Strathnairn Heritage Association

13/06/2026

Don’t forget: this is happening tomorrow in the hall. Everyone welcome!

04/06/2026

A real opportunity to recognise, support and promote the heritage of Strathnairn and neighbouring communities.

📢 CORRIEGARTH & ABERARDER COMMUNITY BENEFIT FUND

The Corriegarth and Aberarder Community Benefit Fund, provided by SSEN as part of its wind farm developments, presents an exciting opportunity to invest in projects that benefit our community.

In the coming months, residents will be invited to take part in a community survey to help shape the future of the fund. As well as identifying local priorities, the survey will ask for views on how and when the funding should be spent, and how the fund should be structured and administered, including who should be responsible for distributing the money.

Funding could help deliver key priorities identified in the Community Action Plan (CAP), supporting projects and improvements that strengthen our community now and for future generations.

When the survey launches, we encourage everyone to get involved. The more people who participate, the better the fund can reflect the needs, aspirations and priorities of our community.

Keep an eye out for further information coming soon!

For more information go to: https://www.ssen-transmission.co.uk/information-centre/community-benefit-funding/funds/aberarder-and-corriegarth-local-fund/

04/06/2026

By the middle of the 19th century, Scotland had one of the highest literacy rates in Europe. This was not an accident. It was the direct result of a parish school system established in 1696, which required every parish in Scotland to maintain a school and a schoolmaster. The ambition was religious — the Church of Scotland wanted every person capable of reading scripture for themselves — but the outcome was broader than anyone had planned.

Among the communities shaped most quietly by this were shepherds. Their work placed them alone on hillsides for hours, sometimes entire days, with no company except dogs and livestock. For men who had been taught to read, that silence became an opportunity rather than a burden. Small books — psalters, portions of scripture, collected sermons, later poetry and natural history — were carried in jacket pockets worn smooth from use. These were not decorative. The books were handled constantly, read in pieces during resting hours, memorised in parts, and discussed on the rare occasions when shepherds met.

The pocket psalter in particular was so common among Highland and Lowland shepherds that several accounts from ministers and travellers in the early 19th century remark on finding men on remote hillsides who could recite long passages from memory and discuss theological questions with precision. The books themselves were built for this life — small enough to fit in a working pocket, printed in dense type, often bound in stiff leather that could survive weather and repeated handling.

This habit of reading on the hill was not a performance of piety. It was what literate men did when they had time and quiet. The solitude that might have been empty became, for many, genuinely rich. When those shepherds came home in the evening, they brought something back with them beyond what the day's work had asked for.

04/06/2026

📢 We’ve got a brand new Instagram account!

Click the link below and give us a follow to learn more about our projects, check out our latest initiatives (see post!), and stay up to date with all the goings-on around the Strath.

https://www.instagram.com/strathnairndevelopmentco/

02/06/2026

🎥 FREE MOVIE NIGHT AT FARR HALL 🎥

Come along on Sunday 14th June at 17:00 for a screening of the inspiring short documentary, Together We Grow.

Discover the powerful story of a New Zealand community transforming lives through shared gardens and connection. Stay with us afterward for tea, coffee, homebaking, and an informal chat.

✨ Entry is free (donations for baking gratefully received!).

👇 See the poster below for more details.

02/06/2026

📢 CORRIEGARTH & ABERARDER COMMUNITY BENEFIT FUND

The Corriegarth and Aberarder Community Benefit Fund, provided by SSEN as part of its wind farm developments, presents an exciting opportunity to invest in projects that benefit our community.

In the coming months, residents will be invited to take part in a community survey to help shape the future of the fund. As well as identifying local priorities, the survey will ask for views on how and when the funding should be spent, and how the fund should be structured and administered, including who should be responsible for distributing the money.

Funding could help deliver key priorities identified in the Community Action Plan (CAP), supporting projects and improvements that strengthen our community now and for future generations.

When the survey launches, we encourage everyone to get involved. The more people who participate, the better the fund can reflect the needs, aspirations and priorities of our community.

Keep an eye out for further information coming soon!

For more information go to: https://www.ssen-transmission.co.uk/information-centre/community-benefit-funding/funds/aberarder-and-corriegarth-local-fund/

02/06/2026

29/05/2026

22/05/2026

This is what a cleared township looks like today.
Stone walls still standing. No roof. No door. No fire in the hearth. Grass growing where the floor was. The outline of a life that was ended in an afternoon.
Between 1760 and 1860, an estimated 150,000 people were cleared from their land across the Scottish Highlands. Factors arrived with legal orders and sometimes with sheriff's officers and constables. Families were given hours, sometimes less. Furniture was thrown into the yard. Roofs were pulled down or set alight to prevent return.
The land was worth more as sheep pasture than as the home of human beings. That was the entire calculation.
Your ancestors did not abandon these walls. They were dragged away from them.
The line did not break.