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Snippets of History |
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Date/Era 1883 |
Topic Large farms |
District Lonfern |
Person Murdo Nicolson, Sir Archibald Geikie |
| In addition to Scorrybreac, there were several other substantial farms in the district. The Lon fheàrna had been a farm to the Nicolsons from the fourteenth century. When he went to give his evidence to the Commission of Enquiry which sat in Stoighseall in May 1883, Murdo Nicolson told Lord Napier that his fathers had been in Lonfearn 'for the last 500 years, in the same farm, and the same house.' The Lonfearn Nicolsons were a cadet branch of the Nicolsons of Scorrybreac. It is said that the terms granted by Macdonald of Sleat for their lease of Lon fhearna were to be free. There were two conditions - as long as a wave could be guaranteed to hit the shore, and as long as white milk could be guaranteed to flow from a black cow. When he was compiling his geological survey, Sir Archibald Geikie spent a week in the old house of Lonfearn. He was remembered locally as 'bodach nan clach'. | |