Cromartyshire

Cromartyshire () was a county in the Highlands of Scotland, comprising the medieval "old shire" around the county town of Cromarty and 22 enclaves and exclaves transferred from Ross-shire in the late 17th century. The largest part, six times the size of the old shire, was Coigach, containing Ullapool and the area north-west of it. In 1889, Cromartyshire was merged with Ross-shire to become a new county called Ross and Cromarty, which in 1975 was merged into the new council area of Highland.

History

Cromartyshire was anciently part of the province of Ross. Ross had been under Norwegian overlordship in the 10th and 11th centuries, but was claimed by the Scottish crown in 1098. It took many years for Scottish authority to become fully effective in the area. Unlike other areas absorbed into Scotland around that time, such as Moray, Ross was not initially divided into shires. Instead, the area was placed under the nominal authority of the Sheriff of Inverness. By the mid-thirteenth century there were two small shires within Ross, based at Dingwall and Cromarty, to enforce Scottish laws in the immediate vicinity of those two burghs, but the rest of Ross remained under the sheriff of Inverness. The position of Sheriff of Dingwall did not endure, but the Sheriff of Cromarty did, and became a hereditary post held by Clan Urquhart.

The medieval shire or sheriffdom of Cromarty encompassed a single tract on the north of the Black Isle peninsula. It comprised the parish of Cromarty; most of the adjacent parish of Kirkmichael (excluding a portion at Balblair where a ferry crossed the Cromarty Firth to Invergordon); and a single farm in Cullicudden parish. As late as the mid-nineteenth century, the boundary between Ross-shire and Cromartyshire was uncertain on the moor of Millbuie (in the centre of the Black Isle).

Cromartyshire originally bordered Inverness-shire, but in 1504 an act of parliament purported to create the county of Ross-shire covering the rest of the old province of Ross. In practice, that act was not fully brought into effect. It was not until a subsequent act in 1661 and the appointment of the first permanent sheriff of Ross in 1662 that Ross-shire properly functioned as a shire.Mackenzie 1810
pp.11–13
/ref> In 1662, Kirkmichael and Cullicudden parishes merged to form the parish of Resolis.

The feudal barony of Cromarty, whose appurtenant land was coterminous with the county, was purchased from the Urquharts in 1682 by the Mackenzies of Tarbat. They owned scattered lands in Ross-shire, including the barony of Tarbat on the Moray Firth north of the Black Isle. In 1685 Sir George Mackenzie, recently made Viscount of Tarbat and later elevated to Earl of Cromartie, secured two Acts of the Parliament of Scotland transferring his lands in Easter Ross from Ross-shire to Cromartyshire.Mackenzie 1810
pp.15–16
/ref> These were enumerated as:
:the barony of Tarbat and all therein incorporated, ... also Little Farness and others his lands within the barony of Delny, together with the lands of Wester St Martins, Easter Balblair and the ferry belonging to George Dallas of St Martins
And:
:his lands of Pittonachie, Beneckfield, Avoch, Castleton, Auchterflow, Hauldoks, Killen, Raddery, Balmeechy, Little Suddey and his lands about Chanonry and Rosemarkie
Although this was repealed in 1686 on the grounds that some lands not belonging to Viscount Tarbat had been included, it was re-enacted in 1690 to include only "the said barony of Tarbat and all other lands in Ross-shire belonging in property to the said viscount". The transfers increased the area and rateable value of Cromartyshire by respective factors of fifteen and three.

Cromartyshire was the smallest constituency in the Parliament of Scotland, with only five freeholders electing its two Commissioners in 1703. After the Act of Union 1707, Cromartyshire sent one MP to Westminster alternately with Nairnshire, a nearby small county. Only six of 19 votes on the register at the last election, in 1831, were found to be genuine freeholders.

Following the Jacobite rising of 1745, the government passed the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746, returning the appointment of sheriffs to the crown in those cases where they had become hereditary positions, as had been the case for the Sheriff of Cromarty. The scope for a major landowner or clan chief to control the office of sheriff, which had been the major cause of Cromartyshire's exclaves being separated from Ross, was therefore greatly reduced. From 1748 the government merged the positions of Sheriff of Ross and Sheriff of Cromarty into a single position under the Sheriffs (Scotland) Act 1747.

The 1801 census report listed "Shire of Cromarty" and "Shire of Ross" separately, the former including only the old shire and the latter the exclaves. The 1811 census report listed "Ross and Cromarty" together on the ground that it was impractical to separate them. In 1805, responsibility for maintenance of roads in Ross-shire and Cromartyshire was merged. In 1810, the militia was for Ross-shire in some exclaves and Cromartyshire in others.Mackenzie 1810
p.19
/ref>
The Scottish Reform Act 1832 merged Cromartyshire's constituency with Ross-shire's to form Ross and Cromarty, returning one MP to Parliament. Police and ratings administration were merged similarly in the Victorian period.

Despite sharing a sheriff from 1748, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire remained legally separate counties. They retained separate Commissioners of Supply, and from 1794 each appointed their own lord-lieutenants, with Cromartyshire overseen by the Lord Lieutenant of Cromarty. From 1860 the commissioners of supply for the two counties were directed to work together on delivering some functions, notably relating to prisons.Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland
Vol.2 p.310–1, Cromartyshire
/ref>

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 provided that "the counties of Ross and Cromarty shall cease to be separate counties, and shall be united for all purposes whatsoever, under the name of the county of Ross and Cromarty." The new county of Ross and Cromarty came into being from the passing of the act in August 1889. The act also established elected county councils, which came into being in May 1890. The 1889 Act also triggered a review of boundaries to eliminate remaining exclaves and cases where parishes straddled county boundaries, which saw Ross and Cromarty absorb an exclave of Nairnshire and a near-exclave of Inverness-shire; the former was the barony of Ferintosh and the latter an exclave of Kilmorack parish around Muir of Ord railway station.

Geography

Given the scattered nature of the county it is difficult to generalise. The original shire consisted of a portion of the Black Isle peninsula bordering on Cromarty Firth, across which lay the Tarbat peninsula, of which several portions belonged to Cromartyshire, including Tarbat Ness. The interior sections consisted of several enclaves within Ross-shire which were mountainous, remote and sparsely populated.

To the west were various sections around Little Loch Broom, including the southern tip of Gruinard Island. North of Loch Broom lay the largest single section of the county, which contained Ullapool, the Coigach peninsula and a number of small islands in Enard Bay and also the Summer Isles where Loch Broom meets The Minch. This section also contained a number of lochs, including Loch Osgaig, Loch Veyatie, Loch Lurgainn, Loch Bad a' Ghaill, Loch Sionascaig and Loch Achall.

Sources tend to number the tracts added to Cromartyshire at between eight and eleven; however some comprise multiple parcels. In 1807, Alexander Nimmo listed the additions in eight groups with two to six parcels in each.Mackenzie 1810
pp.16–18
/ref>

Ordnance Survey list

The 1881 index to the Ordnance Survey's first edition lists 22 detached parts, and the original "old shire", all of whose areas are given on the six-inch map. The total measured area of Cromartyshire was 217321.186 acres, or .Sum of the areas of the 23 parcels listed in the table.

Other sources

Some places not included within Cromartyshire in the Ordnance Survey map are stated by earlier sources to have been within it. The 1859 edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' asserts that Royston Park (now Caroline Park) outside Edinburgh, the city residence of the Viscount Tarbat, was also considered part of Cromartyshire. Nimmo's 1807 list includes:
* "the mortified lands of the town of Fortrose", two patches totalling less than 50 acres in Rosemarkie parish, which were bequeathed to the burgh of Cromarty. A 1794 account of Rosemarkie parish states that there are two mortifications, but for the poor of '' Chanonry'', not Cromarty.
* Ussie Mills (between Dingwall and Conon Bridge).
* salmon-fishing rights on the River Conon.

Settlements

* Achiltibuie
* Altandhu
* Badenscallie
*Cromarty
* Inver
* Jemimaville
* Kildary
* Milton
* Polbain
* Polglass
* Portmahomack
* Strathpeffer
* Ullapool

References

Sources

*
*

Citations

;Areas shown the first-edition 6-inch maps:

;Other citations:

External links

*

Cromartyshire on the interactive map of the counties of Great Britain and Ireland
— Wikishire

Index to the Ordnance Survey of Ross-shire and Cromartyshire ca. 1878-1883
indicates all detached parts of Cromartyshire

{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2017

Counties of Scotland
Former exclaves

States and territories disestablished in 1890
Counties of the United Kingdom (1801–1922)