi one is referring to the floras of Mull and Rhum".
The island has 261 different bird species, including the white-tailed eagle, which was reintroduced to the nearby island of Rùm and migrated to Mull, where it now has a stronghold. Basking sharks, minke whales, porpoises, and dolphins are among the sea life nearby.
The island is home to a population of otters that live in coastal habitat, hunting during the day. The Mull Otter Group was established for the conservation needs of otters on the Isle of Mull.
The island also has several birds of prey, such as hen harriers, golden eagles, and short eared owls, all difficult species to see throughout the rest of the UK. Pine martens have also recently become established on Mull; based on sighting records and from resulting modelling exercises, it is believed the species arrived in 2004 through accidental transportation on timber boats from the mainland. It is unlikely that pine martens have ever been native to the Isle of Mull.
The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust was established in 1994 and is a marine conservation charity that takes action through community based research and education. The Trust carries out long-term monitoring programmes on cetaceans in the Hebrides, by collating sightings reported by the public and running live-aboard research expeditions on their sailing yacht, Silurian. The Trust covers the west coast of Scotland, and is based in Tobermory, where it has its main office, Discovery Centre and the mooring of their research vessel.
There are also a number of invasive species on the island, including plant species such as Japanese knotweed and animals such as feral cats and American mink that are believed to be causing damage to the indigenous species populations through competition and predation.
Lochdon Free Church, built in 1852
The Tour of Mull is a road-closing rally around the island every October. It has been sponsored since 2005 by Tunnock's, the Lanarkshire teacake and biscuit manufacturer. A five-year sponsorship deal with Beatson's Building Supplies started in 2015.
There are several shipwrecks around the shores that offer scuba diving.
There is an Isle of Mull Cycling Club.
The Cross at the Castle cyclocross event is held annually at Glengorm Castle near Tobermory and features the World Santacross Championships and the Scottish Singlespeed Cylocross Championships.
Mull Runners organise a half marathon and 10K run each August between Craignure and Salen.
Rugby is played at Garmony (beside the Craignure to Salen road 6+1⁄2 mi or 10.5 km north of Craignure). The Mull Rugby 7s Competition takes place annually in May at The Isle of Mull R.F.C's rugby club.
There are golf courses at Tobermory (Erray Park), Craignure (beside the Craignure to Salen road 1 mi or 1.5 km north of Craignure) and on Iona.
Mull Highland Games are held each July in the grounds of Tobermory Golf Club (Erray Park). Events include Heavy Weights, Light Field, and Highland Dance.
The swimming pool at the Isle of Mull Hotel, Craignure is open to the paying public.
Tobermory has some free tennis courts.
Football is played, mainly in the south end. Bunessan F.C. play a number of games during the summer, most notably against arch rivals Iona FC, the island just off the south west end. Bunessan F.C. also hold an annual 5-a-side tournament in July.
Following research and community consultation in 1996/97, a development trust was created to identify key goals for the communities of Mull and Iona. Mull & Iona Community Trust was formed in 1997 and published a "Community Regeneration Strategy" for the islands. They purchased the only butcher's shop on the island (closed February 2010), created a community-run Countryside Ranger service, instigated various recycling initiatives, and provide a fundraising and training consultancy.
Martyn Bennett (1971–2005), Canadian-Scottish musician, lived on Mull, buried in Calgary Bay cemetery
Peter Bonetti, (1941–2020), English footballer (goalkeeper)
Major General Colin Gubbins, head of Special Operations Executive during World War II
Duncan Livingstone (1877–1964) Scottish Gaelic Bard, born at Torloisk, emigrated to South Africa in 1903. Continued to write Gaelic verse in Pretoria until his death.
Agnes Maxwell MacLeod (1783–1879) poet and minister's wife
Colin MacIntyre (b. 1971), Scottish musician who frequently goes under the name "Mull Historical Society"
Margaret McKellar (1861–1941), medical missionary
John McLean (1799–1890), Canadian-Scottish explorer and one of the chief traders of the Hudson's Bay Company
Norman Maclean (1902–1990), acclaimed Scottish-American author from Missoula, Montana, who explored the alcoholism and gambling addictions of his ancestors, Scottish Gaelic-speaking Presbyterians on the Isle, in the 1976 novella A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Mary Macleod, 17th-century poet said to have been banished to Mull
Lachlan Macquarie, (1762–1824), Governor of New South Wales, born on the nearby island of Ulva[
The Isle of Mull is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute.
Covering 875.35 square kilometres (338 sq mi), Mull is the fourth-largest island in Scotland and Great Britain. From 2001 to 2020, the population has gradually increased: during 2020 the populace was estimated to be 3,000, in the 2011 census it was approximately 2,800, and in 2001, it was measured at 2,667 people. It has the eighth largest Island population in Scotland. In the summer, these numbers are augmented by an influx of many tourists. Much of the year-round population lives in the colourful main settlement of Tobermory.
There are two distilleries on the island: the Tobermory distillery, formerly named Ledaig, produces single malt Scotch whisky and another, opened in 2019 and located in the vicinity of Tiroran, which produces Whitetail Gin. Mull is host to numerous sports competitions, notably the Highland Games competition, held annually in July. The isle is home to four castles, including the towering keep of Moy Castle. On the south coast, a stone circle is located in the settlement of Lochbuie.
The Isle of Mull has probably been inhabited since shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,000 years ago. This is evidenced by radiocarbon dating done in a mesolithic hut at Crieth Dubh on the northwest coast of the island. Later, Bronze Age and Iron Age inhabitants built brochs at Dun Nan Gall and An Sean Chaisteal, and a stone circle at Lochbuie along with numerous burial cairns. Two crannogs there have been dated to the Iron Age.
In the 6th century AD, Irish migrants invaded Mull and the surrounding coast and established the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata. The kingdom was divided into a number of regions, each controlled by a different kinship group one of these, the Cenél Loairn, controlled Mull and the adjacent mainland to the east.
Dál Riata was a springboard for the Christianisation of the mainland; the pivotal point was in AD 563, when Columba, an Irish missionary, arrived on the island of Iona – just off the southwest point of Mull – and founded a monastery there from which to start evangelising the local population.
In the 9th century, Viking invasions led to the destruction of Dál Riata and its replacement by the Norse Kingdom of the Isles, which became part of the kingdom of Norway following Norwegian unification around 872. The Kingdom of the Isles was much more extensive than Dál Riata, encompassing also the Outer Hebrides and Skye. The island kingdom became known as the Suðreyjar, meaning southern isles in Old Norse. The former lands of Dál Riata acquired the geographic description "Argyle" (now "Argyll"): the Gaelic coast.
In the late 11th century, Magnus Barefoot, the Norwegian king, launched a military campaign which in 1098 led the king of Scotland to quitclaim to Magnus all claim of sovereign authority over the territory of the Kingdom of the Isles. However, a coup some 60 years later, led by a Norse-Gael named Somerled, detached the whole of the Suðreyjar from Norway and transformed it into an independent kingdom. After Somerled's death in 1164, nominal Norwegian authority was established, but practical control of the realm was divided between Somerled's sons and the heirs of Somerled's brother-in-law, the Crovan Dynasty. His son Dougall received the former territory of the Cenél Loairn, now known as Lorn, of which Mull formed part.
Meanwhile, the Crovan dynasty had retained the title "king of the Isles" and control of Lewis, Harris, and the Isle of Man. After a few decades, they acknowledged the English kings as their overlords, so Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls) complained to Haakon, the Norwegian king, and in 1237 were rewarded by the kingship being split; rule of the Hebrides was transferred to the MacDougall line, and they were made the "kings of the Hebrides". They established the twin castles of Aros (in Mull) and Ardtornish (on the mainland, opposite), which together controlled the Sound of Mull.
Throughout the early 13th century, the king of Scots, Alexander II, had aggressively tried to expand his realm into the Suðreyjar, despite Edgar's earlier quitclaim. This led to hostility between Norway and Scotland, which continued under Alexander III. King Haakon IV of Norway died shortly after the indecisive Battle of Largs. In 1266, his more peaceable successor ceded his nominal authority over the Suðreyjar to Alexander III by the Treaty of Perth in return for a very large sum of money. Alexander generally acknowledged the semi-independent authority of Somerled's heirs; the former Suðreyjar had become Scottish crown dependencies rather than parts of Scotland.
At the end of the 13th century, a violent dispute arose over the Scottish kingship between King John Balliol and Robert de Bruys. By then, Somerled's descendants had formed into three families: as well as Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls), there were also the heirs of his nephew Donald (the MacDonalds) and those of Donald's brother (the MacRory or MacRuairi); the MacDougalls backed Balliol, while the MacDonalds and MacRory backed de Bruys. When Robert I defeated his Scots enemies, including the Comyns and MacDougalls, he declared their lands forfeit, dividing them between his friend, Angus Og Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, and Christina MacRory, King Robert's kinswoman. The latter acquired Lorn and some of the smaller Isles, but Angus Og, who fought beside King Robert at Bannockburn, was given the lion's share: The Isles of Islay, Jura, Gigha, Colonsay and Mull, and the mainland territories of Duror, Glencoe, Ardnamurchan, Lochaber, Morvern and Kintyre. After Bannockburn, Alexander Macdonald, Angus Og’s eldest son, then still alive, was granted Mull and Tiree. Angus Og's younger son John of Islay, became Lord of the Isles after his father's and his elder brother's deaths. He first married Amy MacRuairi of Garmoran, the heiress of the MacRory family, thereby consolidating the remains of Somerled's realm.
In 1354, though in exile and without control of his ancestral lands, John, the MacDougall heir, quitclaimed any rights he had over Mull to the Lord of the Isles. When Robert's son David II became king, he spent some time in English captivity; after his release, in 1357, he restored MacDougall authority over Lorn, effectively cancelling Robert's grant to the MacRory. The 1354 quitclaim, which seems to have been an attempt to ensure peace in just such an eventuality, took automatic effect, splitting Mull from Lorn and making it subject to the Lordship of the Isles.
In 1437, the Lordship was substantially expanded when Alexander, the Lord of the Isles, inherited the rule of Ross maternally. The expansion led the MacDonalds to move their centre of power from Islay to the twin castles of Aros and Ardtornish.
In 1462, the most ambitious of the Lords of the Isles, John MacDonald, struck an alliance with Edward IV of England to conquer Scotland. Civil war in England prevented this from taking effect and from being discovered until 1475, when the English court voluntarily revealed its existence. Calls for forfeiture of the Lordship naturally followed, but they were calmed when John quitclaimed most of his mainland territories. However, John's nephew launched a severe raid on Ross, but it ultimately failed. Within two years of the raid, in 1493, James IV of Scotland declared the Lordship of the Isles forfeit, transforming the realm into an intrinsic part of Scotland rather than a dependency.
Throughout this time, the descendants of the Cenél Loairn retained their identity; they were now the MacLeans. Now that John MacDonald was exiled, James IV restored the authority of the MacLeans over Mull. An earlier chief of the MacLeans had married the daughter of the first Lord of the Isles and received Duart Castle as the dowry; this now became the stronghold of MacLean control of Mull. The cadet branch of the family constructed a tower house at Moy on the southern side of Mull, while the senior branch retained Duart Castle.
Legend has it that the wreck of a Spanish galleon, laden with gold, lies somewhere in the mud at the bottom of Tobermory Bay. By some accounts, the Florencia (or Florida or San Francisco), a ship of the defeated Spanish Armada fleeing the English fleet in 1588, anchored in Tobermory to take on provisions. After a dispute over payment, the ship caught fire and the gunpowder magazine exploded, sinking the vessel. In her hold, reputedly, was £300,000 in gold bullion. Other sources claim the vessel was the San Juan de Sicilia (or San Juan de Baptista), which carried troops, not treasure. According to that account, the island's chief, Lachlan Mor Maclean, struck a deal with the Spanish commander to re-provision and refit the ship in return for military intervention on the side of the MacLeans in their feud with enemies on nearby islands. There have been numerous searches for the wreck and its rumoured treasure from the mid-17th century to the end of the 20th century. No significant treasure has been recovered in Tobermory Bay.
Following the Scottish Reformation, the MacLeans became supporters of Protestantism. By the mid-17th century, they had become promoters of conventicles, opposed to king Charles II's repudiation of the Solemn League and Covenant and supporting acts of civil disobedience. Though personally opposed to persecution of such people, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, was specifically ordered by the Scottish privy council to suppress conventicles within his lands, which included Lorn. The atmosphere of hostility soon spread to Mull, where opponents of the conventicles felt emboldened, leading to outbreaks of violence between the two religious factions.
In 1678, Campbell was specifically instructed to seize Mull and suppress both the violence and conventicles. It took Clan Campbell until 1681 to gain possession of the whole island. Campbell took charge of Duart Castle and ejected the MacLean leadership from Mull; they moved to Cairnburgh Castle in the Treshnish Islands off the north-west of Mull. Campbell's own position was somewhat undermined when he instigated Argyll's Rising against the reign of James VII. The loyalty of subsequent Campbell leaders ensured the Campbells retained possession of Duart (it was only after the Campbells sold it, and it had spent a century under other owners, that the MacLeans were able to recover it by purchase). Under Campbell pressure, shrieval authority was established under the sheriff of Argyll, which they controlled.
Following Jacobite insurrections, the Heritable Jurisdictions Act abolished comital authority in Mull and Campbell control of the Argyll sheriffdom; the Campbells could now only assert influence as landlords. Many castles that had been in the hands of the MacLeans (such as Moy) had been slighted by the Campbells or fallen into disrepair, but more comfortable homes were built nearby.
During the 18th century, the island was home to a Gaelic Bard, whom Father Charles MacDonald describes only as "The Mull Satirist." The Satirist is said to have been a vocal enemy of the Jacobite Bard Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair and to have attacked the latter in many poems that have survived. When the Jacobite poet converted from the Calvinist Church of Scotland to the Roman Catholic Church, the Mull Satirist accused him of doing so, not out of serious conviction, but to curry favour with the exiled House of Stuart.
In 1773 the island was visited by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell during their tour of the Western Islands. Farming, fishing, and burning seaweed for kelp ash (used in the manufacture of soap and glass) were the main economic activities on the island until the 19th century. Tobermory was built by the British Fisheries Society in 1788 as a planned settlement to support the fishing industry.
The Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in people being evicted to make space for sheep and the Highland Potato Famine (1846–1847) encouraged mass emigration. These factors caused the population to decline from 10,000 to less than 4,000 and then to 3,000 by the 20th Century; this had a serious impact on the economy. Despite this, several grand houses were built on Mull in the period, including Torosay Castle.
In 1889, counties were formally created in Scotland on shrieval boundaries by a dedicated Local Government Act; Mull therefore became part of the newly created County of Argyll.
The whole island became a Restricted Area during World War II. The bay at Tobermory became a naval base commanded from HMS Western Isles. The base and the Restricted Area were under Commodore (later Vice Admiral) Sir Gilbert Stephenson, whose strict discipline and ferocious temper earned him the nickname "The Terror of Tobermory". The base was used to train Escort Groups in anti-submarine warfare. 911 ships passed through the base between 1940 and 1945. Following late 20th century reforms, Mull is now part of the wider area of Argyll and Bute.
According to a July 2020 article in Country Life, "The Benmore Estate occupies 32,000 acres of the Isle of Mull" and includes Knock House, a Victorian hunting lodge where tourists can stay. Guests can book rides on the estate boat, the Benmore Lady. Much of the lodge was built by the ninth Duke of Argyll for his wife, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria; they married in 1871. Reports indicate that the Queen stayed there, as did others including Wordsworth, Keats, JM Barrie and Sir Walter Scott.
According to the 2011 Scottish census, the Isle of Mull had a usual residents population of 2,800 with 1,271 households. Including the offshore islands, the population of Mull was 2,996.
In Mull and the adjacent islands Gaelic had been the traditional language since the early Middle Ages. However, the 20th century in particular saw a reduction in the number of speakers, with a significant fall (20%) in Mull after the Second World War. This was associated with strong emigration and abandonment of the language by the younger generation. In the 1951 census only 10 people said they could not speak English.
The following decades saw the beginnings of a revival. Gaelic medium education was introduced in 1996 after a long dispute with the authorities. A Gaelic-medium unit was introduced in Salen Primary School, followed by a second unit at Bunessan Primary School; the language began to be taught in the first two years of secondary school; and Gaelic playgroups were introduced. By 2006 it was found that, though only 10% of the working-age cohort spoke or understood Gaelic, language ability at school age was much higher. There was great local variation in the number of speakers, from around 25% in Craignure (Creag an Iubhair) to 4% in Aros. It has been argued, however, that in terms of language survival, there is reason for optimism in Mull.
There is a small amount of farming, aquaculture, and fishing, and Forestry and Land Scotland has several plantations on the island. Tobermory also has one whisky distillery (Tobermory distillery) and from 2005 to 2009 had a brewery (Isle of Mull Brewing Company). Tiroran is home to the island's other distillery (Whitetail Gin) which was established as the isle's first new distillery in over 220 years in 2019.
Tourism is definitely significant. The economy began to revive when the construction of Craignure Pier in 1964 started to bring tourists. Tourism is now the mainstay of the island's economy. Ecotourism became popular from the 1990s, and the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles in 2005 became a particular ecotourist attraction. The island is one of the few places to see sea eagles; there were at least 22 pairs as of April 2020.
Isle of Mull cheese is Scottish cheddar cheese made from raw cow milk produced on the Isle of Mull.
Apart from traversing the Ross of Mull on the way to Iona, visitors typically spend time in Tobermory, visit Glengorm Castle[citation needed] and then enjoy one of the beaches. One report states that "the south-west holds more white beaches, famous for their pink granite skerries and stunning sunsets, that are also perfect for kayaking". Accommodations for tourists include self-catering holiday cottages, a few hotels, and some campsites.
Tourism was negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and into 2021. A September 2020 report stated that "The Highlands and Islands region has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to date, when compared to Scotland and the UK as a whole". The industry required short-term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions". A scheme called Island Equivalent was introduced by the Scottish government in early 2021 to financially assist hospitality and retail businesses "affected by Level 3 coronavirus restrictions". Previous schemes in 2020 included the Strategic Framework Business Fund and the Coronavirus Business Support Fund.
Tobermory – with just over a thousand people, the largest settlement on Mull – is home to the only whisky distillery on the island.
Ferry links to Mull from the mainland include:
The most-used ferry, from Oban to Craignure (approx. 45 minutes),
Kilchoan to Tobermory (approx. 35 minutes)
Lochaline to Fishnish (approx. 15 minutes).
Advance bookings are not required for the Kilchoan or Fishnish ferries; access to those two ferry terminals on the mainland side is via single-track roads.
There are also ferry links from Fionnphort on Mull to the neighbouring island of Iona and from Oskamull to Ulva. In past years there were direct sailings to Oban (calling at Drimnin, Salen, Lochaline, and Craignure), and to Barra, Coll, and Tiree from Tobermory. During the summer there was also a sailing to Staffa and Iona from Oban that called at Tobermory.
Buses
Buses are operated by West Coast Motors Ltd. There are routes from Tobermory to Calgary via Dervaig (Service 494), Tobermory to Craignure via Salen (Service 495), and Craignure to Fionnphort via Bunessan (Service 496). Limited services operate to Lochbuie and Gruline. West Coast Motors also provide guided tours around Mull, Iona, and Staffa, including boat transfers from Oban.
A minibus service also operates seasonally from Craignure to Duart Castle.
There is also a community-run service from Calgary to Salen via Ulva Ferry.
There is a landing strip for private light aircraft near Salen. There was a seaplane that linked Tobermory with Glasgow and Oban. The regular scheduled service terminated in 2009. Loganair operated a scheduled service to Glasgow in the 1960s from Glenforsa airfield, a 780-metre-long (2,560 ft) grass airstrip constructed by the Royal Engineers in 1965 near Salen. The airstrip has been operated since 2014 by Brendan and Allison Walsh, owners of the adjacent Glenforsa Hotel.
Tourist railway
The Isle of Mull Railway ran from Craignure to Torosay Castle but closed in 2011.
There is one secondary school on the island (Tobermory High School) and six primary schools. Salen Primary School has a Gaelic medium education unit. Secondary pupils (age 11–18) from Iona, Bunessan and Fionnphort in the south-west attend Oban High School, staying in an Oban hostel from Monday to Thursday.
Mull was connected to the mainland by a submarine telegraph cable between Oban and Grass Point in 1871. There were telegraph offices at Tobermory, Dervaig, Calgary, Craignure, Pennyghael, Tiroran, Fionnphort, Bunessan, and Iona.
The Post Office built an experimental wireless telegraph station on Meall an Inbhire near Tobermory in 1892.
In 2014, fibre optic cables for support of high speed internet were laid between Kilchoan (in Ardnamurchan) and Tobermory and between Dunstaffnage (near Oban) and Torosay. In February 2015 additional cables were laid underground between Tobermory and Torosay to complete the link.
AM radio, broadcast from Oban, came to the island in 1930 and television in 1954. New AM radio and UHF television transmitters were constructed on Druim Mòr, one mile (1.6 km) west of Torosay Castle, in 1978. Digital transmissions commenced on 15 November 1998 and analogue transmissions ceased on 27 October 2010. The digital transmitters have 22 relays on Mull, surrounding islands, and parts of the mainland, collectively the Torosay Transmitter Group.
Mull Theatre is a professional theatre company based in a 2008 theatre production centre on the outskirts of Tobermory. The company commissions plays, tours throughout Scotland and beyond, and runs an education and outreach programme. It started at the "Mull Little Theatre" at Dervaig in 1966 and was the "Smallest Professional Theatre in the World" according to the Guinness World Records. The National Theatre of Scotland were in residence at the Mull Theatre in April 2009.
An Tobar ("The Well"), based in Tobermory, is the only publicly funded multidisciplinary arts centre in Argyll. Established in 1997, it is a centre for visual arts, crafts and music. With effect from 1 April 2013, An Tobar and the Mull Theatre were brought together as Comar.
The Isle of Mull is a popular destination for naturalists and photographers for seeing some of Britain's more elusive species.
Mull has over 800 species of vascular plant (684 native and 171 naturalised) including 33 species of fern, at least 18 species of orchid and 22 native species of tree. There are about 700 species of lichen, 571 liverworts and mosses, and 247 marine algae (seaweeds), making a total of 2,388 species of plant recorded from the island. In addition, more than 2,000 species of fungi have been recorded on Mull: Dennis and Watling write, "When one speaks of the Inner Hebridean fungi one is referring to the floras of Mull and Rhum".
The island has 261 different bird species, including the white-tailed eagle, which was reintroduced to the nearby island of Rùm and migrated to Mull, where it now has a stronghold. Basking sharks, minke whales, porpoises, and dolphins are among the sea life nearby.
The island is home to a population of otters that live in coastal habitat, hunting during the day. The Mull Otter Group was established for the conservation needs of otters on the Isle of Mull.
The island also has several birds of prey, such as hen harriers, golden eagles, and short eared owls, all difficult species to see throughout the rest of the UK. Pine martens have also recently become established on Mull; based on sighting records and from resulting modelling exercises, it is believed the species arrived in 2004 through accidental transportation on timber boats from the mainland. It is unlikely that pine martens have ever been native to the Isle of Mull.
The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust was established in 1994 and is a marine conservation charity that takes action through community based research and education. The Trust carries out long-term monitoring programmes on cetaceans in the Hebrides, by collating sightings reported by the public and running live-aboard research expeditions on their sailing yacht, Silurian. The Trust covers the west coast of Scotland, and is based in Tobermory, where it has its main office, Discovery Centre and the mooring of their research vessel.
There are also a number of invasive species on the island, including plant species such as Japanese knotweed and animals such as feral cats and American mink that are believed to be causing damage to the indigenous species populations through competition and predation.
Lochdon Free Church, built in 1852
The Tour of Mull is a road-closing rally around the island every October. It has been sponsored since 2005 by Tunnock's, the Lanarkshire teacake and biscuit manufacturer. A five-year sponsorship deal with Beatson's Building Supplies started in 2015.
There are several shipwrecks around the shores that offer scuba diving.
There is an Isle of Mull Cycling Club.
The Cross at the Castle cyclocross event is held annually at Glengorm Castle near Tobermory and features the World Santacross Championships and the Scottish Singlespeed Cylocross Championships.
Mull Runners organise a half marathon and 10K run each August between Craignure and Salen.
Rugby is played at Garmony (beside the Craignure to Salen road 6+1⁄2 mi or 10.5 km north of Craignure). The Mull Rugby 7s Competition takes place annually in May at The Isle of Mull R.F.C's rugby club.
There are golf courses at Tobermory (Erray Park), Craignure (beside the Craignure to Salen road 1 mi or 1.5 km north of Craignure) and on Iona.
Mull Highland Games are held each July in the grounds of Tobermory Golf Club (Erray Park). Events include Heavy Weights, Light Field, and Highland Dance.
The swimming pool at the Isle of Mull Hotel, Craignure is open to the paying public.
Tobermory has some free tennis courts.
Football is played, mainly in the south end. Bunessan F.C. play a number of games during the summer, most notably against arch rivals Iona FC, the island just off the south west end. Bunessan F.C. also hold an annual 5-a-side tournament in July.
Following research and community consultation in 1996/97, a development trust was created to identify key goals for the communities of Mull and Iona. Mull & Iona Community Trust was formed in 1997 and published a "Community Regeneration Strategy" for the islands. They purchased the only butcher's shop on the island (closed February 2010), created a community-run Countryside Ranger service, instigated various recycling initiatives, and provide a fundraising and training consultancy.
Martyn Bennett (1971–2005), Canadian-Scottish musician, lived on Mull, buried in Calgary Bay cemetery
Peter Bonetti, (1941–2020), English footballer (goalkeeper)
Major General Colin Gubbins, head of Special Operations Executive during World War II
Duncan Livingstone (1877–1964) Scottish Gaelic Bard, born at Torloisk, emigrated to South Africa in 1903. Continued to write Gaelic verse in Pretoria until his death.
Agnes Maxwell MacLeod (1783–1879) poet and minister's wife
Colin MacIntyre (b. 1971), Scottish musician who frequently goes under the name "Mull Historical Society"
Margaret McKellar (1861–1941), medical missionary
John McLean (1799–1890), Canadian-Scottish explorer and one of the chief traders of the Hudson's Bay Company
Norman Maclean (1902–1990), acclaimed Scottish-American author from Missoula, Montana, who explored the alcoholism and gambling addictions of his ancestors, Scottish Gaelic-speaking Presbyterians on the Isle, in the 1976 novella A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Mary Macleod, 17th-century poet said to have been banished to Mull
Lachlan Macquarie, (1762–1824), Governor of New South Wales, born on the nearby island of Ulva[
The Isle of Mull is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute.
Covering 875.35 square kilometres (338 sq mi), Mull is the fourth-largest island in Scotland and Great Britain. From 2001 to 2020, the population has gradually increased: during 2020 the populace was estimated to be 3,000, in the 2011 census it was approximately 2,800, and in 2001, it was measured at 2,667 people. It has the eighth largest Island population in Scotland. In the summer, these numbers are augmented by an influx of many tourists. Much of the year-round population lives in the colourful main settlement of Tobermory.
There are two distilleries on the island: the Tobermory distillery, formerly named Ledaig, produces single malt Scotch whisky and another, opened in 2019 and located in the vicinity of Tiroran, which produces Whitetail Gin. Mull is host to numerous sports competitions, notably the Highland Games competition, held annually in July. The isle is home to four castles, including the towering keep of Moy Castle. On the south coast, a stone circle is located in the settlement of Lochbuie.
The Isle of Mull has probably been inhabited since shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,000 years ago. This is evidenced by radiocarbon dating done in a mesolithic hut at Crieth Dubh on the northwest coast of the island. Later, Bronze Age and Iron Age inhabitants built brochs at Dun Nan Gall and An Sean Chaisteal, and a stone circle at Lochbuie along with numerous burial cairns. Two crannogs there have been dated to the Iron Age.
In the 6th century AD, Irish migrants invaded Mull and the surrounding coast and established the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata. The kingdom was divided into a number of regions, each controlled by a different kinship group one of these, the Cenél Loairn, controlled Mull and the adjacent mainland to the east.
Dál Riata was a springboard for the Christianisation of the mainland; the pivotal point was in AD 563, when Columba, an Irish missionary, arrived on the island of Iona – just off the southwest point of Mull – and founded a monastery there from which to start evangelising the local population.
In the 9th century, Viking invasions led to the destruction of Dál Riata and its replacement by the Norse Kingdom of the Isles, which became part of the kingdom of Norway following Norwegian unification around 872. The Kingdom of the Isles was much more extensive than Dál Riata, encompassing also the Outer Hebrides and Skye. The island kingdom became known as the Suðreyjar, meaning southern isles in Old Norse. The former lands of Dál Riata acquired the geographic description "Argyle" (now "Argyll"): the Gaelic coast.
In the late 11th century, Magnus Barefoot, the Norwegian king, launched a military campaign which in 1098 led the king of Scotland to quitclaim to Magnus all claim of sovereign authority over the territory of the Kingdom of the Isles. However, a coup some 60 years later, led by a Norse-Gael named Somerled, detached the whole of the Suðreyjar from Norway and transformed it into an independent kingdom. After Somerled's death in 1164, nominal Norwegian authority was established, but practical control of the realm was divided between Somerled's sons and the heirs of Somerled's brother-in-law, the Crovan Dynasty. His son Dougall received the former territory of the Cenél Loairn, now known as Lorn, of which Mull formed part.
Meanwhile, the Crovan dynasty had retained the title "king of the Isles" and control of Lewis, Harris, and the Isle of Man. After a few decades, they acknowledged the English kings as their overlords, so Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls) complained to Haakon, the Norwegian king, and in 1237 were rewarded by the kingship being split; rule of the Hebrides was transferred to the MacDougall line, and they were made the "kings of the Hebrides". They established the twin castles of Aros (in Mull) and Ardtornish (on the mainland, opposite), which together controlled the Sound of Mull.
Throughout the early 13th century, the king of Scots, Alexander II, had aggressively tried to expand his realm into the Suðreyjar, despite Edgar's earlier quitclaim. This led to hostility between Norway and Scotland, which continued under Alexander III. King Haakon IV of Norway died shortly after the indecisive Battle of Largs. In 1266, his more peaceable successor ceded his nominal authority over the Suðreyjar to Alexander III by the Treaty of Perth in return for a very large sum of money. Alexander generally acknowledged the semi-independent authority of Somerled's heirs; the former Suðreyjar had become Scottish crown dependencies rather than parts of Scotland.
At the end of the 13th century, a violent dispute arose over the Scottish kingship between King John Balliol and Robert de Bruys. By then, Somerled's descendants had formed into three families: as well as Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls), there were also the heirs of his nephew Donald (the MacDonalds) and those of Donald's brother (the MacRory or MacRuairi); the MacDougalls backed Balliol, while the MacDonalds and MacRory backed de Bruys. When Robert I defeated his Scots enemies, including the Comyns and MacDougalls, he declared their lands forfeit, dividing them between his friend, Angus Og Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, and Christina MacRory, King Robert's kinswoman. The latter acquired Lorn and some of the smaller Isles, but Angus Og, who fought beside King Robert at Bannockburn, was given the lion's share: The Isles of Islay, Jura, Gigha, Colonsay and Mull, and the mainland territories of Duror, Glencoe, Ardnamurchan, Lochaber, Morvern and Kintyre. After Bannockburn, Alexander Macdonald, Angus Og’s eldest son, then still alive, was granted Mull and Tiree. Angus Og's younger son John of Islay, became Lord of the Isles after his father's and his elder brother's deaths. He first married Amy MacRuairi of Garmoran, the heiress of the MacRory family, thereby consolidating the remains of Somerled's realm.
In 1354, though in exile and without control of his ancestral lands, John, the MacDougall heir, quitclaimed any rights he had over Mull to the Lord of the Isles. When Robert's son David II became king, he spent some time in English captivity; after his release, in 1357, he restored MacDougall authority over Lorn, effectively cancelling Robert's grant to the MacRory. The 1354 quitclaim, which seems to have been an attempt to ensure peace in just such an eventuality, took automatic effect, splitting Mull from Lorn and making it subject to the Lordship of the Isles.
In 1437, the Lordship was substantially expanded when Alexander, the Lord of the Isles, inherited the rule of Ross maternally. The expansion led the MacDonalds to move their centre of power from Islay to the twin castles of Aros and Ardtornish.
In 1462, the most ambitious of the Lords of the Isles, John MacDonald, struck an alliance with Edward IV of England to conquer Scotland. Civil war in England prevented this from taking effect and from being discovered until 1475, when the English court voluntarily revealed its existence. Calls for forfeiture of the Lordship naturally followed, but they were calmed when John quitclaimed most of his mainland territories. However, John's nephew launched a severe raid on Ross, but it ultimately failed. Within two years of the raid, in 1493, James IV of Scotland declared the Lordship of the Isles forfeit, transforming the realm into an intrinsic part of Scotland rather than a dependency.
Throughout this time, the descendants of the Cenél Loairn retained their identity; they were now the MacLeans. Now that John MacDonald was exiled, James IV restored the authority of the MacLeans over Mull. An earlier chief of the MacLeans had married the daughter of the first Lord of the Isles and received Duart Castle as the dowry; this now became the stronghold of MacLean control of Mull. The cadet branch of the family constructed a tower house at Moy on the southern side of Mull, while the senior branch retained Duart Castle.
Legend has it that the wreck of a Spanish galleon, laden with gold, lies somewhere in the mud at the bottom of Tobermory Bay. By some accounts, the Florencia (or Florida or San Francisco), a ship of the defeated Spanish Armada fleeing the English fleet in 1588, anchored in Tobermory to take on provisions. After a dispute over payment, the ship caught fire and the gunpowder magazine exploded, sinking the vessel. In her hold, reputedly, was £300,000 in gold bullion. Other sources claim the vessel was the San Juan de Sicilia (or San Juan de Baptista), which carried troops, not treasure. According to that account, the island's chief, Lachlan Mor Maclean, struck a deal with the Spanish commander to re-provision and refit the ship in return for military intervention on the side of the MacLeans in their feud with enemies on nearby islands. There have been numerous searches for the wreck and its rumoured treasure from the mid-17th century to the end of the 20th century. No significant treasure has been recovered in Tobermory Bay.
Following the Scottish Reformation, the MacLeans became supporters of Protestantism. By the mid-17th century, they had become promoters of conventicles, opposed to king Charles II's repudiation of the Solemn League and Covenant and supporting acts of civil disobedience. Though personally opposed to persecution of such people, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, was specifically ordered by the Scottish privy council to suppress conventicles within his lands, which included Lorn. The atmosphere of hostility soon spread to Mull, where opponents of the conventicles felt emboldened, leading to outbreaks of violence between the two religious factions.
In 1678, Campbell was specifically instructed to seize Mull and suppress both the violence and conventicles. It took Clan Campbell until 1681 to gain possession of the whole island. Campbell took charge of Duart Castle and ejected the MacLean leadership from Mull; they moved to Cairnburgh Castle in the Treshnish Islands off the north-west of Mull. Campbell's own position was somewhat undermined when he instigated Argyll's Rising against the reign of James VII. The loyalty of subsequent Campbell leaders ensured the Campbells retained possession of Duart (it was only after the Campbells sold it, and it had spent a century under other owners, that the MacLeans were able to recover it by purchase). Under Campbell pressure, shrieval authority was established under the sheriff of Argyll, which they controlled.
Following Jacobite insurrections, the Heritable Jurisdictions Act abolished comital authority in Mull and Campbell control of the Argyll sheriffdom; the Campbells could now only assert influence as landlords. Many castles that had been in the hands of the MacLeans (such as Moy) had been slighted by the Campbells or fallen into disrepair, but more comfortable homes were built nearby.
During the 18th century, the island was home to a Gaelic Bard, whom Father Charles MacDonald describes only as "The Mull Satirist." The Satirist is said to have been a vocal enemy of the Jacobite Bard Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair and to have attacked the latter in many poems that have survived. When the Jacobite poet converted from the Calvinist Church of Scotland to the Roman Catholic Church, the Mull Satirist accused him of doing so, not out of serious conviction, but to curry favour with the exiled House of Stuart.
In 1773 the island was visited by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell during their tour of the Western Islands. Farming, fishing, and burning seaweed for kelp ash (used in the manufacture of soap and glass) were the main economic activities on the island until the 19th century. Tobermory was built by the British Fisheries Society in 1788 as a planned settlement to support the fishing industry.
The Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in people being evicted to make space for sheep and the Highland Potato Famine (1846–1847) encouraged mass emigration. These factors caused the population to decline from 10,000 to less than 4,000 and then to 3,000 by the 20th Century; this had a serious impact on the economy. Despite this, several grand houses were built on Mull in the period, including Torosay Castle.
In 1889, counties were formally created in Scotland on shrieval boundaries by a dedicated Local Government Act; Mull therefore became part of the newly created County of Argyll.
The whole island became a Restricted Area during World War II. The bay at Tobermory became a naval base commanded from HMS Western Isles. The base and the Restricted Area were under Commodore (later Vice Admiral) Sir Gilbert Stephenson, whose strict discipline and ferocious temper earned him the nickname "The Terror of Tobermory". The base was used to train Escort Groups in anti-submarine warfare. 911 ships passed through the base between 1940 and 1945. Following late 20th century reforms, Mull is now part of the wider area of Argyll and Bute.
According to a July 2020 article in Country Life, "The Benmore Estate occupies 32,000 acres of the Isle of Mull" and includes Knock House, a Victorian hunting lodge where tourists can stay. Guests can book rides on the estate boat, the Benmore Lady. Much of the lodge was built by the ninth Duke of Argyll for his wife, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria; they married in 1871. Reports indicate that the Queen stayed there, as did others including Wordsworth, Keats, JM Barrie and Sir Walter Scott.
According to the 2011 Scottish census, the Isle of Mull had a usual residents population of 2,800 with 1,271 households. Including the offshore islands, the population of Mull was 2,996.
In Mull and the adjacent islands Gaelic had been the traditional language since the early Middle Ages. However, the 20th century in particular saw a reduction in the number of speakers, with a significant fall (20%) in Mull after the Second World War. This was associated with strong emigration and abandonment of the language by the younger generation. In the 1951 census only 10 people said they could not speak English.
The following decades saw the beginnings of a revival. Gaelic medium education was introduced in 1996 after a long dispute with the authorities. A Gaelic-medium unit was introduced in Salen Primary School, followed by a second unit at Bunessan Primary School; the language began to be taught in the first two years of secondary school; and Gaelic playgroups were introduced. By 2006 it was found that, though only 10% of the working-age cohort spoke or understood Gaelic, language ability at school age was much higher. There was great local variation in the number of speakers, from around 25% in Craignure (Creag an Iubhair) to 4% in Aros. It has been argued, however, that in terms of language survival, there is reason for optimism in Mull.
There is a small amount of farming, aquaculture, and fishing, and Forestry and Land Scotland has several plantations on the island. Tobermory also has one whisky distillery (Tobermory distillery) and from 2005 to 2009 had a brewery (Isle of Mull Brewing Company). Tiroran is home to the island's other distillery (Whitetail Gin) which was established as the isle's first new distillery in over 220 years in 2019.
Tourism is definitely significant. The economy began to revive when the construction of Craignure Pier in 1964 started to bring tourists. Tourism is now the mainstay of the island's economy. Ecotourism became popular from the 1990s, and the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles in 2005 became a particular ecotourist attraction. The island is one of the few places to see sea eagles; there were at least 22 pairs as of April 2020.
Isle of Mull cheese is Scottish cheddar cheese made from raw cow milk produced on the Isle of Mull.
Apart from traversing the Ross of Mull on the way to Iona, visitors typically spend time in Tobermory, visit Glengorm Castle[citation needed] and then enjoy one of the beaches. One report states that "the south-west holds more white beaches, famous for their pink granite skerries and stunning sunsets, that are also perfect for kayaking". Accommodations for tourists include self-catering holiday cottages, a few hotels, and some campsites.
Tourism was negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and into 2021. A September 2020 report stated that "The Highlands and Islands region has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to date, when compared to Scotland and the UK as a whole". The industry required short-term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions". A scheme called Island Equivalent was introduced by the Scottish government in early 2021 to financially assist hospitality and retail businesses "affected by Level 3 coronavirus restrictions". Previous schemes in 2020 included the Strategic Framework Business Fund and the Coronavirus Business Support Fund.
Tobermory – with just over a thousand people, the largest settlement on Mull – is home to the only whisky distillery on the island.
Ferry links to Mull from the mainland include:
The most-used ferry, from Oban to Craignure (approx. 45 minutes),
Kilchoan to Tobermory (approx. 35 minutes)
Lochaline to Fishnish (approx. 15 minutes).
Advance bookings are not required for the Kilchoan or Fishnish ferries; access to those two ferry terminals on the mainland side is via single-track roads.
There are also ferry links from Fionnphort on Mull to the neighbouring island of Iona and from Oskamull to Ulva. In past years there were direct sailings to Oban (calling at Drimnin, Salen, Lochaline, and Craignure), and to Barra, Coll, and Tiree from Tobermory. During the summer there was also a sailing to Staffa and Iona from Oban that called at Tobermory.
Buses
Buses are operated by West Coast Motors Ltd. There are routes from Tobermory to Calgary via Dervaig (Service 494), Tobermory to Craignure via Salen (Service 495), and Craignure to Fionnphort via Bunessan (Service 496). Limited services operate to Lochbuie and Gruline. West Coast Motors also provide guided tours around Mull, Iona, and Staffa, including boat transfers from Oban.
A minibus service also operates seasonally from Craignure to Duart Castle.
There is also a community-run service from Calgary to Salen via Ulva Ferry.
There is a landing strip for private light aircraft near Salen. There was a seaplane that linked Tobermory with Glasgow and Oban. The regular scheduled service terminated in 2009. Loganair operated a scheduled service to Glasgow in the 1960s from Glenforsa airfield, a 780-metre-long (2,560 ft) grass airstrip constructed by the Royal Engineers in 1965 near Salen. The airstrip has been operated since 2014 by Brendan and Allison Walsh, owners of the adjacent Glenforsa Hotel.
Tourist railway
The Isle of Mull Railway ran from Craignure to Torosay Castle but closed in 2011.
There is one secondary school on the island (Tobermory High School) and six primary schools. Salen Primary School has a Gaelic medium education unit. Secondary pupils (age 11–18) from Iona, Bunessan and Fionnphort in the south-west attend Oban High School, staying in an Oban hostel from Monday to Thursday.
Mull was connected to the mainland by a submarine telegraph cable between Oban and Grass Point in 1871. There were telegraph offices at Tobermory, Dervaig, Calgary, Craignure, Pennyghael, Tiroran, Fionnphort, Bunessan, and Iona.
The Post Office built an experimental wireless telegraph station on Meall an Inbhire near Tobermory in 1892.
In 2014, fibre optic cables for support of high speed internet were laid between Kilchoan (in Ardnamurchan) and Tobermory and between Dunstaffnage (near Oban) and Torosay. In February 2015 additional cables were laid underground between Tobermory and Torosay to complete the link.
AM radio, broadcast from Oban, came to the island in 1930 and television in 1954. New AM radio and UHF television transmitters were constructed on Druim Mòr, one mile (1.6 km) west of Torosay Castle, in 1978. Digital transmissions commenced on 15 November 1998 and analogue transmissions ceased on 27 October 2010. The digital transmitters have 22 relays on Mull, surrounding islands, and parts of the mainland, collectively the Torosay Transmitter Group.
Mull Theatre is a professional theatre company based in a 2008 theatre production centre on the outskirts of Tobermory. The company commissions plays, tours throughout Scotland and beyond, and runs an education and outreach programme. It started at the "Mull Little Theatre" at Dervaig in 1966 and was the "Smallest Professional Theatre in the World" according to the Guinness World Records. The National Theatre of Scotland were in residence at the Mull Theatre in April 2009.
An Tobar ("The Well"), based in Tobermory, is the only publicly funded multidisciplinary arts centre in Argyll. Established in 1997, it is a centre for visual arts, crafts and music. With effect from 1 April 2013, An Tobar and the Mull Theatre were brought together as Comar.
The Isle of Mull is a popular destination for naturalists and photographers for seeing some of Britain's more elusive species.
Mull has over 800 species of vascular plant (684 native and 171 naturalised) including 33 species of fern, at least 18 species of orchid and 22 native species of tree. There are about 700 species of lichen, 571 liverworts and mosses, and 247 marine algae (seaweeds), making a total of 2,388 species of plant recorded from the island. In addition, more than 2,000 species of fungi have been recorded on Mull: Dennis and Watling write, "When one speaks of the Inner Hebridean fungi one is referring to the floras of Mull and Rhum".
The island has 261 different bird species, including the white-tailed eagle, which was reintroduced to the nearby island of Rùm and migrated to Mull, where it now has a stronghold. Basking sharks, minke whales, porpoises, and dolphins are among the sea life nearby.
The island is home to a population of otters that live in coastal habitat, hunting during the day. The Mull Otter Group was established for the conservation needs of otters on the Isle of Mull.
The island also has several birds of prey, such as hen harriers, golden eagles, and short eared owls, all difficult species to see throughout the rest of the UK. Pine martens have also recently become established on Mull; based on sighting records and from resulting modelling exercises, it is believed the species arrived in 2004 through accidental transportation on timber boats from the mainland. It is unlikely that pine martens have ever been native to the Isle of Mull.
The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust was established in 1994 and is a marine conservation charity that takes action through community based research and education. The Trust carries out long-term monitoring programmes on cetaceans in the Hebrides, by collating sightings reported by the public and running live-aboard research expeditions on their sailing yacht, Silurian. The Trust covers the west coast of Scotland, and is based in Tobermory, where it has its main office, Discovery Centre and the mooring of their research vessel.
There are also a number of invasive species on the island, including plant species such as Japanese knotweed and animals such as feral cats and American mink that are believed to be causing damage to the indigenous species populations through competition and predation.
Lochdon Free Church, built in 1852
The Tour of Mull is a road-closing rally around the island every October. It has been sponsored since 2005 by Tunnock's, the Lanarkshire teacake and biscuit manufacturer. A five-year sponsorship deal with Beatson's Building Supplies started in 2015.
There are several shipwrecks around the shores that offer scuba diving.
There is an Isle of Mull Cycling Club.
The Cross at the Castle cyclocross event is held annually at Glengorm Castle near Tobermory and features the World Santacross Championships and the Scottish Singlespeed Cylocross Championships.
Mull Runners organise a half marathon and 10K run each August between Craignure and Salen.
Rugby is played at Garmony (beside the Craignure to Salen road 6+1⁄2 mi or 10.5 km north of Craignure). The Mull Rugby 7s Competition takes place annually in May at The Isle of Mull R.F.C's rugby club.
There are golf courses at Tobermory (Erray Park), Craignure (beside the Craignure to Salen road 1 mi or 1.5 km north of Craignure) and on Iona.
Mull Highland Games are held each July in the grounds of Tobermory Golf Club (Erray Park). Events include Heavy Weights, Light Field, and Highland Dance.
The swimming pool at the Isle of Mull Hotel, Craignure is open to the paying public.
Tobermory has some free tennis courts.
Football is played, mainly in the south end. Bunessan F.C. play a number of games during the summer, most notably against arch rivals Iona FC, the island just off the south west end. Bunessan F.C. also hold an annual 5-a-side tournament in July.
Following research and community consultation in 1996/97, a development trust was created to identify key goals for the communities of Mull and Iona. Mull & Iona Community Trust was formed in 1997 and published a "Community Regeneration Strategy" for the islands. They purchased the only butcher's shop on the island (closed February 2010), created a community-run Countryside Ranger service, instigated various recycling initiatives, and provide a fundraising and training consultancy.
Martyn Bennett (1971–2005), Canadian-Scottish musician, lived on Mull, buried in Calgary Bay cemetery
Peter Bonetti, (1941–2020), English footballer (goalkeeper)
Major General Colin Gubbins, head of Special Operations Executive during World War II
Duncan Livingstone (1877–1964) Scottish Gaelic Bard, born at Torloisk, emigrated to South Africa in 1903. Continued to write Gaelic verse in Pretoria until his death.
Agnes Maxwell MacLeod (1783–1879) poet and minister's wife
Colin MacIntyre (b. 1971), Scottish musician who frequently goes under the name "Mull Historical Society"
Margaret McKellar (1861–1941), medical missionary
John McLean (1799–1890), Canadian-Scottish explorer and one of the chief traders of the Hudson's Bay Company
Norman Maclean (1902–1990), acclaimed Scottish-American author from Missoula, Montana, who explored the alcoholism and gambling addictions of his ancestors, Scottish Gaelic-speaking Presbyterians on the Isle, in the 1976 novella A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Mary Macleod, 17th-century poet said to have been banished to Mull
Lachlan Macquarie, (1762–1824), Governor of New South Wales, born on the nearby island of Ulva[
(Hand-drawn watercolor-crayon transfer on paper) (BEST VIEWED LARGE)
(During the course of my career in non-profit quality control, I smoked marijuana every day for 29 of the past 42 years. Marijuana can be a good medicine, and I found that it often inspired me.
My favorite imported kinds of marijuana were Punta Roja Colombian, "Thai sticks", and Mexican from Oaxaca.
I also enjoyed some of the hashish that came from Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Nepal. The hashoil I smoked that came from Morocco greatly lifted my spirits and provided unique insight. "Bubble Hash" made in Berkeley gave me colorful visions.
I even quaffed Hi-Brew Beer [early 1980s marijuana/alcohol beverage].
[In the 1970s I trimmed MANY pounds of marijuana. One of my associates, a taxi driver who claimed that he had “rolled so many joints I don’t have any fingerprints left” was so impressed that he borrowed my scissors and had them plated with gold.]
['Miron had stolen a big pile of wedding invitations... and we would use them to make filters for joints."
---Etgar Keret, translated from the Hebrew by Miriam Shlesinger and Sondra Silverston, in his 2002 collection of short stories THE NIMROD FLIPOUT. When I was arrested in 1985 the police seized a small box of filters from me that I had made by cutting some of my business cards into strips. I called them "jay-spacers" and had labeled the box. In 1986 when I went in front of the parole board, they (not knowing what a "jay-spacer" is) made a big deal out of the filters. "You had almost a hundred jay-spacers!" they said very accusingly...]
Surfing on a toke--and when the bowl of the pipe looks like the Grand Canyon, I know I've almost had enough...
[Willie Nelson won 10 Grammy awards, and has appeared in 37 movies and TV shows. More than 40 million copies of his more than 100 albums have been sold. He has smoked marijuana for MANY years. Nelson is an outspoken advocate for the drug and has been arrested several times for possession of marijuana. He was arrested in 2006 for possessing marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms. His latest song is titled "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die".
---from an Associated Press news report, 4.21. 2012.]
["I smoke two joints in the morning
I smoke two joints at night
I smoke two joints in the afternoon
It makes me feel all right"
"I smoke two joints in time of peace
And two in time of war
I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints
And then I smoke two more"
---Chris Kay and Michael Kay, in their 1983 song "Smoke Two Joints", which was recorded by The Toyes.]
["Things Get Grounded When There's Chemistry"
"Cannabis Connects"
"Life In Color" (over a rainbow of colors)
---from a billboard advertisement for cannabis oil cartridges, edibles, and tinctures made by a company named Chemistry. I saw the billboard, which has a lavender background and depicts two women on a rug smiling at each other, on Telegraph Avenue at 63rd street in Oakland, California in June 2019.]
[The first cannabis label that I remember seeing (printed in black ink on blue paper) was "STONY RIDGE" brand marijuana. It was on a one-pound bag of American-grown product that I obtained from Richard Krech in 1972.]
["One toke over the line sweet Jesus
One toke over the line"
"Waitin' for the train that goes home sweet Mary
Hopin' that the train is on time
Sittin' downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line"
---Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley, in their 1970 song "One Toke Over The Line". Vice President Spiro Agnew did not like the song and called it "subversive". After being investigated on suspicion of conspiracy, bribery, extortion, and tax fraud, Agnew was convicted of felony tax evasion and forced to resign.]
["He said 'drugs make you too pleased with everything.'"
---Sarah Seiter, associate curator of Natural Sciences at the Oakland Museum of California, quoting David Hockney on the connection between drugs and creativity. Seiter was quoted by Paul Kilduff in an interview about a current show, "Altered State: Marijuana in California". The East Bay Monthly, July 2016 issue.
I think I somewhat understand what Hockney said, and I think there is truth in his statement. I also think that I often find great value and much joy in seeing beauty in both the wheat AND the chaff!]
Here is a list of some of the cannabis products I have used that were obtained from marijuana stores in the San Francisco bay area. [From labels I saved.]
Blueberry
Tsunami
Outdoor Rom
Trainwreck
Orange Hill Special
Red Widow
Smoothelove
Dutch Passionkush
Northern Green
Spice
Nor Kali Black Spice
Sensi Star
Organic Main Wreck
Sour Diesel ["22.73% THC" from "Elyon" 2019]
Ice Ice
Fruity Bliss
Organic Remedy
NYC Diesel
S1-5
Organic Super Silver Haze
Morning Star
Snow Cap
Sun Grown Purple OG
Jedi
Sweet Nightmare
Kosher Strawberries
Dirty Little Pig
Durbin Poison
Oracle
Space Cowboy
Bubble Haze
White Widow
Mountain Kick
Snow White
Sun Grown Diesel
Yumbolt
Co-op
Organic Flo
Candyland
Silvercratic
Sun Grown Chocolope
Pineapple Kush
Organic Purple Haze
Goo-5
Nor Kali Kaui Kola
Dynomite
Nor Kali Buddha's Haze
Old Grand Huck
Grape Ape
Sour Diesel Lemon
Buddha's Sister
Super Jack
Organic Rom Thai
Third Eye
Pink Champagne
World Wide Widow
Afgootiva
Greased Lightning
Outdoor Organic Humboldt
Balance
Herijuana
Cherry Pie
Peak 19
Organic Mazar
Outdoor Train Crossing
Organic Shaman
Super Star
Rhino
Burmese
Double Dream
Jelly
Caramel
Kahuna
Shiva's Tears
Organic A-10
Purple Burmese
Lemon Skunk x Royal Orange
Mendo Blendo
The Sativa
Organic Hawaiian Snow
Purple Kush Domina
Organic Ultra Skunk
Sage 'n' Sour
Outdoor Organic Kam
Tree-W
Da Kind
Jack Frost
Pot O' Gold
Shiva Afghani
Gorilla's Mist
Strawberry Cough
Sativa 2
Organic Jane
Organic Purple Way
Outdoor Organic Bonkers
Organic Purps
Outdoor Organic Goo
Juicy Fruit
Blue Dream
Mind Eraser
Pearly Baker
Lavender Goo
Titan OG
White Russian
Sonoma Coma
Organic Sticky Nurple
MK Ultra
Outdoor Organic Trainwreck x White Widow
Organic Sweetleaf
Organic Purple Ice
Jack Herer
God's Gift
Outdoor Organic Purple Mendo
Organic Ogre
Organic Trance
William's Wonder x Northern Lights
Blue Ogre
Organic Lamb's Bread
Champagne
Black Bunanna
Super Chunk
Organic Rom Cross
Sun Grown Goji Jack
Rom Hottie
Organic Slider
Animal Cookies
Sunshine Grown Green Dragon
El Bueno
Jakki
Organic Time Warp
Durban Dream
Organic Mist
Cookie Pie
Mantanuska TF
Pineapple Trainwreck
Organic Mantanuska Mist
Organic Mothership
Traincrash
Swazi Haze
Golden Goo
Organic Trance
Jack'l Berry
Outdoor Mysty
Purple Peak 19
AK-47
Sage
Motor City
Purple Erkel
Crazy Hazy
Bright Star
Green Crack
Power Plant
Organic Cindy 99
Skunk #2
Organic Bonana
Outdoor Organic Hash Plant
Baby Blues
Cat Piss
Mr. Nice (G 13 x Hash Plant)
Girl Scout Cookie
Outdoor Organic Blue Dot
Sour Daze
Thin Mint
Grand Daddy Purple
Spicy Jack
Outdoor Organic Pure Rezin
Old Mother Sativa
Master Yoda Kush
Mountain Girl
Green Ribbon
Super Wreck
Sapphire Star
Bombshell
Also Known As
Pea Soup
Pirate's Kush
Leda Una
Northern Lights x Big Bud
All Star Organic Oaktown Wreck
Animal Punch
Humboldt OG ["17.76% THC" hybrid pre-roll. Cultivator: "Grouse Mountain Green" in Humboldt County, California. Distributor: "Emerald Family Farms" 2019]
Ghost OG ["22.49% THC .05% CBD" hybrid "Manufactured and distributed by Flora California" from "Sessions Supply Co." pre-roll]
Wedding Cuvee ["21.60% THC .05% CBD" hybrid "Manufactured and distributed by Flora California" from "Sessions Supply Co." "Time For Blast Off" (On package containing 3.5 grams) 2019]
Jungle Glue ["Krush Kingz" pre-roll by "Berkeley Pharmz" 2019]
Orange Mango ["19.8% THC" "Distributed by Black Oak Gallery" 2019]
Ziablo [Grown by IC Collective.] [2019] [The jars containing 3.5 grams feature one of my favorite labels, a very colorful skeleton-skull!]
Now and Laters ["20.51% THC" "Sativa" Grown in Shasta County, California, and distributed by Ember Valley, 2019.]
Ghost Mints ["23.31% THC, 0.9% CBD". "...may be habit forming." "This product may be unlawful outside of Washington State." from "Green Fire Production, Inc."]
Extreme Jack [16.49% THC "even hybrid" "greenhouse-grown" "Warning: This product can expose you to chemicals including arsenic, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer. For more information, go to www.p65warnings.ca.gov" from Foxworthy Farms, 2019.]
Blackout ["Inspire featuring limonene 7.84% THC, 8.05% CBD. From Abatin Farms, 2018]
Cherry Vortex [Sativa-dominant."17.46% THC". From Headwaters. Source: UPI Supply Systems, Inc. Origin: Carpenteria, CA. Packaged 12. 14. 2018. Expiration date: 12. 13. 2019. "WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive harm."]
Wedding Cake ["14.36% THC" pre-roll from "Humboldt Growers". 2019] [Also: from Marley Natural, "grown in Trinity County, California." "16.3% THC" 2019] [Also: "from Sublime, in Oakland, California." "Fuzzies" brand pre-roll, "infused with cannabis concentrate, kief, and terpenes" "25% THC and 1% CBD" 2019]
Blueberry Muffin ["15.94% THC" pre-roll from "Humboldt County Indoor". Harvested 12.1. 2018]
Raspberry Diesel ["18.2% THC", grown by "Fleur d'elite"]
Banjo [hybrid pre-roll from "Just Chief"]
Banjo [2 gram bottle from "Coastal Sun Farm". Package date: 8.28. 2019. "26% THC. 30.9% total cannabinoids". "Consciously Grown." "Healthy Plants Heal Humans".]
Wifi43 [pre-roll from State Flower Cannabis Company, San Francisco 2019 "19.63% THC"]
Dolato [hybrid pre-roll from "Just Chief"]
Miss U.S.A. [1 gram all flower Indica pre-roll from Lowell Smokes. 18% THC. In a glass tube. "Test: Cannasafe 01. 19. 19"]
Royal Blend ["Krush Kings" brand pre-roll from "Industry Standard Group, Inc." 18.74% THC "hybrid-indica" "Your Royal Highness"]
San Fernando Valley OG ["The Weed Brand pre-roll. 1 gram."]
Shark Shock ["The Weed Brand pre-roll. 1 gram." "grown by Caliber." "Harvested 4.20. 2019." "19.5% total cannabinoids"]
Gelato 45 [The Weed Brand preroll. Harvest date: 7.23. 2018. Packed: 9.24. 2018. "Best Buy": 7.23. 2019. 16.9% THC. 0.26% CBD.]
Banana Bubble [1 gram pre-roll. 160 mg THC. Manufactured by Marigold. Packaged in Santa Rosa, California. 9.28. 2018. "Cultivation with a conscience"]
Pure Kush [Indica. preroll. 133 mg THC. "Harvested 7.6. 2018. Best by 10.3. 2019."]
Grizzly Bones [Hybrid. 1 gram preroll. Indoor-grown. 155 mg THC. "Grown by Grizzly Peak Farms."]
"Lifted" brand .7 gm "House Cone Fortified with Hash Oil"]
Chocolate Hashberry [Grown in downtown Los Angeles. "Manufactured by Purple Heart Compassionate, Inc."]
Orange Citron ["19.19% THC, 0.02% CBD" "Packaged 4.24. 2019" from "Molecular Farms" in California.]
El Fuego [from "Molecular Farms]
Key Lime Pie ["Humboldt Farms" "Premium Flower-Hybrid" "15.2% THC, 0.00% CBD" "Harvested on July 2018, Packaged on July 2018" "One-Eighth Ounce" in a clear glass jar with a stopper made of wood. The label has a 1" x 2" colorful detailed image of tall trees and small flowers and a small white Volkswagen van. Printed with metallic ink. After smoking some Key Lime Pie I decided that, in my opinion, this extremely appealing image is the best illustration I have seen on a cannabis label.]
Taffie [This medical cannabis strain is sold in cork-lined light-proof well-labeled tins, each containing 5 joints. The tins come sealed in a bag that contains a Boveda 2-way humidity control packet. This product is distributed by Humboldt Legends, and is labeled Steelhead Sativa. Organically grown in sunlight and harvested by hand. The label has the name (and a copy of the handwritten signature) of the person who grew the marijuana (Scott Davies). Also the batch number and the percentages of THC (19.5%) and CBD (0.0%). The label on the back of the tin states that the group of cultivators who call themselves "Humboldt Legends" have been growing marijuana for "forty years". A warning note states that marijuana is a “Schedule 1 controlled substance”. And that “Smoking this product will expose you and those in your immediate vicinity to marijuana smoke...known to the State of California to cause cancer.” “Keep out of reach of children and animals.” "This product may impair the ability to drive or operate machinery." Obtained in the San Francisco bay area, 2017. (After I smoked some of this marijuana in a dark room, I closed my eyes and saw beautiful hallucinations that were extremely complex, with uniquely vivid colors. When I opened my eyes I had a VERY strong urge to write poetry.)]
Juicee Fruit ["bud-only pre-roll. 1 gram. Cultivated 7.28.18. Packaged 7.16.18. Batch ID 6-15-18-JF.] THC 21.14%. 211.4 mg/serving. 0mg CBD/serving V.H.H.C. Juicy Fruit $9.99+Tax" Seven Leaves brand, packaged in black plastic child-proof tube]
"Top Shelf Rainbow Diesel Minis [Sativa]" [small joints]
"Top Shelf Hell OG Minis [Indica]" [small joints]
"Mericanna" hybrid [small joint] "16.79% THC" [2018]
"Pacific Remedy Shatter joint, hand-rolled in California" "Blue Russian flower, Kosher Kush, BHO Snake" "Indica-dominant" [2017]
"Heshies" brand pre-rolls "Selfies" [small joints] [2019]
"Sour Diesel X Sherbet" [Hybrid pre-roll. 19.97% THC.] [2019] [From Pacific Sunset.]
"Sublime King Fuzzies", pre-roll terpene-enhanced "top shelf bud, CO2 wax/kief", "Indica OG Kush" "THC 253 mg". [2017]
Trix Bubble [concentrate]
"Shiva Crystals" [hashish]
"Biscotti" [Indica] [Half gram THC pods, for vaping.] [88.24% THC.] [2019] [From STIIIZY. Made by Ironworks Collective.]
"Yogi Berries" ["Refined raw resin. 81.99% THC."] ["Indica hybrid" cartridge made by "Raw Garden". 2019]
"Skydoggie" ["Refined raw resin 83.33% THC 0.2% CBD] ["Indica" cartridge made by "Raw Garden" 2019]
"Lemon Haze" [Distilled CO2 extract.] ["90.63% THC plus 1.64% CBD".] [Made by "Clear Day". 2019]
"Mendo Breath" [CO2- extracted cannabis oil. 78.2% THC.] [From by Marley Natural.] [2019]
"Mango Kush" [Cannabinoid extract plus terpene blend cartridge] [2019] [Made by "Pure Extracts".]
"Select" brand "Mimosa" "cannabis oil vape cartridge" [125 doses per cartridge] 3.5 mg THC per dose. [from the "Select" brand label: "Curating the Science of Feeling" [2018]
Cali Gold H20 [extracted cannabis resin]
"Emerald Dream" ["Single Origin"] [Trinity County, CA] [58% THC] cannabis oil extracted with CO2 [cartridge for use with "Highlighter" vapor pen]
Garlic Cookies [Raw Zen solvent-less cannabis extract. 72.45% THC. One gram in a small glass jar.] [2019]
"Chemdawg" ["terpene rich distillate" by Bakked. 81% THC. 1.14% CBD.]
"XJ-13" [distillate. 88.08% THC. ]
"Granddaddy Purple" ["Flavored Cannabis Extract" cartridge, for vaping, by "Naked Extracts"] ["Indica] ["Ingredients: Cannabis Extract, Non-Cannabis Terpene Blend, Natural Flavors"] [2019]
"Green Crack" [distillate. 88.13% THC.]
"Pineapple Express" [THC oil by ScrewCartz.]
"hybrid cannabis" from Space Monkey Meds.
Chemdawg + Gelato "Sativa cannabis flowers" distributed in 2019 by "Papa's Herb", 3.5 grams in a lightproof ziplock bag.
"Green Crack" cannabis flowers bought at High Fidelity, a marijuana store next to Amoeba Music on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, several blocks from the University of California campus. "Grown by: Blue Nose. Harvested: 10.18. 2018. THC: 16.42%." High Fidelity motto: "Your supreme source for herbal inspiration and higher education."
(After smoking this marijuana, I ate a bag of HIPPEAS brand Bohemian Barbecue Flavor organic chickpea puffs. "Store in a dry and, like, totally cool place.")
("UC Berkeley synthetic biologists have engineered brewer's yeast to produce marijuana's main ingredients--mind-altering THC and non-psychoactive CBD--as well as novel cannabinoids not found in the plant itself. Feeding only on sugar, the yeast are an easy and cheap way to produce pure cannabinoids that today are costly to extract from the buds of the marijuana plant..."
---Robert Sanders, "Yeast Produce Low-Cost High-Quality Cannabinoids", news.berkeley.edu, 2.27. 2019).
"THC-Indica" transdermal patch 18.4 mg THC per patch. By Mary's Medicinals. [Made: 2.4. 2019. Expires: 2.4. 2021.] I have also tried the CBD version.
"Releaf Patch" Transdermal patch by Papa & Barkley. "18.56 mg THC plus 18.61 mg CBD" Mfg. date: 7.15. 2019 Best by date: 8.5. 2020
[A few times I have gone for months without smoking marijuana, and then smoked a potent joint. On more than one such occasion I have experienced intense fearful disorientation, acute paranoia, and horrible physical distress including nausea and a sudden loss of consciousness. CAUTION IS ESSENTIAL!]
I have eaten a variety of cannabis preparations sold at marijuana stores in Berkeley, including:
"Butter Brothers" brand Brownies, Phat Mints, Blackberry Streusel, Ginger Snaps, Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Peanut Butter Cookies.
"Pura Vida" brand Ocean Spray, Happy Trails, Chocolate Jubilee, and Chocolate Chip Protein Bar.
"Ganja Candy" brand Caramel, Blackberry, and Dr. Pepper.
"Tainted" brand Thin Mints
"Dank" candy
"420 Grand" candy
HealTHCare "Private Reserve OG" [cannabis tincture in vegetable glycerin base]
"Double-Strength Medi Pills" [cannabis oil capsules]
"Shiva Candy" [hashish candy]
"Auntie Dolore's Medical Cannabis Glazed Pecans"
"Hashey's 200 mg Indica Bar" [made with dark chocolate In Santa Cruz]
"Rhino Pellet" [tiny cookie]
"Potlava" [vegan cannabis baklava]
"Enjoyable Edibles" brand cannabis-infused Snickerdoodle cookies. ["10.8 mg THC" per cookie. Each package contains 10 cookies. Made with "full-spectrum cannabis extract" by Ironworks Collective. 2019]
"Habit" brand "Sparkling Pineapple Cooler". 10 doses of THC in each 12.6 fl. oz. bottle. Made in Los Angeles by Canna Healthcare, Inc.
"Orange Zest Awakening Mints" [sublingual 10 mg THC tablets]
"Breez" brand mints [sublingual 5 mg THC tablets]
"Kiva" brand Blackberry Dark Chocolate [cannabis oil candy]
"Black Cherry Gummi" [cannabis oil candy]
"Original PLUS Super Potent Hybrid Cannabis-Infused Gummies" ["20 mg THC"]
"PureCure Sativa Strips" [preparation for oral use] [from the label: "EXTREMELY STRONG!"]
"Dr. Norm's Extra Strength medical cannabis cookie" "Chocolate Chip Therapy" 25 mg THC per cookie. hybrid.
"Full Extract Cannabis Oil" [Indica-dominant strain, for oral use. Full-plant extracted with ethyl alcohol. Dated 12.1. 2015 and provided in a 3 milliliter oral syringe marked for 0.1 milliliter doses. "THC 37.05%"]
Stokes brand "Mint Micros" [Sativa-strain] [small tablets, each containing 5 mg of cannabis extract] [I have used 2 different flavors: Mint and Watermelon]
OMedibles brand "Tree Hugger Medical Cannabis Cinnamon Maple" [high CBD extract mixed with nuts and spices]
Utopia Farms brand "Medical Cannabis Raspberry Macaroons"
"Cafe Attitude THCoffee" 40 mg THC per 8 oz. bottle ["70% Sativa, 30% Indica"]
"Evil Aunt Emily's Seriously Psychotic Suckers" [cannabis oil candy])
"Sprig" brand citrus soda containing 45 mg THC per can. Made in California. [2017]
"Petra" brand "Moroccan mint"-flavored medical cannabis tablets, each containing 2.5 mg THC plus matcha tea. Produced in 2017 by Kiva, a not-for-profit collective. Lab tested by CW Analytical. "A micro-dosed blend." Packaged in tins containing 42 tablets.
("CW uses its best efforts to deliver high-quality results and to verify that the data contained therein are based on sound scientific judgement. However, CW makes no warranties or claims to that effect and further shall not be liable for any damage or misrepresentation that may result from the use or misuse of this data in any way."
---from a disclaimer issued by CW Analytical. [found outside of a warehouse in Berkeley in 2019.]
"KushyPunch" brand plum flavor Cannabis Indica gummies. Each gummy contains 10 mg THC + 0.1 mg CBD + 0.8 gm sugar. "Feel the power of the punch"
"OmEdibles" brand Sour Apple flavor cannabis gummies. Each gummy contains 10 mg THC. Distributed in plastic boxes containing 6 gummies each.
"OmEdibles" brand Lychee Blossom flavor cannabis gummies, packaged the same as the above.
"CuriouslyCannabis" brand "Rayne Drops" berry, orange, and lemon flavor cannabis pastilles. Each pastille contains 5 mg THC. Distributed in tins containing 20 pastilles each.
"Emerald Sky" brand Alpine Strawberry cannabis-infused licorice. 10 mg THC doses of Cannabis Sativa. 10 doses per container.
Kanha "Enhanced Nanomolecular Gummies" made from hybrid cannabis 10 mg THC in each "Blueberry Blast"-flavored dose. 2019.
"Cannabis-Infused" organic microwave popcorn, 44.5 gram pop-up bag containing 10 mg THC and less than 2 mg CBD. Made in Berkeley in 2019 by "Type 7 Manufacturing, Inc". "Movie Night's New Best Friend".
"Somatik" brand "Sparks" cannabis-infused chocolate coffee beans. 3 mg THC per bean. 25 beans per container. '"Lovingly made by A Tribe of Us Collective". "Turn Your Magic On".
"Smokiez Edibles" brand Cannabis Infused Watermelon Fruit Chews. 10 mg THC per piece.
"Smokiez Edibles" brand Cannabis Infused Peach Fruit Chews. 10 mg THC per piece.
"Smokiez Edibles" brand Cannabis Infused Green Apple Fruit Chews. 10 mg THC per piece.
Kaneh Co. brand Mango Chile fruit jellies. 5 mg THC per serving. Manufactured by Xtracta.
Distribution, Inc. Made and packaged 3.6. 2019. Best by 7.6. 2019. Tested 3.15. 2019 by Infinite Chemical Analysis.
Kaneh Co. brand Raspbery Lime fruit jellies. 5 mg THC per serving.
"Edible Cannabis Oil" batch 030119-MUT-5-01 [4.30. 2019] by CalVape Collective.
"MC Farma" brand "Full Spectrum Oil" capsules "THC 90 + THCV" ["THC 80.11 mg + CBD 20.35 mg + THCV 29.09 mg + CBG 2.98 mg" per capsule. Cannabinoids, lipids, fats, and terpenes remain in full spectrum extraction, which "enhances efficacy and is known as the 'entourage' effect." Each package contains 10 capsules. Manufactured in 2020 in Marin County, California.]
[It is not uncommon for people to have EXTREMELY negative experiences after they have eaten too much of a product containing cannabis. CAUTION IS ESSENTIAL!])
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SALES OF MARIJUANA AT STORES IN BERKELEY:
I have seen marijuana contaminated by toxic insecticides that was purchased from (city-approved) marijuana stores in Berkeley. I have seen marijuana contaminated with other toxic chemicals that was purchased from marijuana stores in Berkeley. I have seen marijuana contaminated with toxic mold that was purchased at marijuana stores in Berkeley. As of this writing, there are no enforced standards that designate who may or may not be marijuana grower-sellers in the city of Berkeley. These for-profit privately-owned stores charge an obscenely high price for their questionable products. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT MARIJUANA CAN BE ONE OF THE VERY BEST MEDICINES IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!! (Depending upon the type and dose of marijuana, the route of administration, and the set and setting in which it is used.) BUT BEWARE: Greedy and/or stupid capitalists selling untested products grown by greedy and/or stupid amateurs ARE NOT BEHAVING IN A RESPONSIBLE MANNER!
("...marijuana is not legal."
---Ed Rosenthal, interviewed by Paul Kilduff, The Monthly, December 2014.)
("Indeed, positive hits for pathogenic mold are already changing grower operations. 'You smoke ten random samples of cannabis and you've most likely smoked aspergillus [mold],' said Dave, one of the lab's two founders. 'It's in there, often at unacceptable levels. Now it's up to the industry to respond. We also are not in a position where we want to make enemies and piss people off. We want to see it happen in the best way for the movement and the industry to kind of just naturally evolve.'
While the distributed nature of California's cannabis supply network obviously benefits mom-and-pop growers, it doesn't encourage quality assurance. Consequently, Dave and his peers believe that some pot consumers are in danger.
'It's expensive to test every single thing that comes through the door — that's the price you pay with a decentralized supply system,' Dave said. 'But that's what you've got. You've got five pounds coming from here and two from there and one individual. I mean, a dog walks in the grow room, and wags its tail — anything can be coming off that dog's tail. It's gross. Fertilizers with E. coli. Compost teas that they don't make right, anaerobic tea that has elevated levels of E. coli and salmonella...There's no way that this is sustainable. All it takes is one story of immune-compromised people dying from aspergillus infection. The myth that cannabis hasn't killed a single person in 3,000 years is allowed to go on. Well, it's not cannabis that kills people, it's all the shit that's in it.'
[From "The Manhattan Project of Marijuana", David Downs, the East Bay Express, 3.4. 2009.])
(Steep Hill Lab says eighty-five percent of the medical marijuana samples it tests "show traces of mold".
---Peter Hecht, "Pot Lab Fills Need for Oversight", the Sacramento Bee, 4.6. 2010. The owners of Steep Hill Lab in Oakland California [which is NOT a federally-certified laboratory] are extremely in favor of medical marijuana...)
("We find e.coli in hash. We're seeing pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacteria that's found in filth."
---Robert Martin, of the Association of California Cannabis Labs. Martin was quoted by David Downs in the East Bay Express, 4.11. 2012.)
("It's a nasty little secret in the medical marijuana world that many growers spray their plants liberally with pesticides..."
---Robert Gammon, the East Bay Express, 7.28. 2010.)
(In places like Berkeley in 2018, where cannabis production is encouraged, much cannabis waste is generated. Some of the waste is toxic if consumed. Moldy marijuana, marijuana contaminated with chemicals, contaminated hashish, and contaminated cannabis concentrates do not seem to be rare. Some homeless people, alcohol addicts, and methamphetamine addicts find these sometimes poisonous contaminated cannabis products in garbage containers and sell them on the streets...)
("A 2015 study published in The Journal of Toxicological Sciences found that more than 80 percent of the concentrate samples were contaminated by residual solvents."
"In the same 2015 study, pesticides were detected in one-third of the concentrate samples."
---Kathleen Richards, The East Bay Express, 3.21. 2018, in an article about vaping cannabis.)
("...the true danger in untested cannabis comes from the potential pathogens--pseudomonas, aspergillis, and E. coli are routinely found by our laboratory [CW Analytical]."
---David Egerton, in a letter to the editor of the East Bay Express, 7.18. 2012.)
("...Anresco Laboratories conducted tests on all of the cannabis featured at the HempCon Festival held in San Francisco in August 2017. The San Francisco-based laboratory discovered that 80 percent of the cannabis at the festival was contaminated with unhealthy levels of solvents, pesticides, molds, fungus, or various bacteria."
---John Geluardi, East Bay Express, 9.20. 2017.)
(Over the decades, I have seen MANY careless and ignorant people with hands contaminated by perfume, cologne, cosmetics, grease, oils [and a number of other toxic substances] use their fingers to prepare marijuana for smoking. I am dismayed by the amount of marijuana I have had to throw away because of toxic substances that stupid and/or careless people have allowed marijuana to come into contact with!)
("Illegal Vapes are Killing People. Blame the 'Legal Market'"
---title of an article by Dan Mitchell, 9.11. 2019, East Bay Express. This San Francisco bay area newspaper is extremely pro-marijuana.
"Legal cannabis has created a market for manufactured products like vapes and gummies. If not for that legal market, there would likely be far fewer pirates out there making what look like legal vapes--complete with legit-looking packaging--but were actually made half-assedly by random cretins. When it comes to vapes, half-assed production can mean illness and death."
There is a full color ad for the Magnolia dispensary in Oakland on the same page as the article. "Dab Bar and Vape Lounge Open 7 Days 9AM--9PM".)
("People like to make poison. If you don't understand this, you will never understand anything."
---Margaret Atwood, in a short story, quoted by Jia Tolentino in her review of Atwood's 2019 novel THE TESTAMENTS, a sequel to THE HANDMAID'S TALE. The review was in the 9.16. 2019 issue of The New Yorker.)
("Mycobutanil...was found in a product recently recalled by Mettrum Ltd., a Toronto-based medical marijuana company."
Mycobutanil, used to control mildew, is said to emit hydrogen cyanide gas when heated.
"The Mettrum discovery was made recently, when a random screening of the company's products by Health Canada turned up the unauthorized use of pyrethrin, a pesticide...that is also not approved for medical cannabis..."
---Grant Robertson, The Globe and Mail, 3.10. 2017.)
("While I am grateful for access to the pot clubs...I am at a bit of a loss to understand why, given the virtual absence of risk in producing and distributing pot, it is still so expensive."
"What we have...are facilities charging the high end of street prices to people who are already ostensibly facing hardship."
["An ounce for $300 to $400..."]
"...besides basic capitalist greed, why does it still cost so much? Most of the truly disabled and terminally ill are on a fixed income, rendering the cost of pot not at all that compassionate."
--- Quotes from a letter written by Steve Stevens to the editor of the San Francisco Weekly, 1.20. 2010.)
("Each one-gram container of flower are packaged together in a wine bottle-shaped tin, topped with a version of Coppola's signature label and an embossed pot leaf. Each box will retail for $99 and comes with a branded pipe and rolling papers."
---Katie Shapiro, Forbes.com, 11.2. 2018, describing marijuana grown in California's Humboldt County that will be sold by Francis Ford Coppola, who directed the 1972 film The Godfather.)
("According to Rand Corporation estimates...legalized...high-grade pot would cost just $20 per pound to produce. And low-grade weed would cost only $5 per pound."
---David Downs, East Bay Express, 10.9. 2013.)
(Since May 2011, four marijuana stores in Richmond, California [near Berkeley and Oakland] "...have paid $486,390 in police fees."
"To some, the situation evokes...the protection racket."
---David Downs, East Bay Express, 8.28. 2013)
(Daniel Rush, the former chair of Berkeley's Medical Cannabis Commission, was charged with 15 criminal counts, including extortion, fraud, and money-laundering. He later pleaded guilty to three felony counts.
["...federal authorities charged him for offering special treatment to one of the applicants for Berkeley's fourth dispensary spot."
---Frances Dinkelspiel, Berkeleyside.com, 6.23. 2017.])
("I've never met so many greedy slugs in my whole life."
---Michelle LaMay, chairwoman of the Teapot Party in Colorado, describing having to deal with the more than 3,000 people who have contacted her because they want to start their own cannabis business. [Willie Nelson was arrested in Texas for possessing marijuana on November 26, 2010. Following his arrest, Nelson founded the Teapot Party.] The quote is from an article by Eric Spitznagel, Bloomberg Businessweek, that was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, 11.20. 2011)
("We did $20 million in sales last year."
---Steve DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Collective, a marijuana store in Oakland. DeAngelo was quoted by Kathleen Pender in an article, "Push to Protect Banks on Legal Pot Business". The San Francisco Chronicle, 5.25. 2010.)
("California's medical marijuana dispensaries now generate as much as $1.3 billion in sales and $105 million in state sales taxes each year, according to new---and dramatically increased---state sales estimates by California's Board of Equalization."
"The Board of Equalization earlier this year estimated medical marijuana sales at only $98 million annually..."
--- the Sacramento Bee, 5.8. 2010.)
(The Berkeley Patients Group is "a dispensary with about 10,000 patients in the Bay Area". In 2007 the DEA "pounced on a Southern California offshoot of the Berkeley nonprofit for distributing a federally controlled substance. Agents seized nearly everything on-site as well as $100,000 in funds in a bank account."
"The Berkeley dispensary actually got the money back after the City of Berkeley stood up for it. The city stated in a 2008 resolution 'seizures of assets of medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives have blocked payments of taxes to the state of California and the City of Berkeley.' The city asked federal authorities to back off and they did."
"Berkeley Patients Group, along with two other Berkeley clubs, net about $18.5 million per year."
---David Downs, the East Bay Express, 9.15. 2010.)
("The city of Berkeley filed a legal claim Wednesday in a federal asset forfeiture case against the landlord of a medical marijuana dispensary here, saying it would lose tax money from pot sales if the dispensary is forced to close."
---Doug Oakley, West County Times, 7.4. 2013.)
("Oakland's lawsuit said the closure would damage the city, which expects to collect more than $1.4 million this year in business taxes from Harborside and three other city-licensed dispensaries."
---Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 10.14. 2012. Seeking to prevent the forced closure of Harborside Health Center, a "medical marijuana" dispensary, the City of Oakland filed a lawsuit against the federal government.)
Years ago there was a legitimate drug testing laboratory in California where a user could anonymously have a sample of their "dope" tested. Unfortunately, at one point such drug-testing laboratories were declared illegal by federal law enforcement officials and were forced to cease operation. As far as I can tell, the public does not have legal access to any federally-certified illegal-drug testing laboratory.
("This product was produced without regulatory oversight for health, safety or efficacy."
---quote from a blister-pack containing sixteen 10 milligram THC "Orange Zest"-flavored sublingual tablets that were made August 10, 2016 in Salinas, California for a company in Denver, Colorado. [The main isomer of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the principal psychoactive constituent of marijuana.])
("This product has not been tested as required by the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act."
---quote from a childproof bottle containing one gram of "King Louis OG" cannabis flowers that was sold for $15 in February 2018 by KindPeoples Collective in Soquel, California.)
Many of the anti-drug police say they believe that "harm reduction" strategies increase drug use and are thus unacceptable. Some anti-drug police believe that the world would be a better place if users of illegal drugs died...
("Casual drug users should be taken out and shot. Smoke a joint, lose your life."
---Darryl Gates,
Head of Los Angeles Police Department, speaking to a
United States Senate Judiciary Committee on September 5, 1990.
[Gates said the above because he felt casual drug users were guilty of "treason", according to author Martin Torgoff, writing in his book CAN'T FIND MY WAY HOME--America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000.] )
("In 1996, Newt Gingrich introduced a bill mandating the death penalty for bringing two ounces of marijuana into the country!"
[quote from a document published by Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform].)
("William Bennett, federal drug policy coordinator, said Thursday night he had no moral qualms about beheading convicted drug dealers.
'Morally, I don't have any problem with that at all,' Bennett said when asked on the CNN program 'Larry King Live' call-in television show..."
---Los Angeles Times, 6.16. 1989.)
("Quinlivan told the judges that nobody has the right to use marijuana..."
"Judge Harry Pregerson asked Quinlivan whether it was OK for Raich to die or succumb to 'unbearable suffering.'
'So go ahead and die. That would be all right?' he asked.
'Congress has made that value judgement,' Quinlivan replied."
---David Kravets, the Oakland Tribune, 3.28. 2006, in an article about a hearing before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Angel McClary Raich is a very seriously ill patient that multiple doctors say must use marijuana as a medicine or she will likely die. Mark T. Quinlivan is an Assistant U. S. Attorney.)
("One child said 'I love you, Mom'-- for the first time in his life."
---Debra Kamin, Newsweek, 2.23. 2018, describing what happened when a severely autistic child was given marijuana oil. The quote is printed large, with the words "I love you, Mom" in bright red. The front cover of this issue features an image of neon marijuana leaves and the words "The Blunt Truth About Weed and Autism". The back cover is a full-page full-color advertisement for Kavalan whisky. [The article is about a study of 60 severely autistic children who were given an oil containing a 20-to-1 ratio of CBD to THC. The study was conducted by Dr. Adi Aran, a pediatric neurologist and director of the pediatric unit of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedeck Hospital. "Most parents said their children improved. Nearly half saw a notable reduction in the core symptoms of autism."])
("You're real! You're really real!"
---Floyd, age ten, who had never spoken before, after being given a series of large doses of LSD at Fairview Developmental Center in California in the early 1960s. The quote was reported by Connell Cowan, at the time a psych tech, who was one of the people who were giving large doses of LSD to children. Cowan was working with Gary Fisher, a psychologist who had first taken LSD in 1959. [From "The Elementary Kool-Aid Acid Test", a podcast by Amy Standen and Judy Campbell, The Leap, KQED, 4.11. 2017.])
("...good people don't smoke marijuana."
---Jeff Sessions, in a Senate hearing in April 2016. Sessions is now Attorney General of the United States. He is the chief law enforcement officer and the chief lawyer of the U.S. government. It is obvious that Sessions is very mentally ill, as is Donald Trump, who chose Sessions to be Attorney General.)
("I'm a firm believer that drugs are the root of all evil."
---Contra Costa County [California] deputy sheriff Andy VanZelf,
quoted 10.4. 2009 in the Conta Costa Times by columnist Tom Barnidge. "VanZelf [a police officer for 23 years] ...was born to the job--his mother, father, and brother were cops--but that's not why he stuck with it. 'Putting bad guys in jail is very satisfying,' he said.")
(“You can grow enough marihuana in a window-box to drive the whole population of the United States stark, staring, raving mad.”
---Winifred Black, an early Hearst anti-cannabis propagandist, in her 1929 book DOPE--THE STORY OF THE LIVING DEAD.)
("According to the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report, in 2007 there were 872,721 arrests in the U.S. for marijuana violations."
---Adam Tschorn, the Los Angeles Times, 9.3. 2009.)
("It was downtown San Jose and another police officer had made a stop on three kids who were touring San Jose on a Saturday night. You know, driving around in circles like American Graffiti. And the officer pulled three kids out of the car and he didn't know but one kid panicked and tried to swallow a small bag of marijuana---and I pulled up just to watch and assist if needed and didn't realize what was going on either. And this kid died in front of us choking on a bag of marijuana. He didn't die because of marijuana, he died because he panicked over these stupid laws we have."
---former San Jose, California undercover narcotics detective Russ Jones, quoted by David Downs, the East Bay Express, 5.12. 2010. Russ Jones is a spokesman for the "Law Enforcement Against Prohibition" organization.)
("The general commanding Mexico's drug enforcement unit--hailed by U.S. drugs czar McCaffrey as 'an honest man and no-nonsense field commander'--was detained in 1997 for corruptly collaborating with Amado Carillo Fuentes."
---Kevin Williamson, in DRUGS AND THE PARTY LINE.)
Please click here to read my "autobiography":
thewordsofjdyf333.blogspot.com/
My telephone number is: 510-260-9695
(Please click on the link below to see labels from marijuana "legally" sold in stores in Berkeley, California and to read some important warnings:
www.flickr.com/photos/jdyf333/2173269110/ )
Please note: DEPICTION IS NOT ADVOCACY!!!
Tong is a small hamlet, half a mile to the north of the A2. You pass the turning before you know it.
We used to visit Tonge for the brewshop that used to be in the old water mill, that closed down, so we never went back.
A decade or so ago, I tried twice to see inside St Giles, but it was always locked.
And then Heritage Day this year came, and it was on the list. Although, roadworks made it almost impossible to get into the village, with no signs to help, but I did manage it, working my way the wrong way round at a traffic island, but the road was quiet and I escaped without incident.
Lots of cars parked outside, always a good sign, and after parking myself, I see the door open.
St Giles is a little run down inside, but a group of wardens are busy cleaning making the church look presentable. I was shown the ancient panels in the west window, and the naked man turned out to be wearing pants and operating a set of bellows.
Most interesting was the mas of arches and odd angles near the south door and south aisle.
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An enigmatic church that presents far more questions than answers. The west wall includes bands of Caen stone that obviously once formed part of a major Norman doorway. Inside, the box pews act as a dark base for the lovely Norman arcades of plain and carved arches. The church is separated by a fine late Rood Screen which ahs lost its loft but which otherwise is well preserved. Its southern end has a different patterning on the base, possibly as the back to a former altar. The east window is possibly by Warrington, whilst the south chancel window is an early work of Kempe. Outside there are blocked arches everywhere and a very tall scar of a former roofline against the east wall of the tower. Whatever was there was a noble structure indeed, possibly a private chapel associated with the nearby castle, which may account for its early demolition. The cat slide roofs of the church and the tall thirteenth century tower are the two memorable features of the exterior.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Tonge
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TONG.
NORTWARD from Bapchild lies Tong, called in the Saxon language Thwang, which took its name, by antient tradition, from the following circumstance:
After the arrival of the Saxons in this kingdom, and their victory over the Scots and Picts, at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, Vortigern, king of Britain, highly satisfied with the conduct of the two Saxon chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, expressed himself very desirous of rewarding them for their services; when Hengist requested, as a pledge of the king's affection, only as much land as on ox-hide could encompass; which being readily granted, he cut the whole hide into small thongs, and inclosed within them a space of ground, large enough to contain a castle, which he accordingly built on it, and named it from thence Thwang-ceastre, i. e. Thong-castle; whence the parish itself afterwards took its name.
Writers differ much in the situation of this land, Camden, and some others, place it at Thong castle, near Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, others place it at Doncaster; whilst Leland, Kilburne, Philipott, and others, six it here, with the same old trite story to each place, which rather casts a shew of doubt on the whole of it. Indeed it seems but an imitation of Virgil's story of Dido's building of Byrsa, Æneid 1, 1. 369, where, speaking of that queen and her companions, he says,
Devenere locos, ubi-nunc ingentia cernesv
Mænia, surgentemque novæ Carthainis arcem.
Mercatique solum, facti de nomine Byrsam,
Taurino quantum possent circumdare lergo.
They came where now you see new Carthage rise,
And yon proud citadel invade the skies.
The wand' ring exiles bought a space of ground
Which one hull-hide inclos'd and compass'd round,
Hence Byrsa nam'd.
This castle was most conveniently situated for Hengift's purposes, close to the great high road on the one side, and not far distant from the water, called the Swale, on the other, through which it is supposed, the usual passage was for the shipping, between the main land and the Isle of Shepey, in former times.
At this castle, Hengist, some years afterwards, led on by his unbounded ambition, resolved to attain that by fraud and treachery, which he could not accomplish openly by force of arms. Accordingly, there being a good understanding between the Britons and the Saxons, he invited Vortigern, the British king, whose attachment to pleasure he was well acquainted with, to a splendid entertainment at this castle, who, unsuspecting the treachery, attended the summons, being accompanied by three hundred of his chief nobility, unarmed, who were all of them, towards the end of the feast, persidiously massacred by the Saxons, Vortigern only being spared, and detained as a prisoner, who was at last forced, as a ransom for his li berty, to surrender up to the Saxons a large tract of land, which Hengist added to his former territories.
This happened in the year 461, and Vortigern being set at liberty, retired into Wales. It was at a feast held at this castle in 450, that the story is told of Vortigern's being so enamoured with the beauty of Rowena, Hengist's daughter, that he repudiated his wife, and married her, and in recompence to Hengist, gave him up the sovereignty of Kent. That such a marriage did take place, is very certain; but the story of the king's falling in love with her at such a feast here, and the circumstances of it, are not much credited. Indeed Bede and Gildas mention nothing of it, and Malmsbury tells it only as a report.
THE HIGH DOVER ROAD crosses the centre of this parish, at the eastern boundary of Bapchild, just beyond Radfield. It extends on the southern side of it as high up as kingsdown, in which part of the parish are the estates of Newbarrow and Scuddington, and part of Wood-street; on the northern side of the road it extends to the marshes, which are bounded by the waters of the Swale, flowing between the main land and the Isle of Elmley, in Shepey. It contains about 1300 acres of land, of which not more than ten acres in the southern part of it are wood; that part of the parish on the northern side of the road is a flat and low country, almost on a level with the marshes, and is equally unhealthy as Bapchild, perhaps more so, even to a proverb, as lying lower, and rather more exposed to the marsh vapours; however the lands are exceedingly fertile for corn, being the same kind of round tilt land which extends along this plain. There is no village, the church stands about a mile northward from the road; the scite of the old castle is three fields only from the north side of the road, and is plainly seen from it. It consists of a high mount, containing about half an acre of ground, thrown up out of a broad and deep moat, which surrounds it, the north-west part of which is nearly dry, but the springs which rise on the South-west side of it, and formerly supplied the whole of it, now direct their course into a very large pond on the eastern side of the moat, and produce so plentiful a supply of water there, as to afford sufficient to turn a corn-mill, belonging to the lord of the manor, and afterwards flow from hence northward into the Swale; a large cutlas sword, with a buckhorn handle, was dug up within the scite of this castle about thirty years ago.
There was formerly an hospital situated in this parish. Leland in his Itinerary says, "There was a poor hospital a mile beyond Sittingborne, called Pokeshaulle. King Henry the VIIth gave it to Linche, his physician, and Linche gave it to a son of his, I suppose. It is now (that is in king Henry the VIIIth.'s reign) quite down." This is, I should suppose, the same house mentioned in the Harleian Mss. where there is a commission signed by Richard III. in his 1st year for suffering Arnold Childre, to occupy the almoux house beside sittingborne, which the king had given to him for life. Queen Mary, in her 4th year, granted this hospital of St. James, of Puckleshall, late in the tenure of Richard Newton, to Sir John Parrot.
There was a family of good account formerly, which took their name from this parish. Semanus at Tong was so considerable a man, that is the 21st year of king Richard II. he lent the king twenty pounds, no small sum in those days. He possessed lands at Bredgar, Tonstall, and other places in this neighbourhood and elsewhere, and at Bredgar, his descendants remained till within memory.
THE CASTLE OF TONG, most probably sell to ruin during the time of the Saxon heptarchy, and, with THE MANOR OF TONG, came in that situation into the hands of William the Conqueror, on his obtaining the crown, who gave both castle and manor to his half-brother Odo, bishop of Baieux, among other great possessions; accordingly it is thus described in the book of Domesday, under the general title of the bishop's lands:
The same Hugo (de Port) holds of the bishop (of Baieux) Tangas. It was taxed at two sulings. The arable land is two carucates. In demesne there are two, and five villeins with one carucate. There is a church, and four servants, and one mill of eight shillings. Wood for the pannage of four hogs.
In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth seven pounds, now ten pounds. Osward held it.
Of these sulins, which Hugo de Port held, Osward held five, at a yearly rent; and three sudins and one yoke and an half, which he took from the king's villeins.
On the bishop's disgrace about four years afterwards, the king confiscated all his possessions, and this estate among them probably reverred to the crown, and was afterwards held by the above-mentioned Hugh de Port, who then became the king's immediate tenant for it, being held by him as two knight's sees, parcel of the fourteen knight's sees and a quarter, of which all, but two, which were in Herefordshire, lay in this county, making up together the barony of Port, being held by barony of the castle of Dover, by the service of performing ward there for the defence of it. Of his descendant John de St. John, this manor was again held in the 22d year of king Edward I. by Ralph Fitzbernard, who died in the 34th year of king Edward I. leaving a son Thomas, who died s. p. and a daughter Margaret, married to Guncelin de Badlesmere, whose son Bartholomew de Badlesmere at length succeeded to this manor and castle, as part of his mother's inheritance.
He was a man much in favor with king Edward II. who made him constable of the castle of Leeds, Tunbridge and Bristol, and granted to him the manors and castles of Chilham and Leeds, with several other estates in this county and elsewhere; besides which, he obtained many liberties and franchises for his different manors and estates, among which was a grant of a fair to be held yearly at this manor, on the eve, day, and morrow, after the feast of St. Giles the abbot, and also for free-warren in the demesne lands of it. Being afterwards executed for rebellion in the 16th year of that reign, this estate became forfeited to the crown, but in the 2d year of king Edward III. the process and judgment against him being reversed, the manor of Tong, among others, were then restored to his son Giles de Badlesmere, who died in the 12th year of the same reign, s. p. so that his four sisters became his coheirs, (fn. 1) and upon a partition of their inheritance, this manor fell to the share of his third sister Elizabeth, then the wife of William Bohun, earl of Northampton, who in her right became entitled to it, holding it by the like service as before-mentioned.
Though he left issue by her, yet this manor did not descend to them, but to the issue of her first husband Edmund Mortimer, by whom she had one son Roger, who, in the 28th year of that reign, had obtained a reversal in parliament of the judgment given against his grandfather Roger, late earl of March, as erroneous and utterly void; upon which he thenceforth bore the title of earl of March.
His son and heir, Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, died possessed of it in the 5th year of Richard II. being then possessed of the tost of the castle of Tong, together with the castle annexed to the said tost, with the manor appurtenant to it, held of the king in capite, as of his castle of Dover, by the service as beforementioned. At length his descendant, Roger, earl of March, dying anno 3 Henry VI. Richard, duke of York, son of Anne his sister, was found to be his next heir, and accordingly became possessed of this estate. After which, endeavouring to assert the title of the house of York to the crown, he was slain in the battle of Wakefield, anno 39 Henry VI. being then possessed of the manor of Tong, as was found by the inquisition, which, by reason of the confusion of those times, was not taken till the 3d year of Edward IV. when the king was found to be his eldest son and next heir.
Notwithstanding the duke of York is said by the above-mentioned inquisition to have died possessed of this manor, yet the year before his death, a long attainder had passed against him and others, with the forfeiture of all their hereditaments in fee or fee tail; upon which this manor was granted by Henry VI. to Thomas Browne, esq. of Beechworth-castle, afterwards knighted, and made comptroller and treasurer of his houshold, who soon afterwards obtained a grant of a fair at this manor, on St. Jame's day yearly, and another for liberty to embattle his mansion, and to impark his lands here. His eldest son Sir George Browne, in the 11th year of king Edward IV. surrendered up all his right and title to it, to Cicely, duchess of York, the king's mother, who was then in possession of it. She died anno 10 Henry VII. upon which it came to the crown, where it continued till king Edward VI. granted it in his 1st year to Sir Ralph Fane, afterwards created a banneret, for his signal behaviour at the battle of Musselburgh, in Scotland, that year, to hold in capite by knight's service. (fn. 2)
He alienated this manor soon afterwards to Sir Rowland Clerke, who in the 4th and 5th year of king Philip and queen Mary, alienated it to Saloman Wilkins, who was succeeded by his son David Wilkins, who resided at Bex, or Bexle court, in this parish, an estate which had formerly belonged to the Nottinghams, of Bayford, in Sittingborne. He alienated this manor, with the scite of the castle to William Pordage, of Rodmersham, who purchased likewise some lands which had formerly belonged to this manor and had been sold off to Norden some few years before; in whole descendants it continued till it was at length sold to the Iles's, by a daughter of which name it passed in marriage to Hazard, whose son Richard Hazard, esq. died in 1784, after which it came into the name of Shard, and William Shard, esq. owned it in 1791, since which it has passed to Richard Seath, esq. of this parish, who is the present proprietor of the scite of this castle, and the manor annexed to it. There is a court baron held for this manor.
CHEEKS COURT is situated in this parish, though great part of the estate belonging to it lies in the adjoining parish of Murston. It was antiently written Chicks-court, and was once the property and residence of a family called At-Cheek, and sometimes de Cheeksell, as appeared from antient deeds; but in the reign of king Edward II. William de Ore was become intitled to it, with whom however, it did not remain long, for in the 9th year of that reign, Fulk Peyforer, who had been knight of the shire for this county in the 6th year of that reign, died possessed of it.
From the name of Peyforer it passed into that of Potyn, one of which family was possessed of it in the reign of king Richard II. and left an only daughter Juliana, who carried it in marriage to Thomas St. Leger, second son of Sir Ralph St. Leger, of Ulcomb, (fn. 3) who afterwards resided in her right at Otterden, and was sheriff anno 20 Richard II. He left an only daughter Joane, who marrying Henry Aucher, esq. of Newenden, entitled her husband to the possession of it. She survived him, and afterwards married Robert Capys, to whom Henry Aucher, esq. her only son and heir by her first husband, in the 19th year of king Henry VI. confirmed a life estate in Cheekscourt, Elmely, and other parts of her former inheritance. He afterwards, on her death, became possessed of it, and then sold it to Sir William Cromer, of Tunstall, sheriff in the 2d year of king James I. who alienated this estate to Mr. Christopher Allen, whose descendant the Rev. Thomas Allen, rector of the adjoining parish of Murston, died possessed of it in 1732, and devised it by will to his first cousin Mrs. Finch Allen, married first to the Rev. Mr. Mills, and secondly to Thomas Hooper, gent. of Stockbury, by whom she had three sons, Walter, Thomas, and Finch, and two daughters; Jane, married to William Jumper, esq. of Stockbury, and Catherine to the Rev. Theodore Delafaye. Walter Hooper, the eldest son, became possessed of this estate on his farther's death, and left only two daughters his coheirs, of whom, Sarah married first Steed, and Secondly William Huggessen, esq. of Stodmarsh, and Dorothy married Mr. Robert Radcliffe, who entitled their husbands to their respective shares of this estate, as devised to them by their father's will. At length William Huggessen, esq. about the year 1764, purchased the other part, and so became possessed of the whole fee of it, of which he continues owner at this time.
NEWBURGH, commonly called Newbarrow, is another estate in the southern part of this parish, adjoining to Linsted, which was formerly accounted a manot, though the reputation of its ever having been one is now almost forgotten. It was antiently owned by a family which assumed its surname from it, after who it came into the possession of the family of Apulderfield, whose antient seat was at Challock, in this county.
Henry de Apulderfield died possessed of it in the reign of king Edward I. in whose descendants it continued down to William Apulderfield, esq. who died in the reign of king Henry VI. leaving his two daugh ters his coheirs, one of whom, Elizabeth, carried this estate in marriage to Sir John Phineux, chief justice of the king's bench, and he too leaving only daughters and coheirs, one of them, Jane, entitled her husband John Roper, esq. of Eltham, to the possession of it. (fn. 4) He was attorney-general to Henry VIII. and died in 1524, leaving by her two sons and several daughters; of the former, William succeeded him at Eltham, where his descendants continued till of late, and Christopher was of Lodge, in the adjoining parish of Linsted, and by his father's will inherited this estate. His son Sir John Roper, anno 14 James I. 1616, was created lord Teynham, and died in 1618, possessed of this estate, which continued in his descendants till Henry Roper, lord Teynham, in the year 1766, alienated it to Mr. William Chamberlain, gent. of London, the present possessor of it.
Charities.
MR. WILLIAM HOUSSON gave by will in 1783, for instructing poor children of this parish, Murston and Bapchild, to read and write, 200l. now vested in the 4 per cent. consolidated annuities, a further account of which may be seen before under Bapchild.
SIR WILLIAM STEDE, of Stede-hill, gave by will in 1620, 101. per annum, to be paid out of lands in Sandhurst, for binding out yearly the children of the poorest people in this parish, Harrietsham, and Milton by Sittingborne, for ever, to be nominated by the owners of Stedehill-house, now vested by deed of settlement in trustees.
The poor constantly relieved here are about sixteen, casually sixty-five.
TONG is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
The church, which is dedicated to St. Giles, consists of one large and two narrow side isles, and has a tower steeple on the south side, in which are three bells. It was given by king Edward I. to the abbey of West Langdon, to which it was appropriated by archbishop Walter Reynolds, in 1325, and it continued part of the possessions of that monastery till the surrendry of it, anno 27 Henry VIII. This house being one of those lesser monasteries, whose revenues were not above the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds, which were suppressed by the act passed that year.
The parsonage of the church of Tong did not remain long in the hands of the crown, for the king granted it in his 29th year, with the monastery, and the lands and possessions of it, to the archbishop of Canterbury, in exchange for other premises; but all advowsons were excepted out of this grant.
Soon after which, this parsonage was demised on lease by the archbishop at the yearly rent of six pounds, and in this state it still continues parcel of the possessions of the archbishopric of Canterbury.
¶But the advowson of the vicarage, by virtue of the above-mentioned exception, still remained in the crown, where it continued till it was sold anno 1557, to Salomon Wilkins; but in the next reign of queen Elizabeth, it was become vested in William Potter. It afterwards become the property of Mr. Daniel Pawson, of Harrietsham, and then of the Stede family. Since which it has had the same possessors as Harrietsham manor and place, and as such, is now become vested in Wm. Baldwin, esq. of Harrietsham place.
The vicarage is valued in the king's books at 8l. 6s. 8d. the yearly tenths being 16s. 8d. and is of the yearly certified value of 55l. 3s.
In 1640 it was valued at fifty pounds. Communicants seventy-five.
In 1661 archbishop Juxon augmented this vicarage, in conformity to the king's letters of recommendation, ten pounds per annum out of the great tithes.
Kilchurn Castle (/kəlˈxʊərn/)[1] is a ruined structure on a rocky peninsula at the northeastern end of Loch Awe, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It was first constructed in the mid-15th century as the base of the Campbells of Glenorchy, who extended both the castle and their territory in the area over the next 150 years. After the Campbells became Earls of Breadalbane and moved to Taymouth Castle, Kilchurn fell out of use and was in ruins by 1770. It is now in the care of Historic Environment Scotland and is open to the public in summerIn traditional genealogies of Clan Campbell, the clan's origins are in the ancient Britons of Strathclyde.[5] The earliest Campbell in written record is Gillespie, whose name is recorded in 1263.[5] Early grants to Gillespie and his relations were almost all in east-central Scotland. The family's connection with Argyll came some generations earlier when a Campbell married the heiress of the O'Duines and she brought with her the Lordship of Loch Awe.[5] Because of this, the early clan name was Clan O'Duine. The name was later styled Clann Diarmaid based on a fancied connection to Diarmuid the Boar, a great hero from early Celtic mythology.[5]
The original seat of Clan Campbell was either Innes Chonnel Castle on Loch Awe or Caisteal na Nigheann Ruaidh on Loch Avich. The clan's power soon spread throughout Argyll, though at first the Campbells were under the domination of the Lords of Lorne, chiefs of Clan MacDougall. The MacDougalls killed the Campbell chief Cailean Mór (Colin Campbell) in 1296. (See: Battle of Red Ford.) All subsequent chiefs of Clan Campbell have taken MacCailean Mór as their Gaelic patronymic.[5]
Between 1200 and 1500, the Campbells emerged as one of the most powerful families in Scotland, dominant in Argyll and capable of wielding a wider influence and authority from Edinburgh to the Hebrides and western Highlands.[6]
Wars of Scottish Independence
Early in the 14th century, the family of Colin Campbell became firm supporters of King Robert the Bruce and benefited from his successes through grants of lands, titles, and good marriages.[6] In 1314, the Campbells fought for Scotland against England in the Wars of Scottish Independence at the Battle of Bannockburn.[6] Throughout the 14th century, Clan Campbell rapidly expanded its lands and power. The expansion is explained in part by the loyalty of Sir Neil Campbell (Niall mac Caile) (died 1316) to the cause of Robert the Bruce, a loyalty that was rewarded with marriage to Bruce's sister Mary.[6] The family was closely associated with the Stewarts and the Bruces in the time of Cailean Mór.[5] Sir Neil, as a staunch ally of Robert the Bruce, was rewarded with extensive lands that had been taken from Clan MacDougall, the Lords of Lorne, and other enemies of the Bruces in Argyll.[5]
15th century and royal relations
Innes Chonnel Castle on Loch Awe, possibly the earliest seat of Clan Campbell.
The Campbells gave support to the Crown throughout the 15th century.[5] By the end of the 15th century, the power of the Lords of the Isles (chiefs of Clan Donald), the Crown's most powerful rivals, had been broken, and the Campbells were the main power in the area.[5] From this time onward, the Campbells acted as the central authority in the area; this transition of power might be the real cause of the ancient enmity between the Campbells and the MacDonalds.[5]
Descendants of Sir Duncan Campbell, 1st Lord Campbell (Donnchadh), and his wife Lady Marjorie Stewart are descendants of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, and Robert II Stewart, King of Scotland. Lady Marjorie Stewart (born circa 1390) was the daughter of King Robert II's son, Robert Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany.[6] This makes all descendants of Sir Duncan Campbell and Lady Marjorie Stewart descendants of Robert I Bruce and of most of the early kings of Scotland.[6]
The title of 1st Lord Campbell was created in 1445. In the second half of the 15th century, the Campbells played an increasingly prominent role in Scotland. During his reign, James I of Scotland launched a great political assault on the Albany Stewarts and their allies in the west. However, Duncan Campbell, 1st Lord Campbell (Donnchadh), escaped the fate of his Albany kinsmen, who all were either executed or exiled.[6]
Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll (Cailean), was ennobled as Earl of Argyll in 1457 and later became Baron of Lorn. He also was granted lands in Knapdale. The title and land grants were signs that the Argylls were one of the major forces in Scotland.[6] In 1493, after the forfeiture of the MacDonalds as Lords of the Isles, the Campbell lords might well have viewed themselves as natural successors to Clan Donald in terms of leadership of the Gaels of the Hebrides and western Highlands.[6] The Campbell lordship thus remained one of the most significant bastions of Gaelic learning and culture in late medieval and early modern Scotland.[6]
In the Battle of Knockmary in 1490, men of Clan Campbell and Clan Drummond joined forces to defeat Clan Murray.[7] The battle also became known as the Massacre of Monzievaird. In 1499, Campbell of Inverliver defeated Clan Calder at the Battle of Daltullich. Sir John Campbell, the younger son of the Earl of Argyll, subsequently received the estate of Calder and Cawdor Castle through his marriage to the estate's heiress, Muriel Calder.[8][9][10]
16th century and clan conflicts
In 1513, the 2nd Earl of Argyll was killed along with many of his clan at the Battle of Flodden.[11][12]
The Battle of Langside took place in 1568 where the chief of Clan Campbell, Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll, commanded the forces who fought for Mary, Queen of Scots.[11]
In 1567, a conflict took place between the Clan Campbell and Clan Arthur. Duncan MacArthur and his son of the Loch Awe MacArthur family, became the victims of their own success when jealousy of their power drove neighbours to drown them in Loch Awe during a skirmish with the Clan Campbell. In the archives of Inveraray Castle a charter dated 1567 confirms that a pardon was granted to the Campbells of Inverawe for what became known as the "drowning of Clan Arthur".[13] It is believed that the MacArthurs trying to defend themselves were driven into the loch. Centuries later in the 1970s an ancient sword was unearthed on the shore of the loch.[14][15]
For two centuries from the mid-15th century the Clan Gordon and Clan Campbell controlled the north-east and west of Scotland respectively, as the magnates who straddled the divide between the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands.[16] In 1594, Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll was granted a Royal Commission against George Gordon, 6th Earl of Huntly but was defeated at the Battle of Glenlivet.[17]
17th century and Civil War
The support that the Campbells gave to the central Government brought them rewards: In 1607, Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll was granted the former MacDonald lands of Kintyre and in 1615 Campbell of Cawdor was allowed to purchase the Isle of Islay which had previously belonged to the Macleans of Duart.[5]
Kilchurn Castle, seat of the Campbells of Glenorchy.
At the Battle of Inverlochy (1645), the Scottish Covenanter forces led by Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll were defeated by the Royalist forces of James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose whose army was mainly made up of Scots of the Clan MacDonald, Clan Maclean, and others from Ireland. After the Battle of Inverlochy, Montrose and the Macleans burnt Castle Campbell, but the castle remained in Campbell hands.[18] In the wake of the Battle of Inverlochy the Clan Lamont took the opportunity to raid the Campbell lands.[19][20] The vengeful Campbells also ravaged the lands of the Clan Maclean who had fought against them at Inverlochy and in due course the Maclean's Duart Castle surrendered.[21]
In 1648, at the Battle of Stirling (1648) the Kirk Party Covenanter forces of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll were defeated by the Engager Covenanter forces of Sir George Munro, 1st of Newmore who supported the Earl of Lanark. Among Argyll's dead was William Campbell of Glenfalloch killed in action.[22]
In 1672, a feud took place between the Clan Campbell and Clan Sinclair. Debt had forced George Sinclair, 6th Earl of Caithness to resign his titles and estates in favour of Sir John Campbell.[23] Campbell took possession of the estates on Sinclair's death in May 1676, and was created earl of Caithness in June the following year.[23] Sinclair's heir, George Sinclair of Keiss disputed the claim and seized the land in 1678.[23] This was followed by the Battle of Altimarlech, 13 July 1680, between the Clan Campbell and the Clan Sinclair in which the Campbells were victorious.[23] Legend has it that so many Sinclairs were killed that the Campbells were able to cross the river without getting their feet wet.[23] Having failed to regain his inheritance by force, Sinclair of Keiss then turned to the law. He took his place as Earl of Caithness on 15 July 1681, and his lands were restored on 23 September.[23] Campbell was made Earl of Breadalbane by way of compensation.[23]
In 1678, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll led the Campbell of Argyll militia on an expedition to the Isle of Mull and took Duart Castle from the Clan Maclean.[24] However, Argyll was beheaded on 30 June 1685 for his participation in Argyll's Rising in support of the Monmouth Rebellion to depose Catholic James VII and II and place the Protestant James, Duke of Monmouth on the throne.[25] Later in 1692, Archibald Campbell, 1st Duke of Argyll again gained possession of the Maclean's Duart Castle.[26]
In 1692, 38 unarmed people of the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed in the Massacre of Glencoe when a Government initiative to suppress Jacobitism was entangled in the long running feud between Clan MacDonald and Clan Campbell. The slaughter of the MacDonalds at the hands of the soldiers, led by Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, after enjoying their hospitality for over a week was a major affront of Scots Law and Highland tradition. The majority of soldiers were not Campbells, but a roll call from a few months before included six Campbells in addition to Cpt. Robt. Campbell: Corporal Achibald Campbell, Private Archibald Campbell (elder), Private Donald Campbell (younger), Private Archibald Campbell (younger), Private James Campbell, Private Donald Campbell (elder), and Private Duncan Campbell.[27] See also: Earl of Argyll's Regiment of Foot.
18th century and Jacobite Uprisings
Jacobite rising of 1715
During the Jacobite risings of the 18th century the Clan Campbell supported the British-Hanoverian Government. On 23 October 1715, chief John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll learned that a detachment of rebels was passing by Castle Campbell, towards Dunfermline. He sent out a body of cavalry which attacked the rebel party and defeated it in what is now known as the Skirmish of Dunfermline and took a number of prisoners, taking only light casualties.[28] A month later the British Government forces, including men from Clan Campbell, fought and defeated the Jacobites at the Battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715. However, there were in fact a small number of Campbells who took the side of the Jacobites led by the son of Campbell of Glenlyon whose father had commanded the Government troops at the Massacre of Glencoe against the MacDonalds 22 years earlier. These two families then settled their differences and swore to be brothers in arms, fighting si
One of the roofs of Torchastle Farm can be seen just to the left of the the remains of Dallas. The farm is partly obscured by a green hillock, which is where Tochastle stood.)
The most interesting thing about Dallas Castle, is the history of the family that built and owned it. They were the Comyns, the senior lines of which family were almost eradicated in Scotland as a consequence of their opposition to Robert the Bruce. Those that survived, perhaps for diplomatic reasons, changed their name to Cumming.
In the 12th century, the Comyns were the most powerful family in Scotland. Like so many other prominent families of the time, they were of Norman or French origin, probably from either Bosc-Bénard-Commin near Rouen, or from Comines near Lille, in France, and were brought to Scotland by King David I to help him bring order to the country. Able administrators and capable soldiers, the Comyns quickly rose high in royal favour, gaining land and favourable marriages in consequence. Alexander Comyn, 2nd Earl of Buchan for example, was chief counselor to King Alexander III, for the entire period of the king's majority and, as Scotland's leading magnate, played a key role in safeguarding the independence of the Scottish monarchy. He held the key titles of Justiciar of Scotia and Constable of Scotland.
Although senior by title, Alexander Earl of Buchan was not head of the family when King Alexander III was killed in a riding accident in 1286. His father, William Comyn, 1st Earl of Buchan married twice. Earl Alexander was the eldest son by the second marriage (he gained the earldom by marriage, not by inheritance), but there had been a number of sons from the first marriage. The eldest son, Richard Comyn, died well before 1286, but his eldest son, "Red John Comyn", Lord of Badenoch, as head of the family and a Great great great grandson of King Donald Ban, was one of the 13 claimants to the throne of Scotland, although he later withdrew his nomination and the family subsequently supported the stronger Balliol claim - a family they were related to by marriage. Red John Comyn's son and heir married King John Balliol's sister.
(It was Red John Comyn's grandson that Robert Bruce slew at Dumfries, which set Bruce on his path to the throne.)
"Red John Comyn", Lord of Badenoch, apart from his heir John, had several other sons, the youngest of whom was named Robert. When the Comyn world came crashing down at the hands of Robert Bruce in the early years of the 14th century, Robert Comyn happened to be abroad, on a public mission to France, as a consequence of which he somehow avoided forfeiture and was excepted in the acts of parliament by which the rest of his clan were so severely punished. He died at an advanced age, about the year 1310.
(There are sources that claim that "Sir Robert Comyn, was the knight who was killed while defending his nephew, John the Red Comyn (at Dumfries)" however this would seem to me to be unlikely.)
Robert Comyn's son and heir was Thomas Comyn, who about the year 1350, obtained from the Bishop of Moray, the lease of Rothiemurchus, which had formerly belonged to his family but more recently had been held by the Shaws - a fact which presumably contributed to what followed:
James Shaw, the chief of his clan and Thomas Comyn were married to sisters, yet the two men mutually exercised deadly animosities, which were eventually settled by the sword, Shaw being killed in the conflict. Shaw had a son called Corfiachlach, who was involved in many fights to revenge his father. The two sides were eventually brought together to give mutual bonds for agreement, and even took the sacrament upon it, yet such was the treachery of this Shaw, that the same night, he, with his kindred, murdered Comyn, along with several of his followers, while they were sleeping in false security, in a place, to this day, called Lagna Cuminach, in Rothiemurchus.
Thomas Comyn was succeeded by his son Sir Richard Comyn, a favourite of King David II, who to revenge his father's murder, "committed great havock among the Shaws, revenging his fall with fire and sword." His son and heir was Ferquhard Cumming, 1st of Altyr(e). With the extinction of the more senior lines of the Comyn / Cumming family, the Cummings of Altyre assumed the chiefship - a position they hold to this day.
(In 1396, during Ferquhard's time, inter-clan warfare between the Cummings and Clan Chattan reached such a level that it attracted attention at national level. The Earls of Moray and Crawford, two of the greatest men in the kingdom, were sent north in an attempt to bring about a reconciliation, but in the end the two clans accepted a proposal that they should settle their differences by formal combat. Thirty champions were chosen from each side to fight to the death in an arena laid out on the North Inch of Perth, in front of the king and everyone that was anyone in Scotland! Clan Chattan won!)
In 1468, Ferquhard's grandson, Sir Thomas Cumming, bought the barony of Dallas from Hay of Lochloy and subsequently obtained a royal warrant to build a castle here. I know this story has taken a long time to get to the point, but I find Dallas Castle's link to a family that were almost completely destroyed in the early 14th century, quite interesting!
A late 15th century date for the construction of Dallas would seem entirely reasonable and there is no reason to assume that the Cummings had anything to do with Torchastle, on the other side of the glen.
The Cummings of Altyre held Dallas for nine generations, until Robert Cumming of Altyre sold the barony in 1668, to "Sir L. Gordon". Despite having sold it, it is recorded that Robert Cumming died at the "Castle of Dollas, now called Torchastle" - so the confusion between the two names goes back a long way!
Revolutionaries Sitting At The Cafe.
Thee lamenting furnace burning hot, as thee sapience souls inside dwell'st with ideas,
fum'd tortur'd talks urg's stead faste pride may just bring eall to nought,
bad throne of advice shalle plummet thee to repentant despair,
trembling within, a traitor hyd's within thy famine of thou'st belly,
dost thou not know'st thou's ultimate forfeiture is now pending vast?
death is no longer a distant unseen capricornus orb,
innumerable dreams wak'n to foreign metropolis of failure to be,
worthless sapientia bidding forth impostor hence cast,
thy maps,illustrat'd plans are worthless scrapes laid out,
thy entrails shall smoke at thee bottom of blaz'd desolation beware,
ambitions dispos'd thy fury of the thoughts turn to mournful heath, Machiavelli!,
too late to pack and weepful run,to seek out a new scout,
thee infernal hammer prepares to cause thous unextinguishable destruction,
madding wishing thou should of nev'r came into contact with these horrid demons of malice,
demons now are laughyng ynneside , set thee up,for thou's don't like to sleep alone,
as thou fries, thy oothers pass through thy yonder gates of blue,
'tis the life,' tis the future, for eall ye revolutionaries,
those with out a plan to guard against the sprouts of thee helsceaða,
hideous O'accurst'd hour that falls on eall that heed not properly!
Steve.D.Hammond.
Wedensday.
And still on the Island.
Through the night, yet more rain fell, and into the morning so I woke to the sound of yet another cloudburst. But it should be clearing soon.
So, I leap out of bed, do 50 press-ups, have a cold shower and am ready for the rigours of the day ahead, and in this I would be helped by a pot of black coffee and the finest sausage and bacon sandwich known to man.
And a man in the kitchen makes it for me, so all I have to do is eat it.
Non nom nom.
I drink the last dregs off the coffee, and I'm away to work.
It was supposed to be a slow and easy start, but I was summoned to an emergency department meeting, and needed to be at the factory to get internet access.
Our soon-to-be-ex-boss is now officially our ex-boss, and we have a new interim manager.
That's it.
So on with the audit.
Outside, the clouds did clear and the sun did shine, and did shine into the meeting room where even in November was so warm the air conditioning could not cope and we got very warm indeed.
We broke for lunch, and talked about the struggles we face, and how jolly nice the Island is.
Well, it is.
We were done by half three, so I drove back to the hotel, but saw the sign I had passed dozens of times, pointing to the 11th century church of St John the Baptist. Today would be the day to visit.
Light was fading fast, but with a warm light, and only with my compact camera, my shots won't win many prizes, but the best camera is the one you have.
From the outside, it seems to be a very Victorian church, but there is a Norman arch in the porch, and many more details inside, among the Victorian fixtures and fittings.
Inside there is a very tall and narrow Jacobian pulpit, some fine monuments from before the 19th century work, and some what I think is medieval glass, or at least fragements reset.
Back at the hotel I wrote a little then decided I really should go an exercise my fat little legs, so should walk into Cowes for a pint at the Ale House, where there was a fine firkin of porter on.
But, before then, as I walked along the promenade, over the other side of the Solent, the just past full moon rose over the Pompy skyline. It was pretty breath-taking, I leaned on railings to watch it rise and get brighter and its yellow colour fade to pure white.
Dozens of other people were doing the same thing too.
And it was a free show.
My favourite price.
I walk into town and up the Ale House, a group of sailing types were talking over pints of fizzy Eurolager, so I order porter just because I can.
There was a wide range of places to eat, most with lots of free tables.
I wasn't in a seafood mood, curry perhaps, but then at a restaurant I saw they had a dish called "sambal chicken". Sambal is a spicy chili sauce from Indonesia, that I sued to eat lots of when I was on the survey boats.
I asked, do you make your own sambal?
They did.
And cocktails were two for £15.
I order the sambal chicken and a marshmallow martini.
Very fuckin sophisticated.
The sambal was hot, just about bearable, but not not leave any doubt, it came with sliced fresh chilli, as did the Thai spiced cheesy chips.
I eat most of it all, then finish up with a "rhubarb and custard cocktail, which did mix quite poorly with the sambal on the walk back to the hotel.
Back to the hotel, I settle the bill and so all ready to leave in the morning, as I have to catch the six o'clock ferry.
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The Church of St. John the Baptist is a parish church located in Northwood, Isle of Wight. The church dates from the 12th century. The mid-19th century saw extensive restoration work carried out on the church. In 1864 the wooden tower and dormer window were both swept away. The restoration was completed in 1874. Despite this restoration work, the church still retains many of its original features including a Norman arch over the south doorway and a Jacobean pulpit.
www.spottinghistory.com/view/12080/church-of-st-john-the-...
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NORTHWOOD
Northewode (xiii cent.).
Northwood is a parish and village midway between Newport and Cowes, and now includes Pallance Gate. In 1894 the parish was extended to include a part of the parish of St. Nicholas. (fn. 1) The soil is for the most part loam, while the subsoil is of clay and gravel. The parish contains 4,333 acres, of which 878 acres are arable, 2,612 acres are permanent grass and 419 acres woodlands. There are also 292 acres of foreshore, 2 of land covered by water and 78 by tidal water. Cowes contains 576 acres, of which 2 acres are arable and 166 permanent grass. There are also 35 acres of foreshore and 5 acres of land covered by water. (fn. 2) There is a station on the Isle of Wight Central railway at the cement works, available for Northwood, and the pumping station of the Cowes Waterworks is situated at Broadfields within the parish. The Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers have large works on the Medina at the West Medina Mills, and there are brickworks at Hillis belonging to Messrs. Pritchett. There existed a confraternity of Brothers and Sisters of St. John Baptist (fn. 3) in a building, later called the Church House, which was standing in 1690. It was founded c. 1500 and dissolved in 1536. An old glebe barn, with a date stone 'Restored 1742,' was pulled down in 1901. There is a Council school (mixed), built in 1855 and enlarged in 1906. The rectory-house lies to the east of the church and dates from the 18th century. (fn. 4)
The parish has a long seaboard as the north-west boundary, which includes the bays of Thorness and Gurnard, the latter the landing-place of Charles II in 1671. Gurnard (fn. 5) is a small village, mostly consisting of villas with a number of artisans' dwellings. There are a coastguard station here and a Council school, erected in 1863.
Northwood Park, the property of Mr. E. Granville Ward, was occupied from 1902 to 1906 by a community of Benedictine nuns, who have since moved to Appley, near Ryde (q.v.). The house, which is properly in Cowes, was built in 1837, on the site of a former residence called Belle View, by Mr. George H. Ward, uncle to the present owner, and is a somewhat stately stone building of classic detail, to which a wing has been since added.
At Hurstake on the Medina there was in the 18th century a flourishing shipyard, but by the end of the century it had fallen to decay. (fn. 6)
Cowes was taken out of Northwood and constituted a separate parish under the Local Government Act of 1894. (fn. 7) It is a thriving seaport town, daily increasing inland to the south, and is a terminus of the Isle of Wight Central railway and the main entrance to the Isle of Wight from Southampton. A steam ferry and launch service connect it with East Cowes. The town affairs are regulated under the Local Government Act of 1894 by an urban district council, who have acquired control of the water supply and gasworks. There is a steamboat pier and landingstage, and the Victoria Promenade Pier was built by the urban district council in 1901. There are wharves and storehouses along the Medina. The principal industries are the shipbuilding business of John Samuel White & Co., Ltd., the brass and iron foundry of Messrs. William White, the ropery of Messrs. Henry Bannister & Co. and the well-known sail-making establishment of Messrs. Ratsey & Lapthorn. A recreation ground of 9 acres was presented to the town by Mr. W. G. Ward in 1859.
The main or High Street of Cowes is a narrow, winding, old-fashioned road, widening as it approaches the shore at the north end, and finally terminating in the Parade, the principal sea-front of the town. At the end of the Parade is the Royal Yacht Squadron (fn. 8) Club House, converted to its present use in 1858, and beyond is the 'Green,' made over to the town authorities in 1864 by Mr. George R. Stephenson. The well-known annual regatta is held here the first week in August. (fn. 9) The oldest inn is the 'Fountain,' by the landing-pier, dating from the 18th century. The Gloucester Hotel, by the Parade, was the former home of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and probably owes its name to the visit of the Duke of Gloucester and his sister the Princess Sophia in 1811. The Royal Marine Hotel, also on the Parade, was certainly in existence at the beginning of the 19th century. (fn. 10) A public cemetery, about half a mile south of the town, was opened in 1855, and is under a joint burial board composed of members from Cowes and Northwood.
Besides Northwood Park, the principal residences are Egypt House, (fn. 11) the property of Mr. E. Granville Ward, and Nubia House, the home of Sir Godfrey Baring, late M.P. for the Island.
The name Cowes dates from the beginning of the 16th century, before which time the port—if port it could be called—was higher up the river at Shamblers. (fn. 12) In 1512 the fleet under Sir Edward Haward victualled at Cowes (the Cowe) on its way to Guienne, (fn. 13) so it is evident the place did not take its name from the defensive work, which was certainly not built before 1539. (fn. 14) Leland speaks of forts both at East and West Cowes, (fn. 15) but the former had become a ruin by the 17th century. (fn. 16) The latter, however, was kept up and added to, and had, in addition to the gun platform and magazine, apartments for the captain and gunners, and at the end of the 18th century mounted eleven nine-pounders. (fn. 17)
The inhabitants of this part of Northwood parish seem to have been seafarers and traders, or at any rate smugglers, as early as the 14th century. In July 1395 Thomas Shepherd received a 'pardon of the forfeitures and imprisonment incurred by him because he and two of the ferrymen sold two sacks of wool to men of a skiff from Harflete, carried the said wool as far as le Soland and there delivered the same, taking money.' (fn. 18) At another time he 'sold wool without custom . . . with the clerks of the chapel of the Earl of Salisbury, and at another time with a skiff from Harflete belonging to Janin Boset of Harflue.' (fn. 19)
The merchants' houses and stores were principally at East Cowes, where most of the business was transacted; but West Cowes in the 18th century became a shipbuilding centre, contributing many first-class battleships to the English navy. (fn. 20) By the year 1780 it was 'the place of greatest consideration in the parish of Northwood,' (fn. 21) and though the town was indifferently built, with very narrow streets, the inhabitants managed to be 'in general, genteel and polite although not troublesomely ceremonious.' (fn. 22)
In 1795 there were 2,000 inhabitants and the town had a good trade in provisions to the fleets riding in the roads waiting for a wind or a convoy. While the lower part of Cowes was crowded with seamen's cottages and business premises, the upper part on the hill slope was occupied by villas, chiefly of retired naval men. (fn. 23)
By the 19th century the tide of prosperity began to flow from East to West Cowe, which became a favourite bathing and boating resort, patronized by Royalty. The town now grew rapidly, and in 1816 an Act was passed for 'lighting, cleansing and otherwise improving the town of West Cowes . . . and for establishing a market within the said town.' (fn. 24)
The advent of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and the consequent popularity of racing, put a seal on West Cowes. It became fashionable and has remained so ever since—the hub of the yachting world.
There are two halls for entertainments—the Foresters' Hall in Sun Hill and another in Bridge Road, each capable of seating over 500 people.
There are Council schools in Cross Street (infants), and a mixed school has been lately erected in the same street; boys' and infants' in York Street; non-provided (boys and girls) in Cross Street.
MANORS
There is no mention of a manor of NORTHWOOD in Domesday Book, and it seems probable that then, as in the 13th century, the greater part of the land in the parish formed a member of the manor of Bowcombe in Carisbrooke (fn. 25) (q.v.). In the 17th century this land came to be regarded as a separate manor, but it continued to follow the descent of Bowcombe (fn. 26) until the latter half of the 18th century, when it was presumably sold to the Wards, whose representative, Mr. Edmund Granville Ward, is the present lord of the manor.
There was a small holding in Northwood possibly, as Mr. Stone suggests from research he has made, to be identified with Shamlord (q.v.). It was held, together with other property, under the manor of Bowcombe by a branch of the Trenchard family at least as early as 1338. (fn. 27) In 1560 Richard Trenchard, who seems to have been the grandson of John Trenchard of Chessell in Shalfleet, died seised of this property, which he had held 'in socage by fealty and rent of 25s. yearly, suit at court and finding one man and one woman yearly to mow the corn of the farmer of Bowcombe for one day.' He was succeeded by his son William. (fn. 28)
There were also lands in Northwood which formed a member of the manor of Alvington in Carisbrooke and were held in the reign of Henry III by William de St. Martin. (fn. 29) They afterwards belonged to Sir Stephen Popham (fn. 30) and descended to Sir Nicholas Wadham in the early part of the 16th century, at which time they were regarded as a separate manor; they continued, however, to follow the descent of Alvington (q.v.).
In the reign of Henry VIII there was in the parish much woodland which belonged before the Dissolution to the Prior and convent of Christchurch Twyneham, (fn. 31) who had perhaps bought it from the abbey of St. Mary, Romsey, to which it belonged in the 13th century. (fn. 32) In 1280 this abbey had received from Edward I a confirmation of a charter of Henry II granting them 'all their wood of Northwood, as King Edward gave it to them.' (fn. 33) There is, however, no mention of any property in Northwood among the possessions of Romsey Abbey at its dissolution. In 1544 the wood was granted to Thomas Hopson (fn. 34) and subsequently followed the descent of Ningwood in Shalfleet (q.v.). It was described as 'the manor of Northwood' in 1626, at which time it was in the possession of John Hopson. (fn. 35)
The manor of WERROR (Werore, xii cent.; Werole, xiii cent.; Warror, xvi cent.) was granted to God's House, Southampton, immediately after its foundation about 1197, for it was confirmed to the hospital by Richard I in 1199. (fn. 36) It had been given to the hospital by a certain Mark, and his gift was confirmed in 1209 by his son Roger, of whom the manor was to be held at a yearly rent of 6d. (fn. 37) William de Redvers Earl of Devon (1184–1216) granted to the hospital rights of pasturage and fuel, except for six weeks each year, over the whole land of Werror which belonged to his fee, and which is described as lying within Parkhurst, Northwood, Carisbrooke and the Medina. (fn. 38)
The estate remained in the hands of successive priors until the Dissolution (fn. 39) and passed with God's House to Queen's College, Oxford, (fn. 40) by whom the manor is still owned. (fn. 41)
CHURCHES
The church of ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST lies to the east of the road from Newport to Cowes. It was built as a chapel for the northern portion of the parish of Carisbrooke in the middle of the 12th century, and consists of a chancel, a nave with north and south aisles and a modern tower with spire added at the west end in 1864. The south door is a good specimen of 12th-century work, to be classed with those of Yaverland and Wootton. Both aisles are very narrow and are of four bays, with columns having the characteristic splay-cornered capitals found elsewhere in the Isle of Wight, (fn. 42) and must have been added towards the end of the century, the south being the later. (fn. 43) There are curious flying arches across these, evidently inserted later, to withstand the thrust of the roof and carry the flat above. In the 15th century windows of the period were inserted in the walls and the chancel reroofed, (fn. 44) if not rebuilt, and a small door inserted in the north wall of the nave. There is a good canopied Jacobean pulpit, somewhat similar in detail to that at Wootton. The chancel arch is a plain splay springing direct from the wall without an impost, and looks as though the earlier one had been destroyed and the opening widened in the 15th century. The memorials of interest are a painted wooden tablet to the children of Samuel and Grace Smith, who died in 1668 and 1670, and a curious memorial to Thomas Smith, rector, who died in 1681. (fn. 45)
The one bell, founded by Mears, was hung in 1875.
The plate consists of a chalice inscribed 'T.H. E.L.'; a paten inscribed 'Thomas Troughear, D.D. istius Ecclĩae Rector,' dated 1732; a flagon (plated) inscribed 'Northwood Church, 1831'; an oval paten inscribed '1813.'
The registers date from 1539, and are in seven books (fn. 46) : (i) 1539 to 1593; (ii) 1594 to 1598; (iii) 1599 to 1605; (iv) 1606 to 1618; (v) 1621 to 1660; (vi) 1653 to 1759; (vii) 1743 to 1812.
There is a mission church in Pallance Road with a Sunday school attached.
The church of ST. MARY, WEST COWES, built in 1867 on the site of an earlier church erected in 1657, is a stone structure consisting of chancel, nave of four bays and aisles, with a tower containing one bell and a clock. It has a handsome reredos and a fine organ. There is a brass memorial tablet to Dr. Arnold of Rugby. The living is a vicarage in the gift of the vicar of Carisbrooke. The register dates from 1679.
HOLY TRINITY CHURCH
HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, built of brick in 1832 at the sole expense of the late Mrs. S. Goodwin, was enlarged by the addition of a chancel in 1862. It has a western tower with embattled cornice and angle pinnacles. The register dates from 1833. The living is in the gift of Mr. Ll. Loyd.
The Roman Catholic church of St. Thomas of Canterbury in Terminus Road is a white brick building erected in 1796. There is a large altar-piece by Cau representing the Descent from the Cross, and another of the Death of the Virgin, on the north wall.
At Gurnard is the church of ALL SAINTS, attached to Holy Trinity, Cowes. It is of brick with Bath stone dressings, and has nave, chancel, north and south transepts and a turret with one bell.
ADVOWSONS
The church of Northwood was a chapel of ease to Carisbrooke, and belonged in early times to the priory there, (fn. 47) to which it had been granted by William de Redvers Earl of Devon. When the prior and convent obtained the rectory and endowed the vicarage of Carisbrooke, the tithes of Northwood, both great and small, were assigned to the vicar. (fn. 48) In the reign of Henry VIII Northwood obtained parochial privileges and was exempted from contribution to the repairs of Carisbrooke Church. (fn. 49) The living is still attached to Carisbrooke, and the patrons at the present day are the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford.
Cowes is ecclesiastically divided into two districts. The church of St. Mary was built in 1657, and further endowed in 1679 by George Morley Bishop of Winchester, 'provided that the inhabitants should pay the minister (who is always of their own choosing) £40 a year.' (fn. 50) The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £130, in the gift of the vicar of Carisbrooke.
The Roman Catholic church of St. Thomas of Canterbury was served at the beginning of the 19th century by two chaplains of Napoleon's Foreign Legion. The earliest register contains the names of several of the officers and men.
¶There are several large Nonconformist chapels in the town. The oldest of these is the Congregational chapel, which was built in 1804. The Wesleyan chapel was built in 1831, the Baptist chapel in 1877 and the Primitive Methodist and United Methodist Free Churches in 1889.
Tong is a small hamlet, half a mile to the north of the A2. You pass the turning before you know it.
We used to visit Tonge for the brewshop that used to be in the old water mill, that closed down, so we never went back.
A decade or so ago, I tried twice to see inside St Giles, but it was always locked.
And then Heritage Day this year came, and it was on the list. Although, roadworks made it almost impossible to get into the village, with no signs to help, but I did manage it, working my way the wrong way round at a traffic island, but the road was quiet and I escaped without incident.
Lots of cars parked outside, always a good sign, and after parking myself, I see the door open.
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An enigmatic church that presents far more questions than answers. The west wall includes bands of Caen stone that obviously once formed part of a major Norman doorway. Inside, the box pews act as a dark base for the lovely Norman arcades of plain and carved arches. The church is separated by a fine late Rood Screen which ahs lost its loft but which otherwise is well preserved. Its southern end has a different patterning on the base, possibly as the back to a former altar. The east window is possibly by Warrington, whilst the south chancel window is an early work of Kempe. Outside there are blocked arches everywhere and a very tall scar of a former roofline against the east wall of the tower. Whatever was there was a noble structure indeed, possibly a private chapel associated with the nearby castle, which may account for its early demolition. The cat slide roofs of the church and the tall thirteenth century tower are the two memorable features of the exterior.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Tonge
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TONG.
NORTWARD from Bapchild lies Tong, called in the Saxon language Thwang, which took its name, by antient tradition, from the following circumstance:
After the arrival of the Saxons in this kingdom, and their victory over the Scots and Picts, at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, Vortigern, king of Britain, highly satisfied with the conduct of the two Saxon chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, expressed himself very desirous of rewarding them for their services; when Hengist requested, as a pledge of the king's affection, only as much land as on ox-hide could encompass; which being readily granted, he cut the whole hide into small thongs, and inclosed within them a space of ground, large enough to contain a castle, which he accordingly built on it, and named it from thence Thwang-ceastre, i. e. Thong-castle; whence the parish itself afterwards took its name.
Writers differ much in the situation of this land, Camden, and some others, place it at Thong castle, near Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, others place it at Doncaster; whilst Leland, Kilburne, Philipott, and others, six it here, with the same old trite story to each place, which rather casts a shew of doubt on the whole of it. Indeed it seems but an imitation of Virgil's story of Dido's building of Byrsa, Æneid 1, 1. 369, where, speaking of that queen and her companions, he says,
Devenere locos, ubi-nunc ingentia cernesv
Mænia, surgentemque novæ Carthainis arcem.
Mercatique solum, facti de nomine Byrsam,
Taurino quantum possent circumdare lergo.
They came where now you see new Carthage rise,
And yon proud citadel invade the skies.
The wand' ring exiles bought a space of ground
Which one hull-hide inclos'd and compass'd round,
Hence Byrsa nam'd.
This castle was most conveniently situated for Hengift's purposes, close to the great high road on the one side, and not far distant from the water, called the Swale, on the other, through which it is supposed, the usual passage was for the shipping, between the main land and the Isle of Shepey, in former times.
At this castle, Hengist, some years afterwards, led on by his unbounded ambition, resolved to attain that by fraud and treachery, which he could not accomplish openly by force of arms. Accordingly, there being a good understanding between the Britons and the Saxons, he invited Vortigern, the British king, whose attachment to pleasure he was well acquainted with, to a splendid entertainment at this castle, who, unsuspecting the treachery, attended the summons, being accompanied by three hundred of his chief nobility, unarmed, who were all of them, towards the end of the feast, persidiously massacred by the Saxons, Vortigern only being spared, and detained as a prisoner, who was at last forced, as a ransom for his li berty, to surrender up to the Saxons a large tract of land, which Hengist added to his former territories.
This happened in the year 461, and Vortigern being set at liberty, retired into Wales. It was at a feast held at this castle in 450, that the story is told of Vortigern's being so enamoured with the beauty of Rowena, Hengist's daughter, that he repudiated his wife, and married her, and in recompence to Hengist, gave him up the sovereignty of Kent. That such a marriage did take place, is very certain; but the story of the king's falling in love with her at such a feast here, and the circumstances of it, are not much credited. Indeed Bede and Gildas mention nothing of it, and Malmsbury tells it only as a report.
THE HIGH DOVER ROAD crosses the centre of this parish, at the eastern boundary of Bapchild, just beyond Radfield. It extends on the southern side of it as high up as kingsdown, in which part of the parish are the estates of Newbarrow and Scuddington, and part of Wood-street; on the northern side of the road it extends to the marshes, which are bounded by the waters of the Swale, flowing between the main land and the Isle of Elmley, in Shepey. It contains about 1300 acres of land, of which not more than ten acres in the southern part of it are wood; that part of the parish on the northern side of the road is a flat and low country, almost on a level with the marshes, and is equally unhealthy as Bapchild, perhaps more so, even to a proverb, as lying lower, and rather more exposed to the marsh vapours; however the lands are exceedingly fertile for corn, being the same kind of round tilt land which extends along this plain. There is no village, the church stands about a mile northward from the road; the scite of the old castle is three fields only from the north side of the road, and is plainly seen from it. It consists of a high mount, containing about half an acre of ground, thrown up out of a broad and deep moat, which surrounds it, the north-west part of which is nearly dry, but the springs which rise on the South-west side of it, and formerly supplied the whole of it, now direct their course into a very large pond on the eastern side of the moat, and produce so plentiful a supply of water there, as to afford sufficient to turn a corn-mill, belonging to the lord of the manor, and afterwards flow from hence northward into the Swale; a large cutlas sword, with a buckhorn handle, was dug up within the scite of this castle about thirty years ago.
There was formerly an hospital situated in this parish. Leland in his Itinerary says, "There was a poor hospital a mile beyond Sittingborne, called Pokeshaulle. King Henry the VIIth gave it to Linche, his physician, and Linche gave it to a son of his, I suppose. It is now (that is in king Henry the VIIIth.'s reign) quite down." This is, I should suppose, the same house mentioned in the Harleian Mss. where there is a commission signed by Richard III. in his 1st year for suffering Arnold Childre, to occupy the almoux house beside sittingborne, which the king had given to him for life. Queen Mary, in her 4th year, granted this hospital of St. James, of Puckleshall, late in the tenure of Richard Newton, to Sir John Parrot.
There was a family of good account formerly, which took their name from this parish. Semanus at Tong was so considerable a man, that is the 21st year of king Richard II. he lent the king twenty pounds, no small sum in those days. He possessed lands at Bredgar, Tonstall, and other places in this neighbourhood and elsewhere, and at Bredgar, his descendants remained till within memory.
THE CASTLE OF TONG, most probably sell to ruin during the time of the Saxon heptarchy, and, with THE MANOR OF TONG, came in that situation into the hands of William the Conqueror, on his obtaining the crown, who gave both castle and manor to his half-brother Odo, bishop of Baieux, among other great possessions; accordingly it is thus described in the book of Domesday, under the general title of the bishop's lands:
The same Hugo (de Port) holds of the bishop (of Baieux) Tangas. It was taxed at two sulings. The arable land is two carucates. In demesne there are two, and five villeins with one carucate. There is a church, and four servants, and one mill of eight shillings. Wood for the pannage of four hogs.
In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth seven pounds, now ten pounds. Osward held it.
Of these sulins, which Hugo de Port held, Osward held five, at a yearly rent; and three sudins and one yoke and an half, which he took from the king's villeins.
On the bishop's disgrace about four years afterwards, the king confiscated all his possessions, and this estate among them probably reverred to the crown, and was afterwards held by the above-mentioned Hugh de Port, who then became the king's immediate tenant for it, being held by him as two knight's sees, parcel of the fourteen knight's sees and a quarter, of which all, but two, which were in Herefordshire, lay in this county, making up together the barony of Port, being held by barony of the castle of Dover, by the service of performing ward there for the defence of it. Of his descendant John de St. John, this manor was again held in the 22d year of king Edward I. by Ralph Fitzbernard, who died in the 34th year of king Edward I. leaving a son Thomas, who died s. p. and a daughter Margaret, married to Guncelin de Badlesmere, whose son Bartholomew de Badlesmere at length succeeded to this manor and castle, as part of his mother's inheritance.
He was a man much in favor with king Edward II. who made him constable of the castle of Leeds, Tunbridge and Bristol, and granted to him the manors and castles of Chilham and Leeds, with several other estates in this county and elsewhere; besides which, he obtained many liberties and franchises for his different manors and estates, among which was a grant of a fair to be held yearly at this manor, on the eve, day, and morrow, after the feast of St. Giles the abbot, and also for free-warren in the demesne lands of it. Being afterwards executed for rebellion in the 16th year of that reign, this estate became forfeited to the crown, but in the 2d year of king Edward III. the process and judgment against him being reversed, the manor of Tong, among others, were then restored to his son Giles de Badlesmere, who died in the 12th year of the same reign, s. p. so that his four sisters became his coheirs, (fn. 1) and upon a partition of their inheritance, this manor fell to the share of his third sister Elizabeth, then the wife of William Bohun, earl of Northampton, who in her right became entitled to it, holding it by the like service as before-mentioned.
Though he left issue by her, yet this manor did not descend to them, but to the issue of her first husband Edmund Mortimer, by whom she had one son Roger, who, in the 28th year of that reign, had obtained a reversal in parliament of the judgment given against his grandfather Roger, late earl of March, as erroneous and utterly void; upon which he thenceforth bore the title of earl of March.
His son and heir, Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, died possessed of it in the 5th year of Richard II. being then possessed of the tost of the castle of Tong, together with the castle annexed to the said tost, with the manor appurtenant to it, held of the king in capite, as of his castle of Dover, by the service as beforementioned. At length his descendant, Roger, earl of March, dying anno 3 Henry VI. Richard, duke of York, son of Anne his sister, was found to be his next heir, and accordingly became possessed of this estate. After which, endeavouring to assert the title of the house of York to the crown, he was slain in the battle of Wakefield, anno 39 Henry VI. being then possessed of the manor of Tong, as was found by the inquisition, which, by reason of the confusion of those times, was not taken till the 3d year of Edward IV. when the king was found to be his eldest son and next heir.
Notwithstanding the duke of York is said by the above-mentioned inquisition to have died possessed of this manor, yet the year before his death, a long attainder had passed against him and others, with the forfeiture of all their hereditaments in fee or fee tail; upon which this manor was granted by Henry VI. to Thomas Browne, esq. of Beechworth-castle, afterwards knighted, and made comptroller and treasurer of his houshold, who soon afterwards obtained a grant of a fair at this manor, on St. Jame's day yearly, and another for liberty to embattle his mansion, and to impark his lands here. His eldest son Sir George Browne, in the 11th year of king Edward IV. surrendered up all his right and title to it, to Cicely, duchess of York, the king's mother, who was then in possession of it. She died anno 10 Henry VII. upon which it came to the crown, where it continued till king Edward VI. granted it in his 1st year to Sir Ralph Fane, afterwards created a banneret, for his signal behaviour at the battle of Musselburgh, in Scotland, that year, to hold in capite by knight's service. (fn. 2)
He alienated this manor soon afterwards to Sir Rowland Clerke, who in the 4th and 5th year of king Philip and queen Mary, alienated it to Saloman Wilkins, who was succeeded by his son David Wilkins, who resided at Bex, or Bexle court, in this parish, an estate which had formerly belonged to the Nottinghams, of Bayford, in Sittingborne. He alienated this manor, with the scite of the castle to William Pordage, of Rodmersham, who purchased likewise some lands which had formerly belonged to this manor and had been sold off to Norden some few years before; in whole descendants it continued till it was at length sold to the Iles's, by a daughter of which name it passed in marriage to Hazard, whose son Richard Hazard, esq. died in 1784, after which it came into the name of Shard, and William Shard, esq. owned it in 1791, since which it has passed to Richard Seath, esq. of this parish, who is the present proprietor of the scite of this castle, and the manor annexed to it. There is a court baron held for this manor.
CHEEKS COURT is situated in this parish, though great part of the estate belonging to it lies in the adjoining parish of Murston. It was antiently written Chicks-court, and was once the property and residence of a family called At-Cheek, and sometimes de Cheeksell, as appeared from antient deeds; but in the reign of king Edward II. William de Ore was become intitled to it, with whom however, it did not remain long, for in the 9th year of that reign, Fulk Peyforer, who had been knight of the shire for this county in the 6th year of that reign, died possessed of it.
From the name of Peyforer it passed into that of Potyn, one of which family was possessed of it in the reign of king Richard II. and left an only daughter Juliana, who carried it in marriage to Thomas St. Leger, second son of Sir Ralph St. Leger, of Ulcomb, (fn. 3) who afterwards resided in her right at Otterden, and was sheriff anno 20 Richard II. He left an only daughter Joane, who marrying Henry Aucher, esq. of Newenden, entitled her husband to the possession of it. She survived him, and afterwards married Robert Capys, to whom Henry Aucher, esq. her only son and heir by her first husband, in the 19th year of king Henry VI. confirmed a life estate in Cheekscourt, Elmely, and other parts of her former inheritance. He afterwards, on her death, became possessed of it, and then sold it to Sir William Cromer, of Tunstall, sheriff in the 2d year of king James I. who alienated this estate to Mr. Christopher Allen, whose descendant the Rev. Thomas Allen, rector of the adjoining parish of Murston, died possessed of it in 1732, and devised it by will to his first cousin Mrs. Finch Allen, married first to the Rev. Mr. Mills, and secondly to Thomas Hooper, gent. of Stockbury, by whom she had three sons, Walter, Thomas, and Finch, and two daughters; Jane, married to William Jumper, esq. of Stockbury, and Catherine to the Rev. Theodore Delafaye. Walter Hooper, the eldest son, became possessed of this estate on his farther's death, and left only two daughters his coheirs, of whom, Sarah married first Steed, and Secondly William Huggessen, esq. of Stodmarsh, and Dorothy married Mr. Robert Radcliffe, who entitled their husbands to their respective shares of this estate, as devised to them by their father's will. At length William Huggessen, esq. about the year 1764, purchased the other part, and so became possessed of the whole fee of it, of which he continues owner at this time.
NEWBURGH, commonly called Newbarrow, is another estate in the southern part of this parish, adjoining to Linsted, which was formerly accounted a manot, though the reputation of its ever having been one is now almost forgotten. It was antiently owned by a family which assumed its surname from it, after who it came into the possession of the family of Apulderfield, whose antient seat was at Challock, in this county.
Henry de Apulderfield died possessed of it in the reign of king Edward I. in whose descendants it continued down to William Apulderfield, esq. who died in the reign of king Henry VI. leaving his two daugh ters his coheirs, one of whom, Elizabeth, carried this estate in marriage to Sir John Phineux, chief justice of the king's bench, and he too leaving only daughters and coheirs, one of them, Jane, entitled her husband John Roper, esq. of Eltham, to the possession of it. (fn. 4) He was attorney-general to Henry VIII. and died in 1524, leaving by her two sons and several daughters; of the former, William succeeded him at Eltham, where his descendants continued till of late, and Christopher was of Lodge, in the adjoining parish of Linsted, and by his father's will inherited this estate. His son Sir John Roper, anno 14 James I. 1616, was created lord Teynham, and died in 1618, possessed of this estate, which continued in his descendants till Henry Roper, lord Teynham, in the year 1766, alienated it to Mr. William Chamberlain, gent. of London, the present possessor of it.
Charities.
MR. WILLIAM HOUSSON gave by will in 1783, for instructing poor children of this parish, Murston and Bapchild, to read and write, 200l. now vested in the 4 per cent. consolidated annuities, a further account of which may be seen before under Bapchild.
SIR WILLIAM STEDE, of Stede-hill, gave by will in 1620, 101. per annum, to be paid out of lands in Sandhurst, for binding out yearly the children of the poorest people in this parish, Harrietsham, and Milton by Sittingborne, for ever, to be nominated by the owners of Stedehill-house, now vested by deed of settlement in trustees.
The poor constantly relieved here are about sixteen, casually sixty-five.
TONG is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
The church, which is dedicated to St. Giles, consists of one large and two narrow side isles, and has a tower steeple on the south side, in which are three bells. It was given by king Edward I. to the abbey of West Langdon, to which it was appropriated by archbishop Walter Reynolds, in 1325, and it continued part of the possessions of that monastery till the surrendry of it, anno 27 Henry VIII. This house being one of those lesser monasteries, whose revenues were not above the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds, which were suppressed by the act passed that year.
The parsonage of the church of Tong did not remain long in the hands of the crown, for the king granted it in his 29th year, with the monastery, and the lands and possessions of it, to the archbishop of Canterbury, in exchange for other premises; but all advowsons were excepted out of this grant.
Soon after which, this parsonage was demised on lease by the archbishop at the yearly rent of six pounds, and in this state it still continues parcel of the possessions of the archbishopric of Canterbury.
¶But the advowson of the vicarage, by virtue of the above-mentioned exception, still remained in the crown, where it continued till it was sold anno 1557, to Salomon Wilkins; but in the next reign of queen Elizabeth, it was become vested in William Potter. It afterwards become the property of Mr. Daniel Pawson, of Harrietsham, and then of the Stede family. Since which it has had the same possessors as Harrietsham manor and place, and as such, is now become vested in Wm. Baldwin, esq. of Harrietsham place.
The vicarage is valued in the king's books at 8l. 6s. 8d. the yearly tenths being 16s. 8d. and is of the yearly certified value of 55l. 3s.
In 1640 it was valued at fifty pounds. Communicants seventy-five.
In 1661 archbishop Juxon augmented this vicarage, in conformity to the king's letters of recommendation, ten pounds per annum out of the great tithes.
This property belonging to the Hells Angels was seized by the British Columbia government under the Civil Forfeiture Act in 2007. in February 2016, the Hells Angels lost their bid to overturn the seizure of their property.
Hughenden Manor, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, England, is a Victorian mansion, with earlier origins, that served as the country house of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public. It sits on the brow of the hill to the west of the main A4128 road that links Hughenden to High Wycombe.
History
The manor of Hughenden is first recorded in 1086, as part of Queen Edith's lands, and held by William, son of Oger the Bishop of Bayeux, and was assessed for tax at 10 hides. After his forfeiture, the lands were held by the Crown, until King Henry I of England gave the lands to his chamberlain and treasurer, Geoffrey de Clinton.[1] Clinton, whose main home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the lands tenanted by Geoffrey de Sancto Roerio, who resultantly changed his surname to the Anglicised Hughenden.[1] After passing through that family, with successive Kings having to confirm the gift of the lands, the manor returned to the Crown in the 14th century.[1] In 1539, the Crown granted the manor and lands to Sir Robert Dormer, and it passed through his family until 1737 when it was sold by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield to Charles Savage.[1]
After passing through his extended family following a series of deaths and resultant devises by will, by 1816 the manor and lands were owned by John Norris, a distinguished antiquary and scholar.[1] Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1868 and 1874–1880, and Earl of Beaconsfield 1876), had for some time rented the nearby Bradenham Manor and, following Norris's death in 1845, bought the manor and lands from his executors in 1847.[1] The purchase was supported with the help of a loan of £25,000 (equivalent to almost £1,500,000 today) from Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield. This was because at the time, as Disraeli was the leader of the Conservative Party, "it was essential to represent a county," and county members had to be landowners.[2] Taking ownership of the manor on the death of his father in 1848, Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne, alternated between Hughenden and several homes in London.
The building in the distance, perhaps because of the unusually shaped windows and prodigious buttressing, has often been said to be a chapel. It wasn't, it was the castle stables.
Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell
A couple of photos back, I mentioned the 1562 wedding that took place here, of John Stewart, Prior of Coldingham, and Jean Hepburn, sister of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. The product of this marriage was Francis Stewart, who in 1568 was confirmed in the lands and baronies formerly held by his forfeited uncle. On 27 November 1577, aged 15, he was 'belted' as earl Bothwell at Stirling Castle by his cousin, King James VI.
Over the next 5 years, he studied at the Universities of Paris and Rouen and travelled to Italy, before returning to Scotland in 1582. From here, things started their long slow downhill run!
In May 1583, during a football match at Linlithgow Palace, Bothwell knocked the Earl Marischal over, who then kicked him on the leg! They decided to fight a duel the next day, but the Earl of Angus and the king reconciled them.
Next Bothwell quarreled with David Home of Manderston at Linlithgow Palace in November of the same year before killing him the following year (1584). In October 1584 he wrote from Crichton Castle to Sir Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch asking him to meet him at Dalkeith and support him at his trial in Edinburgh. The courts must have been as weak in those times as they are today, as nothing seems to have come of it.
In 1586 or 87, a quarrel with William Stewart of Monkton led to a fight in Blackfriar's Wynd, in which Bothwell stabbed Stewart with his rapier. When Stewart tried to hide in a cellar, Bothwell's men "stobbed him with whingers till he was despatched".
More misdemeanors followed and the king started to tire of him. In May 1589, Bothwell was imprisoned in Holyrood Palace. Seeing the king in the garden outside his window, he called to James, who ignored him and had him transferred to Blackness Castle and then to Tantallon Castle. Bothwell was so angry that he beat his wife and any of his servants that came near him.
On 15 April 1591, Bothwell was arrested and charged with witchcraft. He was accused of trying to arrange the king's death through sorcery and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Witchcraft was a big deal at this time, with witches regularly burned for their crimes, and King James VI is said to have had a particular fear and fascination of the subject.
The allegations arose through the events of the marriage of James VI to Anne of Denmark two years earlier in September 1589. She had been expected to sail from Denmark but was prevented by storms three time. The Danish admiral Peder Munk attributed the storms to witchcraft. As you would! King James then hopped on a boat and went off to Denmark to fetch his wife himself. Subsequently, a man named Ritchie Graham freely admitted (following torture) that he had conspired with the Earl of Bothwell, to arrange a storm to kill the king.
Things weren't looking good for Francis Stewart, so in June 1591, he broke out of Edinburgh Castle. He was proclaimed an outlaw three days later, following which the king gave his lands and offices together with the castles of Crichton and Hailes to the Duke of Lennox. Anne of Denmark tried to intercede for Bothwell, but found the king so "moved" and so angry with those who had requested her intervention that she dropped the issue. Bothwell spent his days at Crichton but hid at night in woods and other places.
Rumours abounded as to the earl's whereabouts. There were reports of him in Kelso and Aberdeen and then on October 18th, a house in Leith was raided, where his wife was staying, but while his servant Robert Scott, brother of the Laird of Balwearie, and Valentine, the earl's best horse were seized, the earl himself could not be found.
On 27 December 1591, Bothwell broke into Holyroodhouse attempting to seek a reconciliation - or as his opponents claimed, trying to assassinate James and Anne. The twins Patrick and John Schaw were killed trying to defend the king, but again, while some of his supporters were captured, including David Cunningham of Robertland, and some sentenced to death, the earl got away.
When the Parliament of Scotland met on 5 June 1592 for the first time in nearly five years and the Privy Council was reconstituted, a Proclamation was issued denuding Bothwell of honours, titles, and lands. On 28 June, between one and two o'clock in the morning, Bothwell, leading 300 others, attempted to capture Falkland Palace and the king. Forewarned, the king and queen and his immediate courtiers withdrew to the tower and locked it from within. Bothwell gave up and left with the horses from the royal stables.
Throughout 1592, the hunt for Francis Stewart continued, often led by the king himself, and numerous arrests were made of men that were believed to be his adherents, but by January 1593, he was across the border in northern England, from where the king indignantly demanded of Queen Elizabeth that he be returned. He needn't have bothered!
Bothwell was formally attainted by an Act of Parliament, dated 21 July 1593, however, on Tuesday, 24 July, the Earl helped by Marie Ruthven, Countess of Atholl smuggled himself into Holyroodhouse and forced himself at last into the King's presence, in his bedchamber. It was said that Bothwell hid behind the tapestry or hangings until the best moment. Soon numerous other Bothwell supporters had also entered the room. The Provost of Edinburgh, Alexander Home of North Berwick came to the palace to help, but the James said things were fine. The king accepted Bothwell's protestations of loyalty and an agreement for his pardon was reached. It received the Royal, and other signatures on 26 July, so amazingly, just five days after his forfeiture, Bothwell and his accomplices received a blanket Act of Remission and Condonation.
On Friday, 10 August, a formal trial of Bothwell was entered into on the old witchcraft charges, in order to deal with them once and for all. The depositions of the Ritchie Graham were read out, that he advised Bothwell to poison the king, or burn his effigy in wax, or enchant the king to stay in Denmark in 1590. Bothwell made speeches and other argument on his own behalf, blaming his enemies Sir George Home and Sir John Carmichael. He was acquitted.
All appeared now to be well, but, the King was not yet finished, and when the Convention of Estates met at Stirling on 7 September 1593 he conspired with those opposed to Bothwell to recall his pardon. Royal messengers went to meet Bothwell on the 11th, at Linlithgow, with the news that the king proposed to modify his blanket pardon, adding the condition that Bothwell would have to go into exile.
Francis Stewart remained in Scotland for another two years, making his way north to Caithness and Orkney, always sought by those opposed to him, until in 1595 he escaped to France. Thereafter reports came in intermittently that he was in Spain, London, the Low Countries and elsewhere, until in 1612 confirmation was received that he had died in poverty in Naples. The Spanish Viceroy of Naples, Pedro Fernández de Castro y Andrade arranged a lavish funeral for the Scottish earl.
It would make a great film!
On the forfeiture of Francis Stewart, 5th and last Earl of Bothwell, Crichton passed through the hands of several proprietors, from one of whom, Hepburn of Humbie, who acquired it about the year 1649, it obtained the name, among the county people, of ‘Humbie’s Wa’s.’
Prudhoe Castle is a ruined medieval English castle situated on the south bank of the River Tyne at Prudhoe, Northumberland, England. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building.
Archaeological excavations have shown that the first castle on the site was a Norman motte and bailey, built sometime in the mid 11th century. Following the Norman Conquest, the Umfraville family took over control of the castle. Robert d’Umfraville was formally granted the barony of Prudhoe by Henry I but it is likely that the Umfravilles had already been granted Prudhoe in the closing years of the 11th century. The Umfravilles (probably Robert) initially replaced the wooden palisade with a massive rampart of clay and stones and subsequently constructed a stone curtain wall and gatehouse.
In 1173 William the Lion of Scotland invaded the North East to claim the earldom of Northumberland. The head of the Umfraville family, Odinel II, refused to support him and as a result the Scottish army tried to take Prudhoe Castle. The attempt failed as the Scots were not prepared to undertake a lengthy siege. The following year William attacked the castle again but found that Odinel had strengthened the garrison, and after a siege of just three days the Scottish army left. Following the siege, Odinel further improved the defences of the castle by adding a stone keep and a great hall.
Odinel died in 1182 and was succeeded by his son Richard. Richard became one of the barons who stood against King John, and as a result forfeited his estates to the crown. They remained forfeited until 1217, the year after King John's death. Richard died in 1226 and was succeeded by his son, Gilbert, who was himself succeeded in 1245 by his son Gilbert. Through his mother, Gilbert II inherited the title of Earl of Angus, with vast estates in Scotland, but he continued to spend some of his time at Prudhoe. It is believed that he carried out further improvements to the castle. Gilbert took part in the fighting between Henry III of England and his barons, and in the Scottish expeditions of Edward I. He died in 1308 and was succeeded by his son, Robert D’Umfraville IV. In 1314, Robert was taken prisoner by the Scots at Bannockburn, but was soon released, though he was deprived of the earldom of Angus and of his Scottish estates. In 1316 King Edward granted Robert 700 marks to maintain a garrison of 40 men-at-arms and 80 light horsemen at Prudhoe.
In 1381 the last of the line, Gilbert III, died without issue and his widow married Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. On her death in 1398, the castle passed to the Percy family.
The Percys added a new great hall to the castle shortly after they took possession of it. Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland fought against Henry IV and took part in the Battle of Shrewsbury, for which act he was attainted and his estates, including Prudhoe, were forfeited to the Crown in 1405. That same year it was granted to the future Duke of Bedford, (a son of Henry IV) and stayed in his hands until his death in 1435, whereupon it reverted to the Crown.
The Percys regained ownership of the Prudhoe estates in 1440, after a prolonged legal battle. However, Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland fought on the Lancastrian side in the Wars of the Roses and was killed at the Battle of Towton in 1461. In 1462 Edward IV granted Prudhoe to his younger brother George, Duke of Clarence. The latter only possessed the castle briefly before the king granted it to Lord Montague.
The castle was restored to the fourth Earl in 1470. The principal seat of the Percys was Alnwick Castle and Prudhoe was for the most part let out to tenants. In 1528 however Henry Percy 6th Earl was resident at the castle as later was his brother Sir Thomas Percy. Both the Earl and Sir Thomas were heavily involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 and both were convicted of treason and executed. Following forfeiture of the estates the castle was reported in August 1537 to have habitable houses and towers within its walls, although they were said to be somewhat decayed and in need of repairs estimated at £20.
The castle was once again restored to Thomas Percy, the 7th Earl in about 1557. He was convicted of taking part in the Rising of the North in 1569. He escaped, but was recaptured and was executed in 1572.
The castle was thereafter let out to many and various tenants and was not used as a residence after the 1660s. In 1776 it was reported to be ruinous.
Between 1808 and 1817, Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland carried out substantial repairs to the ancient fabric and replaced the old dwellings within the walls with a Georgian mansion adjoining the keep.
In 1966 the castle was given over to the Crown and is now in the custody of English Heritage and is open to the public.
One of the key characters on the English side during the Wars of Independence, was a Henry Beaumont. He was to participate in every major engagement, from the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 to the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333. He comes into this story by virtue of the fact that he married Alice Comyn, who, following the death of John Comyn, 3rd Earl of Buchan, inherited the Buchan earldom. But while Henry Beaumont became Earl of Buchan, by right of his wife, he was to spend most of his life trying to take control of the earldom's lands - indeed he was to do more than anyone else to overturn the peace between England and Scotland, established by the Treaty of Northampton and bring about the Second War of Scottish Independence.
Henry first took up military service with Edward I while he was campaigning in Flanders in 1297 against Philip IV of France. When Edward returned to England the following year to deal with the after effects of the defeat of his northern army by the Scots at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, he was accompanied by Beaumont. In the ensuing battle of Falkirk, Beaumont was one of the young knights who had his horse killed from under him by the spears of William Wallace's schiltrons. Beaumont again attended Edward I in the Scottish wars in 1302.
Edward I died in July 1307, which allowed Robert Bruce to turn his attention from defeating English armies, to defeating enemies at home. Chief amongst his domestic enemies were the Comyns and the head of the family (since the murder of John Comyn) was John 3rd Earl of Buchan. Buchan survived his defeat at Barra, but died not long after, in exile in England. His niece and heiress presumably went to England with him and it was there in 1310, that she married Henry Beaumont.
The final act of the 1st War of Independence, was the Battle of Bannockburn - the English attempt to relieve their forces besieged in Stirling Castle. Henry Beaumont was there as a cavalry commander, which was perhaps fortunate as, on the second day of the battle, it enabled him to be one of those who accompanied Edward II in his flight from the field back to England.
In the November after Bannockburn, Beaumont was one of those affected by the sentence of forfeiture passed by the Scottish parliament against all those with land and title in Scotland who continued to fight with the English. This created a group of nobility, both English and Scots, that became known as the Disinherited. Although this group included men of greater standing, such as David Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, Beaumont was to prove by far the most determined in the pursuit of his lost honours.