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