Auchindrain

Aach-an-dry-en fro m the Gaelic meaning Field of the Blackthorn Tree, is the last surviving/preserved example of a joint tenancy farm township. This kind of settlement was prevalent up to 200 years ago, joint resources and services being the keynote. The main commodity was cattle, along with hens and barley and later potatoes. The land outby was poor quality rough grazing, while inby was farmed in narrow strips known as rigs. Each tenanted family had a rig allocated by lot every 1-3 years, thus rotating both good and bad land between the tenants. The land would be patchworked with rigs run by different families.

The township runs alongside what is now the A83 between Inverary and Lochgilphead. Originally all roofs would be thatched with reed or bracken, straw being too valuable as winter feed for animals, gradually replaced by corrugated steel. Surprisingly bracken thatch lasted on the whole 5 years longer than reed which only lasted 2 years before needing maintenance.

The building on the left, dating from around 1790, is Eddie's House, a longhouse built on the site of an earlier house. In the early days, there would be no partitions separating living, sleeping areas and the byre, and only a central hearth with no chimney. Late in the C19th, partitions were added to give the Kitchen or main living space, the Room for receiving guests and as extra sleeping space for adults, and the Closet between those two, which could be used as storage, or as a dairy or further bedroom. Spaces were not strictly designated, with beds in any and every room.

Some houses like Eddie's also had a barn, to the right, for threshing, and sometimes with an extension for cattle. The barn would have two doors set across the prevailing wind and opposite each other to allow for wind access to dry the cereal.

The first Edward McCallum arrived in the township around 1829 with his new bride, Isabella. The house you see was home to four generations of Eddie McCallums, lasting until 1954. By the time the last people were leaving Auchindrain, its importance as a fading way of life was recognised, and preservation started almost immediately. It's now a very special place, not discounting the extremely hard lives of the people who lived here, but rare to be able to walk round the same landscape they inhabited, and see interiors with preserved box beds and ranges etc, to get a real feel for how life was, back then.

AND the tearoom has the best carrot cake I've ever tasted:-)