Flintersquoy was an old croft situated above the public road between Munsey and the Quandale school. In the Rousay Birth Register of 1830 it was spelled Flintryquoy. James Gibson was a blacksmith, and this is where he worked in the mid-1800’s. In 1841 he paid rent of £2 2s 3d and in 1843 it stood at £3 3s 0d.
He was the son of Alexander Gibson and Margaret Craigie, born in 1798. He married Mary Marwick, the daughter of George and Barbara Marwick, and they had three daughters, Mary, Maggie, and Ann.
In 1851 James was 53, and Mary was 59 years old. Daughter Maggie was 18 and employed at home. Living with them was Mary’s brother William, a 62-year-old retired ship’s master, and 27-year-old Margaret Marwick, who was employed as a house servant. Due to the actions of the laird, George William Traill, James and his family were evicted in 1855 and they moved to Curquoy in Sourin.
The image above is a section of a ‘Plan of the Township of Quendale in the Island of Rousay, the property of George W. Traill of Viera’. Drawn by G. Robson, Rousay c1850. [Courtesy of the Firth Family of Vacquoy]
Munzie was a park and house-site on the lower slope of Mansemass Hill above the public road in Quandale. All that remains of the buildings today is a single site, outside the dyke, the others being completely cleared and the land used for nothing but pasture.
Known as Moansie in the 1824 Rousay Birth Register, and Upper Mincy in the 1832 register, the origin is uncertain, but one cannot fail to note the resemblance to the name of the hill. In his book The Place-Names of Rousay, Hugh Marwick thought the name might have been the local pronunciation of the house-name found recorded in the Rousay Birth Register sometimes as Magnus Hill. Referring to that register he found that in 1824 a birth took place at ‘Magnus Hill,’ and another at ‘Moansie,’ and the father in each case was William Craigie! But the fact that the mothers were different proves that these houses were definitely not the same.
The 1841 census reveals that four families were living on this site. The afore-mentioned William Craigie, a 45-year-old farmer, lived at Mounsay with his 50-year-old wife Mary, paying rent of £1 12s 3d.
The first of the three families living at Upper Mounsay was 35-year-old John Hercus and his 25-year-old wife Jean Reid, who was the daughter of George Reid and Barbara Logie of Pow, Westside. They had four children; John, James, Jane, and Henrietta. John was paying 15s. Rent at this time.
Also living at Upper was John’s mother Christy, who was then in her 75th year, and his sister Betsy, a 30-year-old plaiter.
Five members of the Low family also lived there; 50-year-old widow Margaret Low, 25-year-old son John was a seaman, 20-year-old twins David, who earned his living as a tailor, and Margaret, and the youngest was 15-year-old Ann.
The census recorded a change of tenancy by 1851. Upper Mouncey was then occupied by Barbara Craigie, a 64-year-old widow, her unmarried 32-year-old daughter Cicilia, who was an agricultural labourer, and her five year-old grand-daughter Jane Rendall, who was a scholar. Barbara’s late husband was William Craigie of Quoygray, Wasbister.
Mouncey itself was occupied by 59-year-old farmer William Corsie and his 44-year-old wife Betsy and one-year-old son Malcolm. William paid rent of £3 13s 6d. 1855 the whole of Munzie was added to Westness farm and William Corsie went to Faroe, Sourin.
1861 saw just one family at Mouncie, 58-year-old agricultural labourer William Sabiston, his 50-year-old wife Jean, and their three children, William, Mary, and Jane, all scholars.
Ten years on, and William Sabiston had passed away. His widow Jean earned a living knitting stockings, elder daughter Mary made ends meet as a dressmaker, while younger daughter Jane was also a knitter of stockings, despite being an imbecile – as recorded in the census. That census also reveals the presence of Jean’s 3-year-old grandson Robert.
By 1881, unmarried mother Mary Sabiston was still in residence at Munsie, with her 13-year-old son Robert Gillespie, and her unmarried sister Jane. In 1897 Munzie was unroofed, the flagstones being used to cover the byre at Overbister [Everybist], Wasbister.
By1891 the three Sabiston siblings were living together at Bridgend, Westness. William was a 44-year-old farm servant at Westness, as was his 23-year-old nephew Robert Gillespie; William’s sister and Robert’s mother Mary was 41 years of age and employed as a housekeeper, and Jane, unmarried and by this time a 39-year-old annuitant.
By the time the 1901 census was carried out on April 6th Robert Gillespie was married, and living in the Old School buildings above Quandale. Employed as a shepherd Robert lived there with his 26-year-old wife Wilhelmina and their children Mary, aged six, and Robert who was two. Also living with them was Robert’s mother Mary, now fifty years of age.
Ten years on and the1911 census tells us Mary was now living on Wyre, for her son Robert Gillespie farmed and employed others at Helziegetha. The household then consisted of Robert, Williamina [as it was spelled in the census – though we are reliably informed the spelling on her birth certificate is Wilimina!], daughter Mary, and two sons, Robert and 8-month-old William. Mary by this time was in the 60th year of her age.
According to the Orkney Ordnance Survey Name Book of 1879-1880, Volume 16, Munzie, or Monzie, had its name and various modes of spelling authenticated by Mr Robert Logie, Shepherd, Westness, Rousay, the Revd Alexander Macgregor Rose, Evie, and Mr John Craigie, Merchant, Hullion, Rousay. The names applied to a cottage situate at 22 chains south west of Stoormeadow, it was built of stone, thatched, and one storey high – and the property of General Burroughs C.B.
Stourmeadow was the name applied to a house and large park of rough pasture on the upper side of the public road in Quandale, just beyond the Quandale dyke from Wasbister. A Rousay Birth Register entry of 1822 records the house being spelled Staurameirie. As you can see from the photos, there is little evidence of the house left.
In the census of 1841, the house was called Stourmary and it was where 25-year-old shoemaker George Leonard lived with his wife Margaret Clouston. The annual rent on the property at this time was £1. George was the son of John Leonard and Isabella Inkster of Grain and he was born in 1816. Wife Margaret was the daughter of Magnus Clouston and Ann Flaws of Tou, and she was born on January 24th 1822 at Windbreck, Westside.
In the above photo, taken from the hill slopes above Stourmeadow, one is able to see an old ‘feelie’ dyke. These dykes were made of spade-cut sods of earth, the foundation sods cut large, about 18x12x9 inches and laid in double tiers. Stones were also added, and wooden stakes were driven in to hold the sods together. The day of the turf dyke came to an end with the agricultural improvements. The scalping of the ground for turf and sods conflicted too sharply with grazing requirements, and dykes of stone and fences of stob and wire were the successors.
Although the croft was very small, originally with only one acre arable, George had been able to keep a cow and had grazed a number of sheep on the common grazing land. During the 1845 evictions he still managed to pay his rent, supplementing his income with fishing, shoemaking, and any other work he could find. Despite paying his rent, he too was evicted in 1855, and had to make his way through the hills with his few belongings and an infant in his arms to Treblo, on a bare and uncultivated hillside in Sourin where he had permission to settle.
As well as being tenant of Tofts, Magnus Murray paid an annual rent of £3 for Knapknowes in 1841. The old house at Quandale was situated beside the Westness dyke, which ran between the road below the school and the clifftop at the Sinians of Cutclaws.
In 1843 David Craigie was tenant of both Knapknowes and Cutclaws, paying £7 for both sites. David moved to Kirkwall in 1853. There is no evidence left of either dwelling.
In 1936 three mounds were excavated at Knapknowes by Walter Grant, his investigations revealing the fact they contained burials. The first covered a cist [small stone-built coffin-like box] containing cremated bone, ‘cramp’ [vitrified fuel ash slag, known as cramp in the context of Bronze Age Orcadian funerary practices], and six small pieces of flint. The second, crossed by a drystone dyke, covered two cists, one of them central, both containing cremated bone and cramp. The third mound covered an upright Cinerary Urn [an urn for holding a human’s ashes after cremation] in a stone setting and containing cremated bones and ‘cramp’. These three cairns were located close to the farmstead of Knapknowes, evidence of which was scarce for the footings and walls had been used to build the nearby dykes. One other mound on the site was also excavated by Grant, but it was in fact the remains of the corn-drying kiln associated with the farmstead.
Mid Quandale was the name of a croft situated in the vicinity of the buildings of Windbreak and Tofts at Quandale. It was amalgamated with Nether Quandale before 1841, and the census of that year reveals that members of the Craigie family were living there. The annual rent was £15, but this was lowered to £11 the following year.
Head of the household was 60-year-old Hugh Craigie. He was the son of Hugh Craigie and Janet Marwick of Brough, Westside, and was born in 1778. He married Isabella Craigie, who was born in 1781, and they raised a family of ten children; Hugh was born on September 11th 1804, Janet on May 14th 1807, then another Janet on July 20th 1808, Henry on January 30th 1811, Mary on April 14th 1813, and William on September 7th 1815. All these children were born at Brough. Betty was born on November 19th 1817 at Nether Quandale, and the last three children were born at Mid Quandale; Grace on April 20th 1820, Peter on June 15th 1823, and John, who was born on March 11th 1828.
Meanwhile, at Upper Quandale in 1841 tenant Hugh Inkster paid annual rent of £8 8s 0d. In 1843 William McInlay was paying £11. He later moved into the Wash-house at Viera Lodge.
The Craigies were forced to move out of Mid Quandale during the 1845 clearance, and the parents and two of their children moved to Quoydeith in Wasbister. Hugh and Janet’s oldest son, also christened Hugh, married Margaret Harrold in 1823, and they lived at New Grindly, Brinian. The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1848 after the death of their elder daughter Jean, but tragically the younger daughter Betty died on the voyage.
Dale was an old house-site in Quandale about 250 yards down from the public road and on the bank of a stream.
In 1841 it was occupied by George Flaws and his family, having moved from nearby Breek. George was then a 55-year-old farmer, his wife Margaret was also 55 years of age, and daughters Janet and Jane, were 20 and 15 years old.
In 1845, during the laird’s clearance of Quandale and the Westside, the family, along with many other people, were evicted. In 1846 George and his family moved into a newly built croft and house in Frotoft, and they named it after their old house in Quandale – Breek.
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Stirling was an old croft at Quandale, 150 yards or so to the west of the public road. It was amalgamated with the nearby croft of Deal before 1841, and from then onwards it was occupied as a sub-tenancy until the Quandale clearances.
In 1841 the tenant was Barbara Inkster, paying £1 11s 6d rent. In 1843 William Sabeston was the tenant and his rent was five guineas a year. In 1851, William was a 47-year-old agricultural labourer and Jane, his wife, was 39. At that time they had three children; James, a seven-year-old schoolboy, William, who was four, and a ten-month-old baby daughter christened Mary. At the time of the clearances in 1855 William and his family moved to nearby Munzie.
Hestival was the name of an old house in Quandale, about 500 yards northeast of Tofts. In Old Norse the word hesta-vollr means horse field. A rental of 1841 tells of Marjorie Irvine paying £1 2s 3d annual tenancy. The census of 1851 records Mary Randall, a 55-year-old unmarried pauper living at Hestival – before the clearance.
The 1861 census tell us Mary was living at ‘Quendale’ and in 1871 she resided at Brough on the Westside.
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North House was the most northerly croft in Quandale. It was occupied in 1841 by Alexander Louttit and his family, when the rent was £2 10s 0d a year. Born in about 1781 Alexander married Barbara Craigie of Whoam in 1816. They had two children; Janet, born in December 1816, and Mary on August 19th 1818.
Alexander later married Janet Craigie, daughter of James Craigie and Oslay Marwick, and between 1822 and 1835 they had six children; Edward, John, Barbara, William, Margaret, and Betsy. Alexander and his family were the last people to inhabit North House due to the clearance of 1845. In 1851 they were living at Lower Blackhammer in Wasbister.
Breek was an old house in Quandale, north of Tofts, and in the early 1800’s it was occupied by George Flaws and his wife Margaret Low. Two more houses in the immediate vicinity were Braehead and Hasley, and further down the hill was Lower Breek, rent payers in 1841 being named as Thomas Craigie and William Corsie.
George Flaws was born about 1785 and Margaret was born in 1782. They had four children; Margaret, Janet, George, and Jane, all of whom were born at Breek between 1817 and 1825. They lived at Deal for a while before being evicted from Quandale in 1845. By 1846 a small croft and house, also named Breek, was built in Frotoft and occupied by the Flaws family.
The census of 1851 records the fact that 27-year-old son George was head of the household, and at that time he was earning a living as a blacksmith and farmer. Living with him was his father George, then 66 years of age, his mother Margaret, in her 69th year, and his 24-year-old sister Jane, who was employed in the house. George worked as a blacksmith for many years, and though retired by 1881 he still lived at Breek.
The images below show Lower Breek, though there are no records of its occupants in the past.
Breck was the name of an old house in Quandale, some 300 yards or so northeast of Tofts. In 1841, 55-year-old farmer David Costie paid an annual rent of £1 18s. 6d. and lived there with his wife Christie, who was 45 years of age. They had three children; William (11), Alexander (5), and one-year-old Fanny. As a result of the 1845 clearance David was forced to move, and the 1851 census tells us he and Christie were living at Bare Brakes [Braes], close to Midgarth and Quoys in Sourin.
The following text has been extracted from a survey of the farm of Breck, undertaken by the Rousay Archaeological Rescue Group in 1980, and reproduced with the author’s permission.
……..An interesting site, much of the masonry work by the same person. The builder was a craftsman who for example, smoothly blended in joints and junctions, and who tried unconventional construction techniques. We can see also that he was fond of flagstone.
Only those parts of the complex that are unconventional will be described in detail, the remainder will be described only briefly.
The Corn-drying Kiln [1, in the diagram below] is smaller than the usual, and was probably purpose-built for a small harvest. The door [2] is a large, wide type, without the usual mural cupboard and stoke-hole. The South side of the kiln [3] is the only part of the complex still standing above two metres in height, the remainder is mostly below 1.2 metres.
The Neuk is the only one of this construction that I have seen, being composed of two flagstones set vertically, and roofed by another, [4] & [5]. The roof junction is sealed by a soaker as usual. The Barn is quite conventional but the sweep [6] at the Neuk entrance and the edges of the door [8] are finished to a better degree than normal. The byre is of the normal type, and is separated from the barn by the baak wall [7]. The byre doorway [9] is well built, and near this door is the odler hole for dung clearance. This would have been used to great advantage before the pig-shed was built, for the odler hole would eject the dung in the shed doorway. This shed [10] was probably built in the late 17th Century. How the byre was cleaned from this date onwards is not clear.
Moving to the second part of the complex, we see the North-easternmost rooms [11], [15], were originally built as a two roomed dwelling house, without windows or a gable-hearth. Later, a small corner was taken down and the room [24] added. This later room is much like the shed [10] in its construction, and a late 17th Century date is suggested. The original door [20] was retained at this conversion and a new door [22] was provided for room [24]. The new door being narrow has been given radius corners, but the workmanship is less perfect. In this new configuration the doorway [22] matches the older doorway [21]. To prevent draughts as much as possible, two vertically set flagstones [18], [19], have been built-in, in all probability both predating the room [24]. Room [11] is an almost square room of uncertain use, there are no windows or other features, and the only access is via door [21]. Room [15] is the most interesting. lt is an over-square room for general uses, cooking, eating and sleeping. Again no windows are included in the walls, although the floor hearth (almost at the “15” spot on the drawing) would have had an opening in the roof to let in light, and let out smoke. On the South wall are three mural cupboards – two vertical [16], and the third at [17].
The most remarkably preserved box-bed entirely built of stone is situated, bubble-built in the North wall. It comprises a chamber almost 2 by 1.5 Metres, with two flagstones vertically set to produce a small doorway, [12, 15, 14]. The feature shown as [25] on the illustration, is a semi-mural shelf, of very good workmanship. It produces two compartments separated by a flagstone set horizontally. This was used as sleeping accommodation for children and dogs alike.
No gable-tops survive to show the true elevation of any of the rooms, but it would be quite safe in assuming the roofs to be of the pitched type set in an East-West orientation. Although excavation was not carried out on the floors, it seems that they were earth in all cases. Breck was a croft belonging to the house of Tofts, and consequently the occupants were very poor. However, they must have been very rich in other senses. The dwelling-house, although dark, smoke-filled and perhaps a little damp, must have been very cosy in the depths of an Orkney winter. Certainly the sleepy occupants of the box-bed would hardly have stirred on their mattress of heather while the Westerly gales shook their house. No sign of the original internal plastering remained, nor was it expected, but it was usual for the walls to be covered with a mixture of clay, cow dung and horsehair. The houses are said (unexpectedly) to have smelled of soot, even though there were probably more animals indoors than humans – it being usual for a dozen hens to be perched up in the roof beams.
With the house went a piece of land, a little over an acre arable, and the common grazing where cattle were allowed to mix and wander; their ears being cut as a mark or owners name. Once a year these cattle were rounded up and claimed back by their owners.
Croolea is the first site of ruined houses along the western slope of Green Hill above Tofts at Quandale. In early rentals it is variously known as Cruly or Crowly. The nearby enclosure of Claypots [below left] was also known as Clay Pows.
According to the 1841 census, carried out on June 7th that year, Croolea was occupied by 55-year-old farmer John Clouston, for which he paid rent of £3 7s 0d. His wife was 45-year-old Christina and they had a fifteen-year-old daughter Betsy. When Quandale was cleared John Clouston went on to build a house on land at Claybank, Wasbister.
Cairn [below] is the next ruin, between Croolea and Breck. Unfortunately I have no information regarding this site.
