In Scotland a

crofting Crofting (Scottish Gaelic: ') is a form of land tenure and small-scale food production peculiar to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland, and formerly on the Isle of Man. Within the 19th-century townships, individual crofts were est ...

township is a group of

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

smallholdings (each with its own few

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s of

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Types of pasture Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, c ...

and

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

(in-bye land)) holding in common a substantial tract of unimproved upland grazing. Each township comprises a formal legal unit. Like older

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

land measurements, such as the

davoch The davoch, davach or daugh is an ancient Scottish land measurement. All of these terms are cognate with modern Scottish Gaelic '' dabhach''. The word ''dabh'' or '' damh'' means an " ox" (cf. oxgang, ''damh-imir''), but ''dabhach'' can also refer ...

quarterland A Quarterland or Ceathramh (Scottish Gaelic) was a Scotland, Scottish land measurement. It was used mainly in the west and north. It was supposed to be equivalent to eight Groatland, fourpennylands, roughly equivalent to a quarter of a Markland (S ...

and

oxgang An oxgang or bovate (; ; ; ) is an old land measurement formerly used in Scotland and England as early as the 16th century sometimes referred to as an oxgait. It averaged around 20 English acres, but was based on land fertility and cultivation, a ...

, the extent of a township often varies according to the quality of the land it is on, and this can range from a hundred to a few thousand hectares. There is often a substantial tract of unimproved upland common grazing - known as a "

shieling A shieling () is a hut or collection of huts on a seasonal pasture high in the hills, once common in wild or sparsely populated places in Scotland. Usually rectangular with a doorway on the south side and few or no windows, they were often c ...

" or "''àirigh''" which is held in common. This tends to be used in the summer, but with the advent of fertilisers it is often used in colder times as well. In reference to the history of Scotland, a township is often called a toun (the Lowland Scots word for a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

), although before the Anglic language Scots became widespread in Scotland the word baile was more commonly used. Traditional townships were largely wiped out during the

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 R ...

Auchindrain Auchindrain (: 'thorn field') lies on the A83 road (Scotland), A83, south of Inveraray in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is the only Township (Scotland), township to survive substantially unaltered from amongst the many hundreds that existed acr ...

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle; , ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county of western Scotland. The county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975 and most of the area ...

, once occupied by up to seven tenant families who farmed the land cooperatively, was the last to survive. This was down to the 19th century landowner, the 8th Duke of Argyll, who decided that splitting the township into individual crofts would not be financially viable and encouraged his tenants to modernise their methods. The final tenant departed Auchindrain in 1963. The traditional houses and other buildings still stand, and have been turned into an open-air museum.

References

{{Reflist Scotland Crofting Society of Scotland

See also

References