Justice and the
Baroness

Spinningdale
History

Who the heck's
George Dempster?

?National Galleries of Scotland. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

Click pictures to view their pages.

Cairns
in Spinningdale

Cotton Mill
Opening again

Spinningdale
STILL on St Kilda!

The loss of Spinningdale First anniversary!

James Robertson Justice brightens up Spinningdale!
Our man with 'The Baroness' now in print. See below.

Dempster Found!

Mysteriously missing Ospisdale estate records were re-united with their fellows in Edinburgh. These records, some possibly concerning Dempster's cotton mill company, vanished lost between Tain to Edinburgh, have been returned from the USA. Currently they are being catalogued and preserved with the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Dempster goes Public!

More of the Dempsters' estate records are now available to view as part of the Skibo archives at Inverness library.

Praise for Spinningdale's site!
'Rampant Scotland' - Scotland's portal on the web has flagged up Spinningdale's interesting story as a museum site.
Failte - visitors from 'Rampant Scotland'! Back-link on 'Find Spinningdale' page
Below...

How to find Spinningdale

Where is Spinningdale?
June 2006, an advert moved Spinningdale 10 miles west across the Dornoch sea firth to Ardgay. This advert offered Andrew Carnegie's estate school at Larachan, now a home.
Later, Spinningdale was moved east to be 'By Dornoch' by the same Inverness estate agents in a revamped advert.
But, by September 2006, we're back off to Ardgay. From February 2008, Spinningdale [FD29] is now literally on St Kilda. Maybe there's a problem with Spinningdale and maps?

Bonar Bridge - meet our neighbours via
Wikipedia.

'The Mill'

Drawing of Old Mill Inn. C.A.MILLER. 1997

The 'Mill', as the locals know their local, dates to about 1798. The Mill may be the oldest continuously inhabited building on the Dornoch Firth. The Inn was reputedly built on the site of a cattle droving inn for the Creich on the firth crossing around 1745. Work has advanced internally to reinstate the 18th Century frontage.

It was intended to recreate the late 1700's heyday of the Spinningdale cotton mill, with authentic interiors, clothing, furniture and local menus. The 'Mill' is now trading as 'The Cotton Mill Inn'.

The Mill Inn still commands excellent views of the now romantic cotton mill house ruins, our stunning wooded 'fjord' landscape, the old sea pier and wildlife.

'OLD' HYDRO-ELECTRICITY

turbine mountings

In the 1920's, a little hydro-electric station was built over the Spinningdale burn, its corrugated tin hut tucked away down beside the Cotton Mill House ruins.

Surely here's an opportunity awaiting another 'Chance' from a forward-looking person to revive this traditional low-impact and cheap Green energy source?

'What's the bleeding time?'

From March 2008, Justice's biography
flew off the shelves!

James Robertson Justice and 'The Baroness'
return to Spinningdale!

Go Hawking with Justice!

Vikings and Cairns

Stone Age Farmers Found!
From 4,000 years ago, Spinningdale Bog samples produced evidence of change from pine woods to open fields. Details following on Spinningdale's Cairns page. Perhaps indications of an ancient [natural] climate change from dry to wet?

Spinningdale's Cairns page read the 1905 Achaidh excavation report!

Spinningdale's likeness to their home 'fjords' may have proved an attractive selling point to the Norse 'Viking' settlers who named the area around 800 AD.
The name 'Spinningdale' is literally 'round valley' in Norwegian. Derivation being 'Spinne' for round and 'dalhr' for valley.

From long before the Norse, we have remains of the New Stone Age farmers of 5,000 years ago who left us their enduringly silent stone cemetery mounds. Up here, we call these ancient graves of mounded stones 'cairns'.

Join Us!

There remains a lot of archaeological groundwork to be carried out in the Spinningdale area.
We are hopeful that archaeo-environmental work carried out in the Spinningdale peat bog will continue and expand to take in Creich parish.
We are seeking collaboration with more outside groups and individuals to work up possible opportunities for 'hands-on' archaeology activity breaks.

Please contact

Northlands Heritage Tours at the 'Mill' for more details.

In Memoria

: Mary 'Achue' Matheson [nee Macrae] : : Suddenly called away March 2009 :

: Ella Wallace [nee Matheson] :
Achue and Portobello
Left us on 16th February 2009.

: Andy Matheson :
Achue and Ospisdale
Left us 15th December 2006.

'Gone Home...'

Email Spinningdale webmaster.

Revised 07_04_2009 and © MM; by Charlie Miller, who asserts his moral rights to recognised as author of this site and its contents. [Dempster's portrait by Opie in the National Galleries of Scotland. Courtesy of the Licensor - www.scran.ac.uk ].