Cromartyshire (Scottish Gaelic:Siorrachd Chromba) was acounty in theHighlands ofScotland, comprising the medieval "old shire" around thecounty town ofCromarty and 22enclaves andexclaves transferred fromRoss-shire in the late 17th century. The largest part, six times the size of the old shire, wasCoigach, containingUllapool and the area north-west of it. In 1889, Cromartyshire was merged with Ross-shire to become a new county calledRoss and Cromarty, which in 1975 was merged into the new council area ofHighland.
Cromartyshire was anciently part of theprovince ofRoss. Ross had been underNorwegian overlordship in the 10th and 11th centuries, but was claimed by theScottish crown in 1098. It took many years for Scottish authority to become fully effective in the area. Unlike other areas absorbed into Scotland around that time, such asMoray, Ross was not initially divided intoshires. Instead, the area was placed under the nominal authority of theSheriff of Inverness. By the mid-thirteenth century there were two small shires within Ross, based atDingwall andCromarty, to enforce Scottish laws in the immediate vicinity of those twoburghs, but the rest of Ross remained under the sheriff of Inverness.[1] The position ofSheriff of Dingwall did not endure, but theSheriff of Cromarty did, and became a hereditary post held byClan Urquhart.[2]
The medieval shire orsheriffdom of Cromarty encompassed a single tract on the north of theBlack Isle peninsula. It comprised theparish ofCromarty; most of the adjacent parish of Kirkmichael (excluding a portion at Balblair where a ferry crossed theCromarty Firth toInvergordon); and a single farm inCullicudden parish.[2] As late as the mid-nineteenth century, the boundary between Ross-shire and Cromartyshire was uncertain on the moor of Millbuie (in the centre of the Black Isle).[2][3]
Cromartyshire originally borderedInverness-shire, but in 1504 an act of parliament purported to create the county ofRoss-shire covering the rest of the old province of Ross.[4] In practice, that act was not fully brought into effect. It was not until a subsequent act in 1661 and the appointment of the first permanent sheriff of Ross in 1662 that Ross-shire properly functioned as a shire.[5][2][6] In 1662, Kirkmichael and Cullicudden parishes merged to form the parish ofResolis.[7]
the barony of Tarbat and all therein incorporated, ... also Little Farness and others his lands within the barony of Delny, together with the lands of Wester St Martins, Easter Balblair and the ferry belonging to George Dallas of St Martins
his lands of Pittonachie, Beneckfield, Avoch, Castleton, Auchterflow, Hauldoks, Killen, Raddery, Balmeechy, Little Suddey and his lands about Chanonry and Rosemarkie
Although this was repealed in 1686 on the grounds that some lands not belonging to Viscount Tarbat had been included,[9][12] it was re-enacted in 1690 to include only "the said barony of Tarbat and all other lands in Ross-shire belonging in property to the said viscount".[9][13] The transfers increased the area andrateable value of Cromartyshire by respective factors of fifteen and three.[9]
Detail from 1892 map of Scotland, showing Cromartyshire in purple and Ross-shire in green
Following theJacobite rising of 1745, the government passed theHeritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746, returning the appointment of sheriffs to the crown in those cases where they had become hereditary positions, as had been the case for the Sheriff of Cromarty.[15] The scope for a major landowner or clan chief to control the office of sheriff, which had been the major cause of Cromartyshire's exclaves being separated from Ross, was therefore greatly reduced. From 1748 the government merged the positions of Sheriff of Ross and Sheriff of Cromarty into a single position under theSheriffs (Scotland) Act 1747.[16]
The 1801 census report listed "Shire of Cromarty" and "Shire of Ross" separately, the former including only the old shire and the latter the exclaves.[17] The 1811 census report listed "Ross and Cromarty" together on the ground that it was impractical to separate them.[18] In 1805, responsibility for maintenance of roads in Ross-shire and Cromartyshire was merged.[19] In 1810, themilitia was for Ross-shire in some exclaves and Cromartyshire in others.[20] TheScottish Reform Act 1832 merged Cromartyshire's constituency withRoss-shire's to formRoss and Cromarty, returning one MP to Parliament.[14]Police and ratings administration were merged similarly in the Victorian period.[21]
Cromarty Courthouse: County's courthouse, built 1773, which also served as meeting place for the CromartyshireCommissioners of Supply and the town council for the burgh of Cromarty
Despite sharing a sheriff from 1748, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire remained legally separate counties. They retained separateCommissioners of Supply, and from 1794 each appointed their ownlord-lieutenants, with Cromartyshire overseen by theLord Lieutenant of Cromarty. From 1860 the commissioners of supply for the two counties were directed to work together on delivering some functions, notably relating to prisons.[22][23]
TheLocal Government (Scotland) Act 1889 provided that "the counties of Ross and Cromarty shall cease to be separate counties, and shall be united for all purposes whatsoever, under the name of the county of Ross and Cromarty." The new county ofRoss and Cromarty came into being from the passing of the act in August 1889. The act also established elected county councils, which came into being in May 1890. The 1889 Act also triggered a review of boundaries to eliminate remaining exclaves and cases where parishes straddled county boundaries, which saw Ross and Cromarty absorb an exclave ofNairnshire and a near-exclave of Inverness-shire; the former was the barony ofFerintosh and the latter an exclave ofKilmorack parish aroundMuir of Ord railway station.[24]
Given the scattered nature of the county it is difficult to generalise. The original shire consisted of a portion of theBlack Isle peninsula bordering onCromarty Firth, across which lay the Tarbat peninsula, of which several portions belonged to Cromartyshire, includingTarbat Ness. The interior sections consisted of several enclaves within Ross-shire which were mountainous, remote and sparsely populated.[25]
Sources tend to number the tracts added to Cromartyshire at between eight and eleven;[23][26][27] however some comprise multiple parcels. In 1807,Alexander Nimmo listed the additions in eight groups with two to six parcels in each.[28][29]
The 1881 index to theOrdnance Survey's first edition lists 22 detached parts, and the original "old shire", all of whose areas are given on the six-inch map.[30] The total measured area of Cromartyshire was 217321.186 acres, or 339.56 square miles (879.5 km2).[31][25]
Encloses an exclave of Ross-shire at Balblair. The six farms, annexed for Viscount Tarbat, are: Cullicudden, Craighouse, Torbirchurn, Brae, Woodhead, and Easter Culbo.[29]
^Location is given as general area [Black Isle, Easter Ross, or Wester Ross], then Parish(es), then adjacent feature(s)
^Which 1880scivil parish(es) included the fragment. Subsequent parish boundary revisions are ignored. If one parish is listed, it includes the entire fragment. Unless "all" is listed, only part of the parish is in the fragment, with the rest in Ross-shire or other fragments of Cromartyshire.
^longitude and latitude (link to external mapping sites)
^Sheet number(s) within the Ross and Cromarty sheet series of the first-edition 1-inch OS map on which the fragment is depicted, and relative location within the map-sheet(s)
^The "old shire" is considered the core, from which the other parts are "detached"
^8674.794 in Cromarty parish[a 1] plus 11516.895 in Resolis parish[a 2]
^Area is written across two sheets: 1211... in one[a 9] and ....256 in the other.[a 10]
Some places not included within Cromartyshire in the Ordnance Survey map are stated by earlier sources to have been within it. The 1859 edition of theEncyclopædia Britannica asserts that Royston Park (nowCaroline Park) outsideEdinburgh, the city residence of the Viscount Tarbat, was also considered part of Cromartyshire.[26] Nimmo's 1807 list includes:[29]
"themortified lands of the town ofFortrose", two patches totalling less than 50 acres inRosemarkie parish, which were bequeathed to the burgh of Cromarty. A 1794 account of Rosemarkie parish states that there are two mortifications, but for the poor ofChanonry, not Cromarty.[33]
^Whetstone, Ann E. (1977). "The Reform of the Scottish Sheriffdoms in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries".Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies.9 (1):61–71.doi:10.2307/4048219.JSTOR4048219.
^Walker, David M. (1 December 2001).A legal history of Scotland. Vol. 6. W. Green. p. 356.ISBN9780406948540.
^[1801 Census] Abstracts of the Answers and Returns Made pursuant to an Act, passed in the Forty-first Year of His Majesty King George III. Intituled, "An Act for taking an Account of the Population of Great Britain, and the Increase or Diminution thereof." Enumeration. Part II. Scotland. British Parliamentary Papers. Vol. 1801 vi (140) 813. Lincoln's Inn Fields, London: Lake Hansard. 9 June 1802. pp. 518,542.
^Sum of the areas of the 23 parcels listed in the table.
^The civil parish boundaries and fragment boundaries are shown on the 1-inch maps given in the "OS" column.
^Wood, Alexander (1794)."26: Rosemarkie". In Sir John Sinclair (ed.).The statistical account of Scotland: Drawn up from the communications of the ministers of the different parishes. Vol. 11. W. Creech. pp. 344–5. Retrieved2 April 2013.
.jpg)
