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THE "York Buildings Company" were
remarkable for enterprise and daring. They took in hand the raising of the
Thames water for London, and engaged in various other great schemes. How
they came to Speyside is hard to say. Two hundred years ago Abernethy and
Strathdown must have been as little known in London as Lapland and
Kamskatca. The probability is that the adventure was due to Aaron Hill,
the poet. He had travelled much, had written many books, and held a good
place in London society. Besides, he was well known for his "sanguine
belief in his own gifts, both for literature and speculation." In
1713 he had a scheme as to the
wool trade. In 1718 he started a ‘colony in Georgia, and he had a share in
various other enterprises. Probably he had seen the report by Captain John
Mason, who had a lease of the Woods of Abernethy for 40 years, to the
Commissioners of the Navy in 1704 as to the size and quality of the trees
in Abernethy as "likeliest to serve His Majesty’s Government." Perhaps he
may have met the Laird of Grant in London or Edinburgh, and heard from him
of the vast resources of his country, and the possibilities of
fortune-making in these fields and pastures new. At any rate, he seems to
have come north in 1726, and to have reported so favourably to Colonel
Horsey and the "York Buildings Company" that they were induced to enter
upon the scheme. In 1728 they obtained Royal Licence "to trade in goods,
wares, and merchandise of the growth and produce of that part of the
kingdom." Their first object was wood manufactures. By an indenture dated
5th January, 1728, between James Grant of Grant, Esq. (afterwards Sir
James Grant, Bart.), on the one hand, and the Governors and Company of
Undertakers for Raising Thames Water in York Buildings on the other, James
Grant, Esq., sold 60,000 fir trees of the best and choicest of the fir
woods besouth the River Spey, belonging in property to the said James
Grant, and lying in the united parishes of Abernethy and Kincardine, with
power to them to cut, sell, transport, and to their own use and behoof,
apply the said trees at their own charge and risque "within 17
years, and that every tree wounded by
them shall be deemed one of the number hereby sold."
They were to have free entry, and to
be protected by the Baron Bailies "from every manner of insult,
oppression, theft, bad usage, to the utmost of their power." No other
person or persons were to be allowed to cut any of the said fir woods,
"except for the upholding Tenements Houses, and labouring the ground
according to the use of the country and for upholding the Duke of Gordon’s
Dwelling-houses, according to the tenor and conditions of the infeftments
by his Grace to the family of Grant." The price was £7000 sterling, to be
paid in instalments, the first £1000 on or before August,
1729. The Company further obtained use of the
sawmills upon the Nethy, with leave to build as many more as they might
deem necessary. They had also a Tack of Coulnakyle, with the mains and
meadows, at a rent of £25 yearly. All differences and disputes were to be
referred to Robert Grant of Lurg as oversman. But more than this, and to
make all sure, a bond was given by Colonel Samuel Horsey, of Mortclach,
and John Ewer, of the parish of St Martin’s, Westminster, goldsmith, by
which they bound themselves to pay the penal sum of £14,750 failing the
fulfilment of the deed. And all this was done regularly in the Scotch
form. The company duly took possession. They made a brave start. Could we
look in upon the gentlemen at Coulnakyle in the autumn of 1728 we should
find them in the highest spirits. The Laird of Grant has been most
hospitable. They have found the people of the country friendly, and ready
to help them in their enterprises. Even the Duke of Gordon has not
forgotten them. He sent an order to Robert Stewart, his forester in
Glenmore, to supply them with a stag, and this has been done. We may
imagine Colonel Horsey and his friends at table, with Captain Burt as one
of the guests. Aaron Hill may have improved the occasion, after the manner
of Goldsmith—
"Thanks, dear Duke,
for your venison, for finer or fatter
Never roamed in a forest or smoked on a platter."
Excited by the good fare, and the
accompanying viands, they would talk with much confidence of their schemes
and prospects. Hill would quote his own lines :—
"High on the mountains of her
northern shore
The gummy pine shall shed her pitchy store;
Tall firs, which useless have long ages grown,
Shall freight the seas and visit lands unknown,
Till the check’d sons of Norway’s timbered State
Learn love by force, while we disarm their hate."
He would also hint at "subterranean
riches" rivalling those of Mexico and Peru. So sanguine was he that, with
the bright fancy and hopes of a poet, he used to date his letters to his
wife from the "Golden Groves of Abernethy." But Burt, who was of a more
practical matter of fact turn, was not so confident. He would suggest
caution and enquiry. In his letters, he says—"None of them (the trees)
will pay, for felling and removing over rocks, bogs, and precipices, and
conveyance by rocky rivers, except such as are near the sea coast, as I
believe the York Building Company will find in the conclusion"—(Vol. I.,
283). Colonel Horsey and Aaron Hill were not satisfied with the
manufacture of wood. They heard that in the Hills of Strathdown iron was
to be found, and they conceived a grand scheme for turning this to profit.
There was iron in the Lecht, but no wood. At Abernethy there was wood, but
no iron. Why not bring them together? And this was what was done. Works
were erected on the Nethy, smelting furnaces at Balnagown, and a mill for
forging and other purposes higher up, near Causair, where the foundation
beams, with their cross-bindings and broad-headed iron nails, may still be
seen in the bed of the river. Houses also were built for the workmen, with
pleasant gardens, on the Straanmore. Some scores of men, with 120 horses
("garrons"), were employed in carrying the iron ore in panniers from the
hills of the Lecht, beyond Tomintoul, and many others were engaged in
driving wood and working the mills. Pillars, 9ft. and 16ft. long, were
cast, some marked with a cross and date 1730, others with the letters
Benj. Lund, and heaps of pig iron were prepared for exportation. Other
enterprises of a similar kind at Poolewe, in Ross-shire, and at Glengarry,
Inverness-shire, had failed, but it was hoped that the Abernethy works
would be a great success. The manufacture and export of wood went on, for
a time, at a great rate. Aaron Hill, with his inventive mind, effected a
great improvement in the mode of floating timber on the Spey. Instead of
the clumsy and dangerous way of guiding the raft by means of a "curragh"
(wicker boat covered with skins holding one person), he brought into use
solidly-built rafts, managed by two men, with long oars, one sitting at
each end. The following quotation from a case in the Court of Session,
1784, gives a fair account of the proceedings of the Company :—"This
operation upon Sir James Grant’s woods was considered as a matter of such
public: concern that the Company applied for and obtained a premium by Act
of Parliament for furnishing masts and other timber of such dimensions as
were not to be found in any other part of Great Britain. The York Building
Company finding this part of Sir James Grant’s Estate a most eligible
situation for carrying on other articles of trade and commerce, they
erected a furnace for casting iron and several forges for making it fit
for the uses of the country and for exportation. They made into charcoal
immense quantities of wood, which was used in their furnaces and forges.
In short, they carried on works in this part of the country to such extent
and magnitude that they sent from England a gentleman of the name of
Stephens (of that rank and condition in life that he had been in
Parliament), with a suitable salary for superintending the works. He acted
as their agent and chief manager, and such was the credit and influence of
the Company, at least for some years, that the notes of hand of this Mr
Stephens passed for cash, just as current as the notes of the Bank of
Scotland or Royal Bank do at this day."
But although there was great
activity and lavish expenditure of money, the Company were unable to
fulfil their engagements. Rents were not paid, debts and difficulties
increased, and at last there was a complete collapse. The Rev. John Grant
says in the old Statistical Account:—"Their extravagances of every kind
ruined themselves and corrupted others. They used to display their vanity
by bonfires, tar barrels, and opening hogsheads of brandy to the country
people, by which five of them died in one night. They had a Commissary for
provisions and forage at a handsome salary; and in the end went off in
debt to the proprietors and the country. But yet their coming to the
country was beneficial in many respects, for besides the knowledge and
skill which were acquired from them they made many useful and lasting
improvements. They made roads through the woods. They erected proper
sawmills. They invented the construction of the raft, as it is at present,
and cut a passage through a rock in Spey, without which floating to any
extent could never be attempted." In 1735, Sir James Grant of Grant raised
an action in the Court of Session against Solomon Ashley, Esq., Governor
of the York Building Company, and others. The summons is dated and
signetted 13th July, 1735; Islay Campbell Advocate for the Complainers,
and Patrick Hamilton Advocate for the Defenders. Decreet of Horning was
issued in 1740. The case dragged on, but no decided advantage seems to
have been obtained. In 1780 the claim was renewed by Sir James Grant of
Grant, as against Mrs Martha Grove and others, creditors of the York
Buildings Company, but this action also seems to have come to nothing. A
hundred years have passed, and what remains? Colonel Horsey and his allies
are forgotten. Aaron Hill, though he wrote much, is only remembered as one
of the poets satirised by Pope in the Dunciad, and as the author of the
famous epigram:-
"Tender-hearted stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains,
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
‘Tis the same with common natures,
Use them kindly they rebel,
But be rough as nutmeg grater,
And the rogues obey you well."
These lines are said to have been
written with a diamond on a window pane in a border inn on one of his
excursions to Scotland. Probably they express his experiences in dealing
with the men of Abernethy. Hill must have been fond of the "nettle," for
he has another epigram addressed to a lady, in which it is introduced.
"Revenge, you see, is sure though
sometimes slow.
Take this—.’Tis all the pain I’d have you know.
There’s odds enough yet left betwixt our smart,
I sting your finger, and you sting my
heart."
It may be also noted that Aaron Hill
was one of the first to call attention to Gaelic poetry. His "Ronald and
Dorna," by a Highlander to his mistress, is marked "From the Gaelic." And
what of the works? As Edie Ochiltree asked, "And a’ the bonny engines, and
wheels, and the coves and sheughs doun at Glen Witherskins yonder, what’s
to come o’ them?" As at Glen Witherskins, so at Abernethy, there was
scattering and plundering. Where once there were the rush of waters, and
the roaring of furnaces, the clanging of hammers, and the stress and
bustle of a vast enterprise, there is now silence. The only remains of the
great Company are the foundations of the mills, the empty watercourse,
some beams and pillars of cast-iron at the Dell and Nethy-Bridge, and the
spring at Aldersyde that bears the name of John Crowley. |
