Merry Christmas from us all!

The group met up for the last time today before having a well earned break over the Christmas period - although, I know that they will still be carrying on their research - when time allows.

The freezing snowy weather has certainly scuppered our plans to visit the Inverness Archive, which has now been postponed three times!  The trip will now take place early in the New Year and I know we are all keen to look at the Valuation Rolls and other documents that will help us with our research.  All the census records have been printed off and distributed out among the participants.  Many of the participants have already started to collate their street information into databases and street forms - it looks like we are on track!  The group has effectively combined the use of local memories and historical documentation to great effect in this project.

The Streets Where We Live Invitiations

Coming your way soon!

The main task today was organising the invitations and questionnaires for distribution to the members of the local community.  The invites contain information about the community talks/discussions that will take place in the New Year.  Everybody is welcome to come along!

Elizabeth Richardson busy getting the invitations ready!

Community Illustrated Talks/Discussions 2011

We would like to invite you to attend our programme of community talks in Timespan, which will include a history of the development of the ‘streets’ in Helmsdale and Portgower, old photographs through the ages and a look at some of the houses and their past residents.  We also look forward to talking to local residents about where they live and what changes they have experienced in their lifetime – and correct our mistakes!  If you want to learn more about your house then come along and get involved – there will be good banter and a cup of tea for all!

All talks on Saturday mornings from 10.30pm to 12.30pm in Timespan

15^th January - Shore Street  

22^nd January - Dunrobin Street

29^th January - Sutherland Street

5^th February - Stafford Street, Trentham Street & Lilleshall Street

12^th February - Stittenham Street & Old Caithness Road

19^th February - East Helmsdale and the Bogholes

26^th February - Glebe Terrace & Rockview Place

5^th March - Golf Road and Strath Road

12^th March - Portgower Streets

Uncovering street features from the past

There are many old architectural features still to be found in the streets of Helmsdale, which are the lasting remnants of a way of life long gone, but not forgotten!  The members of the group have been collecting this information and many interesting sites have come to light.

Belgrave Hotel in Dunrobin Street

The two most Easterly windows at street level facing Dunrobin Street, have iron spikes inserted in the window sills.  This was done to discourage the practice of men congregating at Street corners for a blether and if a window sill was at a convenient height it could be used as a seat.  A regular window sill where this practice was carried out was opposite the above mentioned windows, where the window at Alf's Corner was used.

Spikes on the window sill of the Belgrave Hotel

Rutherford Terrace (Old School)

Original school bell still in situ.

AR McLeod's store in Trentham Street

A wooden hatch fitted in the wall at North end facing Trentham street, enables coal to be shoveled from a lorry into the shed when McLeod's sold and delivered coal circa 1955-1964. 

Trentham Street east pavement 

Outline of the covers where the three petrol pumps and one diesel pump existed, circa 1948-1996.

Co-op Lane

A hatch was built into the wall of the former CO-op bake house at ground level.  Fresh bread and rolls could be purchased from the bakers at this hatch in the early morning before the main shop opened.

The Green Stag (part of the Bridge Hotel), Dunrobin Street

A curved stone canopy, where a post-box used to be located, still exists in the wall at the corner of this building. 

Stone canopy for a post-box (post box now long gone)

La Mirage in Dunrobin Street

A very unusual barrel-shaped stone feature exists on the top of the front wall, at the western corner, where the roof meets the wall.  This is the usual location for datestones.  The barrel symbol may relate to an earlier use of the building as a public house.

Unusal barrel feature on roof of La Mirage

Wall on Stittenham Road

This wall has many interesting features such as blocked up doorways and an unusual masonry block inserted into the wall, with what looks like pre-historic cup-marks on it.

Possible pre-historic cup-marks on a masonry block inserted into the wall

Do you know of any more architectural features?

If you do please get in touch and share this information with the Helmsdale community!

Delving into Dunrobin Street

It can be shown using map evidence that the first houses appeared in Dunrobin Street around 1815-1820.  This is the main street in the village, where most of the shops were/are located - a real hub of commercial activity.  Maggie Codd, one of the street researchers, has been looking at the houses in Dunrobin street and has had some success in matching the houses with past occupants using the Valuation Rolls, OS maps and old archival photographs.

Maggie has noted that valuation rolls from the 1960s onwards have quite a few house numbers recorded.  This is not the case for the vluation roll dated 1894-95, which has no house numbers marked.  Maggie has approached her research by making a list of all the house numbers for Dunrobin Street  from the 1960s valuation roll, along with their associated vluation roll numbers.  These numbers stay the same in each valuation roll up until the 1970s onwards.  In this way, Maggie can find the location of the house on the street map and retrace the occupants back through the vlaution rolls - very clever!

 

Maggie looking through the old photographs of the village in the Timespan archive

 

It gets a bit more tircky as some houses don't have numbers, and Maggie will have to do more research to fill in the gaps.  She has also found it helpful to look at the old photographs of the street, which shows some of the older buildings, now demolished.  One photograph, in particular, showed houses on Dunrobin Street, where it used to meet Stafford Street, which were demolished to make way for the New Bridge.  A few houses on Stafford Street, next to the Bannockburn Hotel, were also demolished - we would love to hear from anyone who can tell us who lived in these houses and if there are any old photos out there please get in touch!

 The corner of Dunrobin Street and Stafford Street before the New Bridge was built, c1950s

Some comments from the participants!

Lisa Macdonald

"This is a fascinating project, so interesting to find out the history of the houses in the streets and how the streets have changed over the years."

Jean Sargent

"Gives a real insight into Helmsdale's past and present.  it's very exciting to trace the history of your own house."

Leoma Aitken

Very evocative!  Learning about a village I don't know really well.  Amazed at similarities to my home village of Hilton, in Ross-shire (both fishing places)."

Christine Cowie

Reminiscing has brought back so many memories, lost over time.  Need more local contemporaries on board to share information."

Anne Sinclair

"Reviving memories of my childhood, most enjoyable."

Maggie Codd
"It's fascinating and the research is really addictive - the more you learn the more you want to know.  I have enjoyed matching the records with the maps and old photos - you begin to see the street as it was and how it has changed."

Remembering the way it was in Helmsdale

Today the group was reminiscing about the way of life in Helmsdale and how it has changed over the years.

Anne Sinclair

"We playing marbles, hop-scotch, cops and robbers and pushing our dollies pram along the pavement - there were fewer cars about then.  There seems to be fewer children playing outside these days and no sledging in Stafford Street - we used to sledge all the way down from the top of the brae right down to the harbour."

David Cowie

"When the nights were dark we used to play a prank in Stafford Street.  We used a cardboard box and made it look like a parcel or present.  We tied string to one end of the box and placed it in the middle of the road.  When a car came along it stopped to see what was this box on the road.  We waited till someone got out of the car and tried to pick up the box - and then we pulled the string and the box came with it.  It gave the person such a fright!"

"I also remember when the scaffie cart used to come around the village to collect the rubbish and dump it at the area now known as the lobster ponds (or the 'distill'), beyond the end of Shore Street.  One of the scaffie men called Hughan Sinclair had a white horse.  It was thought to be bad luck for a white horse and cart to cross the old Telford Bridge.  If this happened the legend foretold that the bridge would collapse!  So, Hughan unleashed the white horse from the cart and took the cart and horse across the bridge separately."

"In pre-electricity times all the people took their wireless wet batteries to A R McLeod's for re-charging.  They could do 30 at a time.  Villagers could also get paraffin from McLeod's or at a shed near Nellie Ross's.  McLeod's were the main television distributors and as boys we used to watch sports events through the window of their showroom."

Gerry Wood

"I had my veg delivered by horse and cart as late as the early 1980s by Bob Humble."

Jean Sargent

"I remember my mother telling me that Tilley lamps were still being used in the upstairs rooms of the Bannockburn Hotel up until the 1950s.  When I used to come to Helmsdale on holiday I noticed that all the women wore headscarves and used wicker shopping baskets"

Jim Mackay

"The fish lorry used to take the fish from the harbour ot the train station and they went from there to Glasgow for sale.  A small tanker with paraffin was used to refill the boat engines at the harbour and the fishermen had to take their own supply of water with them as there was no provision at the harbour."

Christine Cowie

"The fishermen used to call into each others house on their way down to the harbour to go to sea.  They used to just come into the house and call 'put the kettle on' and after a cup of tea was had they would then make their way to the next house.  On a Saturday the crew would put on their best suit and congregate at the skipper's house where he would distribute their earnings.  Chocolates would be bought for the wives, sweeties for the bairns and maybe the men would have a few drinks in the local pub."

Joan Murray

"In the 1960s Helmsdale still had an unofficial school truant officer."

Our last meeting of the year will be on Wednesday 22nd from 10.30am to 12.30pm.  The group have begun to put up a dispaly in the Timespan workshop area - please come in and see our research for yourself - maybe you can help us.  We are now looking for old house photos!

Dunrobin caretakers join forces!

A few more street caretakers have joined the group and are enjoying learning about Helsmdale's streets and past inhabitants.

Maggie Codd, a resident of Dunrobin Street, is joining forces with Lisa McDonald, to uncover information about the houses in Dunrobin Street.  They are undertaking research on both sides of the street and this will involve locating the houses with numbers, as well as some of the older houses that were demolished in the past.  It has already become evident that there is a gap in the house numbering sequence from around number 33 to number 61.  The older OS maps clearly show that there were houses in this area, which have been knocked down in the past.  The postal addresses can have house numbers or names, which can make it quite difficult to retrace the past occupants.

Maggie and Lisa - the Dunrobin Caretakers

Different approaches to research - amazing results!

Wednesday 8th December 2010

There was even more snow today, but this did not deter the members of the group from coming along to Timespan to another research session - they're a hardy lot you know!

Members of the group, Mike and Gerry Wood have approached their research in two different ways and they are both having positive results.

Mike (Originally from South Shields) has been researching the houses and past inhabitants of Shore Street, along with David Cowie.  Their research has shown that the east part of Shore Street was the first street to be built in the new village of Helmsdale around c1814.  There were several families living in this street in the past, as recorded by David Cowie, but the population declined as many of the older curing yard buildings and accompanying houses were knocked down in the last century.  

Mike has been using a computer package to create a 3D virtual model of what Shore Street looked like from the very earliest maps and images.  He has already drawn up the 3D image of the old curing yard at the west end of Shore Street (later converted into the Timespan Museum).  Mike is interested in the fish packaging processes that took place in the curing yard and plans to include this detail in his model - this really is a first for Timespan, well done!

Gerry has had some success of her own to boast about.  She is researching Lilleshall Street and has just found out the location of her Great-grandfather's house.  She used local knowledge from local resident Anne Sinclair, as well as the information on the Valuation Rolls and OS maps.  The house is now called Westgate, but it used to be owned by her Great-uncle, Charles Gordon, who worked for the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada from c1880s to the late 1920s.

Mike and Gerry Wood at today's research session

More about Helsmdale's many lanes

The group has been uncovering information about the many lanes, corners, braes, parks etc associated with the streets in Helmsdale.  A special mention has to go to David Cowie, who has been very busy researching this topic by talking to local people and typing out his research for us all to enjoy.  I didn't know Helsmdale had so many lanes!  Can you add any more to our list?  

Lane names still in use

Couper’s Lane

Current route - West to East from Lillieshall St to Trentham St

Streets connected - Lillieshall Stto Trentham St

Other names - Mound Lane, Embo St or Shore Lane

This lane allegedly continued from Trentham Street to Stafford Street and then on to East Dunrobin Street.  The OS village map dated c1874 & c1906 indicates that the lane only continued from Trentham Street East to the Westerly boundary belonging to the rear of the Belgrave Hotel.  This section of lane was in use from Trentham Street East to the Westerly boundary of what is now the Community Centre, dated c1975.(David Cowie, 04/12/10)

 Couper's Lane - looking from Trentham St to Lilleshall St 

 Couper's Lane - looking from Lilleshall St to Trentham St

Co-op Lane

Current route – North to South from Dunrobin St to Couper’s Lane

Streets connected - Dunrobin St to Couper’s Lane

Other names - Pirie’s Lane

Straw’s Lane

Current route – North to South from Dunrobin St to Couper’s Lane

Streets connected - Dunrobin St to Couper’s Lane

Frank’s Lane

Current route – North to South from Sutherland St to Dunrobin St

Streets connected - Sutherland St to Dunrobin St

Other names - Frankie’s or Barnie’s Lane

AR McLeod’s Lane

Current route – Dunrobin St North to the boundary of the Post Office Garden

Streets connected – Dunrobin Street to the rear of the current Post Office, Johnson’s Garage and Mr Ian McLeod’s shop/property.

There is a widely held view that this lane continued North and connected with both Sutherland Street and Strathanver Street.  The OS c1874 & c1906 maps do not support this, although earlier maps may support it.  (David Cowie, 04/12/10)

Long Hugh’s Lane

Current route – not in use

Previous route – Dunrobin St North to the boundary of Mr and Mrs Taylor’s property

There is a widely held view that this lane continued North and connected with both Sutherland Streetand Strathanver Street.  The OS c1874 & c1906 maps do not support this, although earlier maps may support it.  (David Cowie, 04/12/10)

Kate Ross’s Lane

Current route – Dunrobin St North to Sutherland St

Streets connected – Dunrobin St tand Sutherland St

There is a widely held view that this lane continued North and connected with both Sutherland Street and Strathanver Street.  The OS c1874 & c1906 maps do not support this, although earlier maps may support it.  (David Cowie, 04/12/10)

Nina Forbes’s Lane

Current route – Dunrobin St Northto Sutherland St

Rowan House Lane

Current route - From Dunrobin St to Sutherland St, behind the Bannockburn Hotel

Manse Lane

Current route – Access from behind the Free Church down to St. John’s Well

A walk down memory lane!

The pace has really quickened over the last week or so and the research is starting to fall into place and make sense - at last!

The snowy conditions prevented the group trip to the archive in Inverness, but the group has been busy looking at a collection of Valuation Rolls dating from c1920s to c1970s, kindly on loan from Clyne Heritage Society, based in Brora.  The group has also been allocating house numbers and house names to copies of the current OS map of Helmsdale Village - no easy task!

Talk of the project has reached the streets of Helmsdale and the group has prepared questionnaires which are ready to circulate to the local residents, accompanied by the invites to the programme of street talks/discussions to begin in the New Year.  This information will also be found in local shops and in the local news section of the Northern Times.

Some interesting stories are beginning to come to light from local residents about living and growing up in Helmsdale.  One such story comes from local resident Jim Mackay, who recalls growing up in Lillieshall Street.

“As a boy growing up in Lillieshall Street in the 1930s I remember that before I went to school in the morning I had to go and collect a bucket of mussels from our family mussel scalp down by the harbour.  I also did the same task after school as well.  My father, David Mackay, was a fisherman and when his boat came back from a days fishing around 4 or 5pm, I used to have to untangle the line in the back kitchen of our house.  There was over 200 hooks to untangle on each line and sometimes I used to cut of the hooks, which was a bit of a cheat, but we got finished sooner.  Each fisherman was responsible for four lines.  The task of baiting the lines was usually done by the Aunts in the back kitchen.  In the morning my father would take the baited lines back down to the harbour and the whole process began again.”

(Jim Mackay, 01/12/10)

A Snowy Sutherland Street: Past and Present

The snowfall over the last few days has provided the prefect conditions to photograph Sutherland Street and compare it with a similar snowy photo taken around c1930s.  Brian and I (Jacquie Aitken) went for a walk today and tired to stand in the same location where the old photograph was taken, so we could compare the two images - see what you think!

 

Sutherland Street c1930s - Much more snow back then!

 Sutherland Street Tuesday 30th Nov. 2010

We also took a photogrpah of the North side of Dunrobin Street to compare it with another older image - I think this one is more accurate, but how much has changed?

 Dunrobin Street c1930s

Sutherland Street Tuesday 30th Nov. 2010 

On our walk we chatted to a few local residents about the different lanes in Helsmdale - I didn't realise there were so many.  Some names highlighted were Frank's Lane, The Mound and Embo Street.  If anyone has other lane names please get in touch - we will add all this information to the village community arhive in Timespan.

Which street will I choose to research?

The group met up again on Wednesday 24th November and everyone was keen to choose a street in Helmsdale and Portgower and start researching the houses and listing the previous occupants.  This information is vital for people doing family history research and we hope that by the end of the project we can make this job easier, for both local people and visitors to the area.

The project co-ordinator Jacquie Aitken was delighted to announce that Brian Adams had finished typing out the 1841 censes for both Kildonan and Loth Parishes - well done!  The information was split into the different streets and distributed out among the awaiting participants.

Here is a list of our street 'caretakers' currently working on the project - and we are still looking for more people to get involved, so come along to the next workshop on Saturday 4th December from 10.30am-12.30pm.

Joan & Jim Mackay - Strathnaver Street
Joan Murray - Sutherland Street & Trentham Street
David Cowie & Mike Wood - Shore Street
Gerry Wood - Lilleshall Street
Elizabeth Richardson - Marrel
Anne Sinclair - Stafford Street
David Cowie & Lisa Macdonald - Dunrobin Street
Jean Sargent - Old Caithness Road
Leoma Aitken - Bogholes
Stittenham Street - Frank McCuloch
Murial Amey - Navidale
Esther Macdonald - Portgower (All streets)

Did you know that there is an 'Assynt Street' with two houses mentioned on the 1841 census!

We have also started looking through the Valuation Rolls, which were compiled yearly from around 1854.  The valuation rolls from 1854 to 1988 were collected annually and for each property record the name and designation of the proprietor, the tenant, the occupier and the annual rateable value.






Saturday 27th November - Maps, maps and more maps!
Today's session went very well with 15 people braving the snowy conditions to come along to the workshop.  Everyone was given a copy of the Ordnance Survey (OS) 1st ed map dated c.1874, OS 2nd ed map dated c.1907 and the most current OS street map.  These maps will be useful to find out the location of older houses and record how the layout of the streets has changed over the last 100 years.

Wednesday 1st December

Trip to the Archive Centre in Inverness

Meeting in the Timespan Car Park at 9.30am

 Returning home at approx. 4.30pm

All enquiries direct to Timespan

Chatty first Saturday morning!

The first Saturday session of the project was full of chat and discussion on how to take the project forward.

The fourteen enthusiatic particpants started the session by filling out questionnaires to find out how much they knew about the houses they lived in and their past inhabitants.   

Here are some useful questions that the particpants came up with to help us research the houses of Helmsdale and Portgower.  Maybe you could help us answer them!

House name and number (Including Street Name)
Can you help us with house names and numbers?  Some houses just have a number, i.e. a croft number or street number.  Do you know the meaning of your house name, i.e. Gaelic translation.  Is your house built on a corner and therefore located in two streets.

When was your house built?
Look out for a datestone or do you have the land deeds showing the date.  It is more difficult to find out the date of earlier houses built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries - maps or title deeds can help here.

Present condition
Some older houses in the villages were demolished, but their locations still exist on old maps.  Some houses are still upstanding but not occupied and most are currently upstanding and occupied.

Last or present occupant
This information can be easily obtained by talking to local residents or using old phone directories etc.

Pre-1841 infomration
(Maps, estate rentals, title deeds etc)

Previous occupants
(Census records 1841-1901, Valuation Rolls, Old Parish Records etc)

House queries
Number or name changes etc.

Surname street connections
List the streets with inhabitants with the same surname.

Do you have old photographs of your house?
Old photogrpahs can show a house before it has been altered, e.g. thatched roof, before or before it has been heightened or harled etc.  We are also looking for photographs of the past residents - can you help?

Oral history account
Any house history can be greatly enriched by adding real-life histories and memories from older inhabitants and a new prespective can be gained from the current younger generation.

Family Tree
The Timespan geneaology group is working hard to link up the members of the different families in the village from 1841 to present day.  If you have family history information we would love to hear from you.

Additional information
Do you have any stories or anecdotes to add to the house and occupant histories, i.e. The house where McLeod, the local Helmsdale photographer, lived was called 'The Studio'.

Useful contacts
We would like to make contact with the older street residents to ensure that we collect the correct information and hear from them what life was like growing up in the diffeent streets in Helsmdale and how they ahve changed over the years.
Can you help us with any of these questions for the houses in Helmsdale and Portgower - if you can, we would love to hear from you - please contact Timespan on 01431 821327 or e-mail: archive@timespan.org.uk

Research work begins in earnest!

The project has got off to a great start with volunteers Brian Adams and Frank McCulloch  typing out the 1841 and 1851 census returns for Kildonan and Loth Parishes.  The information will be inputted into searchable databases which will make it much easier to extract the 'street by street' information for our albums. 


The 1841 census is considered to be the first modern UK census.  It records the place where a person was staying at the time the census was taken,  the name, the age (rounded up to nearest 5 years), the occupation and if a person was born in the Parish, usually recorded as a yes or no.  It does not record the relationship between family members of a household and for Kildonan and Loth there are no house numbers or names.

Brian has typed out 2434 entries to date - well done!

He has found out that there were 201 people staying in Dunrobin Street in 1841 in 27 houses.  The occupations inlcuded merchants, coopers, fish curers, a tailor, a mail driver, shoemakers etc.

More information about the 1851 census to follow shortly!

If you have any information about the buildings and past inhabitants in Dunrobin Street please get in touch - we would love to hear from you!

Welcome to 'The Streets Where We Live' project

Timespan's latest heritage project - get involved now!

This project is an exciting and engaging way to get actively involved in family history research in your local area.  We will be looking at the houses on every street in Helmsdale and Portgower and the people who lived there in the past.  A five month programme of activities including workshops, genealogy sessions, research trips, talks and walks will begin in mid November until mid March 2011.  This is a project that everyone, of any age, can participate in and it will include training for all levels of ability.  
 

Dates and times:

(You can sign up for all the events or you can come along to any of your choice)

Saturday 20th November from 10.30am-12.30pm

Introductory session: Short illustrated talk and informal discussion  

Setting up the 'Street'  research projects

Project dairies and inputting to blog

A look around the Timespan Community Archive

Forthcoming events

Tell us your views

Tea and biscuits to finish!

Wednesday Morning Workshops 10.30am-12.30pm

From 24^th November to 2^nd March 2011

Saturday Morning Family History Sessions 10.30am-12.30pm

From 27^th November to 5^th March 2011

What will we have at the end of the project? 

Street Album  

• A short history of each house   
• A list of the occupants and their families   
• Family history connections (where possible)  
• Photographic archive  
• Oral history reminiscences (where possible)  
• Associated stories