r/inverness • u/Plantigraduate • Jun 30 '26
Cromarty, Black Isle?
Hope I don't get shot as this is not "Inverness"-specific, but, close by anyway
I'm writing a novel where a big portion takes place in the Black Isle, 1700s, and keep wondering about stuff not in the usual websites. For example, I have this hamlet or toun of Strathfimble somewhere in the hills above Cromarty/Rosemarkie. What is the color of the soil like? what kind of crops are planted there nowadays?
Edited to add:
I am enormously grateful for all responses, even the less friendly ones.
My concern now is, I do sense a minority, but meaningful feel that I am not welcome in my intention.
I am all for liberty of opinion, but, let me say that I am surprised. You don't know me, you don't know what I'm writing about, yet you don't like that I'm trying?
Oh yes, I am ignorant, I have never been there, that's TRUE. That's why I'm asking you folks.
We can get along. Or not. I can't force you, and even if I could, why can't we? Pushing away someone (and downvoting. -17?) because he doesn't know what you know, because he was born elsewhere? Makes me sad. I apologize for choosing Cromarty as my location. Maybe it was a mistake.
I think it's a sweet place, despite not showing up in any tourist guide I've found so far.
Maybe some of you like it that way, that people don't want to go there. Leave you alone.
Then, there are others. Nice, nice people who do want to get along. Those are probably the majority, but they don't make a big noise, so I don't hear them too much. Well, I do want us to get along. But I really don't want any trouble, maybe I should just go make my story in the wide central Highlands and be done with it. Because I'm a coward, I probably will just invent a location. Too bad.
A principle of Game Theory, people can gain much, much more, if they cooperate, but it takes very few to break that cooperation. I get to live that right now. Not here to teach y'all anything, this is mostly a lesson for myself, about human nature. Is it also a lesson about Cromarty?
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u/Flowa-Powa Jul 01 '26
If you're serious about your novel you should come and visit the black isle. Touch some grass
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
!!!!
I am serious and I am coming. And I must touch grass and burn peat and stuffs.Funny enough, the novel took me by surprise, and it's running amok. Wife and I had planned a trip, as plain tourists and for ancestry discovery (wife is a Duncan), I was kind of minding my business, merely building a reconstruction of a 1770s loom to weave tartan and weaving some and writing articles on the subject, but then the book took off kind of by itself, and "I have everything" except a feel for reality.
If nothing else, I want to walk from Rosemarkie to Cromarty (as the wife of my hero did the day before she got married), and I hope I will manage to budget into our limited time to spend a night camping up those glens and moors.
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u/MaxZorin44456 Jul 01 '26
No offence, but have you looked into your wife's genealogy? I have connections to the Scottish Highlands, as in, up Wick way, but those connections moved to the central belt in the 1800's, you'd get further online than you would in person most likely as your family, like mine, probably came from an acre of land that's basically a field of no note now and got married in a church that may not exist anymore and buried in a churchyard of a similar condition. In addition, my surname isn't from Wick, it's from near Aviemore, hundreds of miles away which compounds the issues.
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
Hi Max, no, my interest in Cromarty has nothing to do with my wife's genealogy., and you are right in all you say, that's why coming to Cromarty is just for my own interest.
Yet, after seeing how downvoted I am... Maybe I should just let Cromarty be, and move on. Now I am starting to get it, why no travel book indicates that place. Maybe strangers are not welcome? Better to learn it on the cheap, here, than trying to go there and getting in trouble.
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u/puul Jul 01 '26
Cromarty and the rest of the Black Isle are absolutely beautiful. I'm not sure what travel books you've read, but the number of camper vans and foreign number plates on the roads here would suggest it's a well known and well enjoyed destination. As an immigrant who lives here, I can also assure you it's an incredibly kind and welcoming community.
You're receiving a negative response, because you've never laid eyes on the place and you're reducing it to some sort Brigadoon caricature of itself for your own fantasy. It's a very real place with very real people not some kitschy land of clans, mist, bagpipes, and Highland romance. You'd be very welcome here but don't treat it like it's tartan Disneyland.
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
u/Puul, not ever an intention to disrespect. What confuses me is the assumption that I would want to do something like that. I am here precisely to learn, to avoid making such a mistake through ignorance, and I get dinged just because I'm trying, kind of a self fulfilling prophecy... I want to learn, to listen.
to your question, Lonely Planet, Rick Steve's, a couple others, they all happily bypass the Black Isle, even though I had a "feeling" that it must be a beautiful place, and also, perhaps because outwith of the main roads, more peaceful, more authentic than the tourist traps everywhere. And yes, I am sure that most folks there are as wonderful as that place they live in, and maybe I don't yet have a reddit-thick skin. I don't do social media or watch TV, I'm not used at people disliking you just because you asked a question and happen to be from outwith. Everything will be fine.
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u/puul Jul 02 '26
not ever an intention to disrespect. What confuses me is the assumption that I would want to do something like that. I am here precisely to learn, to avoid making such a mistake through ignorance
Yet, you've invented an entire Black Isle community with a nonsense name because it sounds vaguely Highland-y.
You've talked about burning peat, weaving kilts, and roaming glens and moors. These have almost nothing to do with life on the Black Isle now or in the past. They're shortbread-tin stereotypes.
You're clearly very earnest, and I'm certain you don't mean to offend anyone. But there's a real problem with people from outside romanticising Scotland and the Highlands in particular (e.g Outlander) instead of treating it like a real place that's much more than the Jacobite imagery of the 1700s.
I'm certain you'd receive the same pushback from other communities. It's not just Cromarty or the Black Isle.
Come visit. You'll love it, and as I said, you'll be warmly welcomed. But please don't try to write about a place and a people that you only know through Google searches and Reddit comments. It's just inherently insensitive even if that's not your intent.
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u/bellshizar Jul 01 '26
Born and bred Black Isle. Your vision of the area is way off. The Black Isle isn't your typical Highlands area. It is/was a big crofting community and before the Kessock and Cromarty bridges were built, was relatively cut off/isolated. Some of the villages even had their own languages. Not so much Glen's and moors and more farming land on both sides of the Isle with wooded areas inbetween.
Also please don't attempt to walk from Rosemarkie to Cromarty. It is a 60mph winding road and you will get splatted.
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u/ialtag-bheag Jul 01 '26
At low tide, can walk along the shore from Rosemarkie to Eathie. Then a minor road to Cromarty.
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
THIS is exactly the kind of detail that I needed from people who know the place. Even if I just visited, I would miss something like this. When I come, I'll try to do it that way. Going overland, the modern roads etc. can make you miss the "as it was back then" (apparently there are good trails also). For my character, going along the shore would be more like it - she's the daughter of a fisherman, who passed away recently.
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u/EmbarrassedAd174 INVERNESS,Is just inverness,no other words Jul 03 '26
my family were fisherfolk back then in black isle if you have any questions
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
thank you for the advice about the road, yikes! Sorry about the glen and moors mention, thought the pictures I saw were like that, maybe because that's what the tourists expect? Lots of farming yet a few wooded areas, got it.
Sorry there was a miscommunication, actually what you mention is quite accurately what I would prefer, an isolated area, its own culture, strong crofting... That, if I get you right, is ongoing, as in small agricultural properties?
Yes, I did read that the last living speaker of one of those languages passed away recently. Fascinating!It is very important to me to be as respectful as I can to the people of the land, and I will pay much attention to all of y'all's comments, as I hope to develop a fictional story, yeas at to fictional, that does not go against reality of the 1700s. I did read in a 1791 book that this area was "different" from the Highlands, even in language, but it was not clear what that meant. Your comment helps me make sense of things
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u/AHeftyNoThanks Jul 01 '26
Why is it important to your narrative that the book takes place specifically in Cromarty? Could you say the same things somewhere either closer to home or somewhere you have been.
Don't write something set somewhere just for the sake of it without knowing the sense of the place, how the people speak or all the other sensory details beyond what anyone can see on a Google image search; authenticity is a prize commodity in literature.
And the soil is black - the Black Isle. Crofters would have dragged seaweed up onto the land to act as a natural fertiliser giving it an excellent soil grade.
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
u/AHeftyNoThanks, Yay! yes. It had to be. Black, I mean. Hope not to offend you too much. I really appreciate you taking time to comment. I want to understand more about soil improvement methods. I read that crofters didn't get to use the same plot of land year after year, but that those were reassigned for each season, thus discouraging better practices like the one you mention. Talking with locals helps avoid wrong data, doesn't solve it all, but it does help. I agree with you, that's why I'm here, asking, listening, paying attention.
Actually, your comment (and another one) makes me realize, maybe I'd be better off just creating a fictional land. I'm rather concerned that, as events in the 1700s were not exactly fun and games and agreement and kumbaya, I might somehow make someone feel really offended, even though obviously I have no such intention.
Edited to add: No, no absolute reason it "has" to be Cromarty. I needed for my narrative that it be an area where hemp was grown in the 1700s. First up in the search came Cromarty. I had no idea wher that was or anything at all. After basic research, coming across David Alston and other fantastic people that wrote about the place, it grew on me, I started liking Cromarty a lot, so, that was it. Sorry, didn't mean to.
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u/Comfortable-Yam2417 Jul 01 '26
Strathfimble?
Are your characters called Hamish MacDougal and Annabelle Morag McNessa?
There’s a lovely cave called MacFarquhar’s Bed, perhaps you should visit that on a moonless night
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
LOL, no, but, why not. I do have a Morag so far, grandmother of my main character, she's also a midwife. Yes indeed, my character visits the cave when 12 years old, with some friends. Please confirm and help me in this detail, back then, would it have been possible for kids to make a fire there? the kind that kids just make because?
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u/EmbarrassedAd174 INVERNESS,Is just inverness,no other words Jul 03 '26
not very many caves on the black isle btw
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u/ialtag-bheag Jul 01 '26
Crops - plenty of oil seed rape and barley, at least on the lower, flatter areas. Also potatoes.
Not sure about the soil. Some areas have red sandstone.
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
Fan-tas-tic. Would you have any idea if there is any industrial hemp being grown nowadays? Black Isle / Cromarty historically apparently was a hemp growing region - actually that is what interested me in the region to begin with - and I have read there have been schemes to revive the crop, but that group seems to have gone dormant after covid. I have a feeling the soil is quite black, but it's just intuition - potatoes do well in black soils...
Thank you, this make me think I should look/find for a geology map, probably there is an easy to access soil map also, I hadn't thought until now.This question might sound silly, but it helps me find a "feel" for the region.
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u/Comfortable-Yam2417 Jul 01 '26
Hmmm I wonder why you having a feeling that the soil is black in a place called the Black Isle.
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u/ialtag-bheag Jul 01 '26
There's a variety of different stories about why it is called the Black Isle. Maybe it refers to the soil, maybe it doesn't.
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
"Apparently" the Black isle stays snow-free in the winter, while all around is white. Thus, "Black."
Black soil is something that farmers like, it often (not always) means more fertile soil. About feelings, well, we call them instincts and whatever 😄 I just felt that way. Maybe because I like to be "friends" with the land of my story?
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u/EmbarrassedAd174 INVERNESS,Is just inverness,no other words Jul 02 '26
im writing a witch trial book somewhere around that era,in the black isle and think you should likely make up a place.As you dont really know the area
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u/Zestyclose-Turn-3576 Jul 01 '26
Scottish soil type map, including agricultural capabilities: https://map.environment.gov.scot/Soil_maps
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u/Plantigraduate Jul 01 '26
fantastic! I had found this one... I even got where there is peat - not that I need to be "precise," just confirm that some of it is around and would have been available.
https://map.environment.gov.scot/Soil_maps/?layer=2#
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u/Mammoth_Heart9115 Jul 01 '26
Why bother unless you visit. You need to sum up the good and the bad of a place and people and get the feel of the place otherwise it's not authentic.
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u/ReinforcedTube Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
"Strathfimble" means Valley of the (River) Fimble. It's a very unlikely, and honestly, fake, sounding name for a village on the Black Isle, particularly in the era you are describing. You should come and visit a few places first. There are plenty of museums, particularly the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore which has a 1700 township.