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Helmsdale
Helmsdale (, ) is a village on the east coast of Sutherland, in the Highland council area of Scotland. The modern village was planned in 1814 to resettle communities that had been removed from the surrounding straths as part of the Highland Clearances. Toponymy The River Helmsdale ( Gaelic ''Ilidh'') was noted by Ptolemy as ''Ila'', which remains an obscure name. The Gaelic name for the village, ''Bun Ilidh'', means ''Ilie-foot''. Norse settlers called the strath ''Hjalmundal'', meaning ''Dale of the Helmet'', from which the modern village name ''Helmsdale'' is derived. History The remains of Helmsdale Castle were demolished in the 1970s in order to build the new A9 road bridge. The castle was the location of the murder of the 11th Earl of Sutherland and his Countess, Marion Seton, in 1567. They were poisoned by Isobel Sinclair, the wife of Gordon of Gartly. Isobel Sinclair's own son also died, but the fifteen-year-old heir of Sutherland, Alexander, was unharmed. He was ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helmsdale Railway Station
Helmsdale railway station is a railway station serving the village of Helmsdale in the Highland council area, northern Scotland. It is located on the Far North Line, between Brora and Kildonan, from Inverness. ScotRail, who manage the station, operate all services. History The Duke of Sutherland's Railway had opened between and (near Gartymore) on 1 November 1870. Extensions of this line southward to and northward to Helmsdale were opened on 19 June 1871. The station buildings were designed by the architect William Fowler. Another company, the Sutherland and Caithness Railway (S&CR), was authorised on 13 July 1871 to take over the powers of the projected Caithness Railway and link Helmsdale with that line at , and the S&CR opened on 28 July 1874. The station master's house on the platform was abandoned in the 1980s. In 2013 it was refitted as self-catering holiday accommodation. On 7 August 2024, King Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Helmsdale
West Helmsdale is a small settlement lying on the right bank of the River Helmsdale, on the east coast of Sutherland, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally, ''upland'' refers to a range of hills, typically from up to , while ''highland'' is usually reserved for range .... The village of Helmsdale lies on the left bank of the River Helmsdale. Notable people * Roderick Ross (1865–1943) CVO CBE KPM (1865–1943) was Chief Constable of Edinburgh City Police from 1900 to 1935. Born 24 May 1865 the son of a Crofter whose grandfather (his namesake) a Chelsea Pensioner had been evicted out of Kildonan during the Highland Clearances. Ross was born in West Helmsdale in the parish of Kildonan, Sutherland. References Populated places in Sutherland {{Sutherland-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sutherland And Caithness Railway
The Sutherland and Caithness Railway was a Scottish railway company that built a line from Helmsdale, the terminus of the Duke of Sutherland's Railway to Wick and Thurso in Caithness, giving the northern towns access to Inverness. It was driven through by the efforts of the 3rd Duke of Sutherland and the engineer Joseph Mitchell in the face of apathy from interests in Wick. Its roundabout route was forced by the difficult topography north of Helmsdale. It opened in 1874 and continues in use at the present day as the northern part of the Far North Line. Background Interests in Inverness had pushed railways northwards: the Inverness and Ross-shire Railway opened as far as a Bonar Bridge station in 1864; the Sutherland Railway had got as far as Golspie before running out of money in 1868; and the Duke of Sutherland had put his own money into building what became the Duke of Sutherland's Railway, opening to Helmsdale in 1871. A tract of wild and thinly populated territory la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Helmsdale
The River Helmsdale (sometimes known as the River Ullie) () is one of the major east-flowing rivers of Sutherland in the Highlands of Scotland. It flows broadly southeastwards from Loch Badanloch down the Strath of Kildonan (otherwise known as Strath Ullie), gathering the waters of the Bannock Burn on its left and the Abhainn na Frithe on its right before discharging into the Moray Firth on the North Sea at the town of Helmsdale. Other significant tributaries of the Helmsdale include the left-bank Suisgill Burn and the right-bank Craggie Water. Loch Achnamoine which is just over 1 km in length, lies on the line of the river 1 mi / 1.5 km downstream of Loch Badanloch. Loch Badanloch is one of a complex of three interconnecting lochs - the other two being Loch nan Clàr and Loch Rimsdale which gather waters from the moors on the southern edge of the Flow Country The Flow Country () is a vast area of bog peatland in Caithness and Sutherland, northern Scotland. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sutherland
Sutherland () is a Counties of Scotland, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in the Scottish Highlands, Highlands of Scotland. The name dates from the Scandinavian Scotland, Viking era when the area was ruled by the Jarl of Orkney; although Sutherland includes some of the northernmost land on the island of Great Britain, it was called ' ("southern land") from the standpoint of Orkney and Caithness. From the 13th century, Sutherland was a provincial lordship, being an earldom controlled by the Earl of Sutherland. The earldom just covered the south-eastern part of the later county. A Shires of Scotland, shire called Sutherland was created in 1633, covering the earldom of Sutherland and the neighbouring provinces of Assynt to the west and Strathnaver to the north. Shires gradually eclipsed the old provinces in administrative importance, and also become known as counties. The county is generally rural and sparsely populated. Suth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A9 Road (Scotland)
The A9 is a major road in Scotland running from the Falkirk council area in central Scotland to Scrabster Harbour, Thurso in the far north, via Stirling, Bridge of Allan, Perth and Inverness. At , it is the longest road in Scotland and the fifth-longest A-road in the United Kingdom. Historically it was the main road between Edinburgh and John o' Groats, and has been called ''the spine of Scotland''. It is one of the three major north–south trunk routes linking the Central Belt to the Highlands – the others being the A82 and the A90. The road's origins lie in the military roads building programme of the 18th century, further supplemented by the building of several bridges in later years. The A9 route was formally designated in 1923, and originally ran from Edinburgh to Inverness. The route was soon extended north from Inverness up to John O'Groats. By the 1970s the route was hampered by severe traffic congestion, and an extensive upgrading programme was undertaken on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kildonan Gold Rush
The Kildonan Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Strath of Kildonan, Sutherland, in the Highlands of Scotland in 1869. Small amounts of gold had long been discovered in the Kildonan area. A nugget with enough material for a ring was discovered in 1818 near the Suisgill and Kildonan burns. Public interest was sparked, and a gold rush started, following a newspaper announcement late in 1868 of the results of Robert Nelson Gilchrist's more systematic search for gold. A local newspaper stated that gold had been discovered at Kildonan. Gilchrist, a native of Kildonan, had spent 17 years in the goldfields of Australia. On his return home, the Duke of Sutherland gave him permission to pan the gravels of the Helmsdale River, and he prospected all the burns and tributaries. The gold rush proper began in January 1869. At this stage those searching for gold stayed in Helmsdale or more ad hoc accommodation near the Kildonan burn including the old Kildonan Church. Two small towns, Baile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highland Clearances
The Highland Clearances ( , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulted from Scottish Agricultural Revolution, agricultural improvement, driven by the need for landlords to increase their income – many had substantial debts, with actual or potential bankruptcy being a large part of the story of the clearances. This involved the enclosure of the Open-field system, open fields managed on the run rig system and shared grazing. These were usually replaced with large-scale Pastoral farming, pastoral farms on which much higher rents were paid. The displaced tenants were expected to be employed in industries such as fishing, quarrying, or Kelp#Uses, kelp harvesting and processing. Their reduction in status from farmer to Croft (land), crofter was one of the causes of resentment. The second phase involved overcrowded crofting communities from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chain Home
Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal early warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force (RAF) before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Initially known as RDF, and given the official name Air Ministry Experimental Station Type 1 ( AMES Type 1) in 1940, the radar units were also known as Chain Home for most of their life. Chain Home was the first early warning radar network in the world and the first military radar system to reach operational status. Its effect on the war made it one of the most powerful systems of what became known as the "Wizard War". In late 1934, the Tizard Committee asked radio expert Robert Watson-Watt to comment on the repeated claims of radio death rays and reports suggesting Germany had built some sort of radio weapon. His assistant, Arnold Wilkins, demonstrated that a death ray was impossible but suggested radio could be used for long-range detection. In February 1935, a successful d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom which was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford. A series of marriages to heiresses by members of the Leveson-Gower family made the dukes of Sutherland one of the richest landowning families in the United Kingdom. The title remained in the Leveson-Gower family until the death of the 5th Duke of Sutherland in 1963, when it passed to the 5th Earl of Ellesmere from the Egerton family. The subsidiary titles of the Duke of Sutherland are Marquess of Stafford (created 1786), Earl Gower (1746), Earl of Ellesmere, of Ellesmere in the County of Shropshire (1846), Viscount Trentham, of Trentham in the County of Stafford (1746), Viscount Brackley, of Brackley in the County of Northampton (1846), and Baron Gower, of Sittenham in the County of York (1703). The marquessate of Stafford, the earldom of Gower and the viscountcy of Trentham are in the Peerage of Great Britain, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Gordon, 12th Earl Of Sutherland
Alexander Gordon, 12th Earl of Sutherland (died 1594) was a Scottish landowner. Early life He was the son of John Gordon, 11th Earl of Sutherland and his second wife Lady Helen Stewart, daughter of John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Lennox and widow of William Hay, 6th Earl of Erroll. When he was about fifteen years old in 1567, his father and step mother were poisoned at Helmsdale Castle by Isobel Sinclair, the wife of Gordon of Gartly. Isobel Sinclair's own son also died, but the fifteen-year-old heir of Sutherland, Alexander Gordon was unharmed. He was made to marry the daughter of George Sinclair, 4th Earl of Caithness, Barbara Sinclair, who was more than twice his age. Feud with the Earls of Caithness In 1569, he escaped from the Sinclair family to Huntly Castle. He started proceedings to divorce Barbara Sinclair. She died in 1573, and he married Jean Gordon, the former wife of the Earl of Bothwell, who had also been living at Huntly. In 1570, the Battle of Torran-Roy had take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huntly Castle
Huntly Castle is a ruined castle north of Huntly, Scotland, Huntly in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where the rivers River Deveron, Deveron and River Bogie, Bogie meet. It was the ancestral home of the chief of Clan Gordon, Earl of Huntly. There have been four castles built on the site that have been referred to as Huntly Castle, Strathbogie Castle or Peel of Strathbogie. Location Huntly Castle was built on the crossing of the rivers River Deveron, Deveron and River Bogie, Bogie, north of Huntly and roughly 40 miles from Aberdeen. The original wooden castle was built on a motte-and-bailey castle, motte. The second castle, made of stone, was built on the northern end of the bailey. The third and modern castles were built to the east of the original, at the southern end of the estate. History The castle was originally built by Donnchad II, Earl of Fife, Duncan II, Earl of Fife, on the Strathbogie estate sometime around 1180 and 1190. The castle became known as the Peel of Strathbogie. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
