The Big Music (50 page)

Survey maps today mark both the ‘Beag’ water and the House itself, corresponding with surviving drawings made by the first John Sutherland (1736–1793), who is recorded in ‘The Big Music’ as having established the House as a place where music might be heard, and show a similar configuration of dwelling place to water, though there are irregularities present in his representation that are clarified in the later project. Further details pertaining to the House and its history and location can be found in the relevant sections under List of Additional Materials at the back of this book.

The current construction of The Grey House is of a substantial three-storey building of granite and lead, the east side of which has been built over the original ‘Grey
Longhouse’, as previously stated, and is itself an extension of what is known as ‘The Old House’, that is the building that was erected by John ‘Elder’ Roderick Callum Sutherland (1800–1871) and written of in the same Taorluath movement as above. Details of floor plans can be found, as above, in the List of Additional Materials.

‘The Big Music’ throughout contains details of the history and day-to-day life of the House from the eighteenth century onwards, see in particular ‘doubling on fourth variation’ and similar embellishments, Crunluath movement.

The women who married into the Sutherland family have always been known – in stories of one generation passed down to the next, or as shown in letters and journals that survive – as individuals of significant skill, intelligence and foresight. The wife of the first John Roderick MacKay Sutherland recorded in ‘The Big Music’ was one Elizabeth Mary MacKay, who is acknowledged in the local ballad ‘The Kind Hills’ by name, and noted for her beauty and thoughtfulness, and for her and her husband’s hospitality in the third verse beginning:

And later:

Her granddaughter-in-law was Anna Alexandra of Tongue (b.1807, wife of John ‘Elder’ Roderick Callum, 1800–1871), who kept a journal and was an enthusiastic
gardener, extending the original plot of the old house and planting crab apple and plum trees in the sheltered lee of the small hill that rises from the end of the paddock at the back of the House. These fruit trees (her journal shows she took the seedlings from her native village of Tongue, a district known for its gentle climate and agricultural variety) are still in place today, growing alongside subsequent trees that were taken from them, from the main back garden of The Grey House – an area of beauty and practicality, both, established by that resourceful woman.

Her daughter-in-law, in turn, one Elizabeth Jean (b.1835, wife of John Callum MacKay, 1835–1911), established further planting to the south side of the House and was renowned for her skills in the kitchen – all her recipes remain and some are in use today by Margaret MacKay, who cooks in her kitchen. She was also a great seamstress and planned and was involved in the sewing of many dinner cloths and tray tables that are still in use – fine, fine Victorian counted threadwork and embroidery on show in the archive and still in good condition.

So, though the names of the women disappear into Sutherland, still evidence of their lives and work are present and vivid through the life of the House. In the kitchen, in the drawing room, in the Music Room – we see evidence of their thoughts and intelligence, kept in records of papers and domestic accounts. Elizabeth Clare, John Sutherland’s mother, established, as has been noted in ‘The Big Music’, a Schoolroom at the top of the House where she educated, to a certain age, not only her own son but also those children of local farmers and workers.

The line of these women was cut, one may say, when the John Sutherland of ‘The Big Music’ became married to a woman who would have no intention of visiting The Grey House, much less live there – but was sewn up again when Margaret MacKay of Caithness was employed by Elizabeth Sutherland as housekeeper in 1964.

In 1928 the attic space under the eaves of the north end of The Grey House was converted into a single room that became known as the Schoolroom – and it was here that Elizabeth Sutherland educated her son and, thereafter, those children of the nearby lands and villages whose parents would release them for morning lessons.

The room was established as a formal teaching and educational space (though two existing photographs show that lessons were also highly creative) with a
blackboard
and desk (later desks) at one end and a small library and a play area at the other, where there were toys and games and also a large table that was set out for painting and glue-collage activities. A bright mural depicting the alphabet and
illustrated
with animals was pinned up along the long far side of the room and
Elizabeth’s 
own desk was placed at the north window, an Edwardian armchair beside it to make the most of the light, where she sat to read to her son and later the village children, or conducted lessons on a more informal basis.

This ‘Schoolroom’ has been written about in the local
Brora Journal
of the time – as an example of forward-thinking and enlightened educational principles that would have real effect in the community. As above, and as we read about in the Crunluath movement of ‘The Big Music’ and in embellishment/2b, in particular, at a period in Sutherland history when primary schools were few, the Schoolroom served a particular and necessary local function. Were it not for Elizabeth
Sutherland
taking in the local children of the area for lessons, it is unlikely, in many instances, they would have been educated at all – for at this time small farmers and crofters could ill afford to lose their children by sending them far away to one of the state primaries in Dornoch or Golspie, where they must board. As it was, a local farm lorry could bring them to the House in the morning, along with the deliveries, and return them to their farms later in the day.

This arrangement was started in 1934 when Elizabeth’s own son, John, was sent away to Inverness to school and she found she wanted to continue those lessons she had started with him. It terminated in 1950 when the Local Schools Act demanded that all children of even the most remote Highland regions attend a regulated state primary school until the age of twelve, after which they must attend a regional high school.

The record of children who attended the Schoolroom through the above period is, then, as follows:

The original longhouse that was The Grey House in the early eighteenth century was, as we have already seen, a simple dwelling built close to the land so as to escape the worst of the weather and offer, in its environs, shelter to animals and gardens as well as its inhabitants. It was made with locally farmed materials such as stone, turf, thatch of reeds, oats, barley or marram grass – usually on the worst arable land.

This was the case of the original ‘Grey Longhouse’, given up for tenure by the Sutherland Estates, and the land subsequently bought freehold by John ‘Elder’
Sutherland
(1800–1871) – in both instances the land upon which the house stood (some 27 acres) regarded by the estate to be of little or no value. Thus, while its size and holdings remained modest in the period from the early eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, nevertheless by acquiring the property as they did,
independently
, the Sutherland family were able to maintain autonomous control over their property and, as the century evolved, were able to confirm substantial
landholdings
that comprised fishing, stalking and later forestry rights.

In this way, because of its locality and particular history, ‘The Grey House, from its earliest incarnation as ‘Grey Longhouse’, was operating as though an independent concern – outwith the usual customs and fealties that accompanied the
responsibilities
of the independent farmer or landowner (see also Appendix 3/ii). Before the introduction of crofting at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most ‘farms’ on the Highland estates were run by tacksmen who paid a rent to the clan chief. On each of these there would be a small settlement whose inhabitants would pay their rents to the tacksman. No such system operated for the tenants of the ‘Grey Longhouse’ – who, from the beginning, sought value from the land themselves, not through renting it out but by careful management of their holdings and the
extension
of them in creating what became known as the ‘corridor’ – as detailed in the Taorluath section of ‘The Big Music’ and earlier Appendices. Thus the Sutherlands were able to increase their agricultural activities and prosper – while paying a modest fee to the estate – and when local crofting was formally introduced to the area, The Grey House was already established as a significant property on those lands between the hills of Mhorvaig and Luath which, even then, were still being regarded by the big estates as inhospitable, worthless ground.

So did the Sutherland family of that region escape the pressures and ignominies of the Sutherland Clearances that were elsewhere in the region stripping crofts and subsistence communities from the face of the earth. By contrast, as we see
throughout
the second and third movements of ‘The Big Music’, in the variations sections of the tune and subsequent paragraphs and doublings, the holdings of The Grey
House only became more established as time went on – with, as noted already,
various
fishing and stalking rights added to the original sheep-farming interests, as well as extensive developments in forestry and agriculture.

To the date of being written about, the area of grounds and land surrounding The Grey House amount to some 400 acres.

The Vikings called the mainland south of Caithness ‘Suth-r-land’, or southern land, and occupied the area as far as a King David I granted a Flemish family Freskin land further south in Moray around 1130. As the power of the Vikings waned, that family acquired land further north in Sutherland and by 1235 the first Earl of Sutherland was appointed by King Alexander II. The family interests were then split – with those in Moray taking the name Murray and those further north taking the name Sutherland.

Kenneth, the 4th Earl, was killed at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333 fighting the English army led by Edward III. The 5th Earl was married to the daughter of Robert the Bruce and at one stage their son was heir to the throne but died of the plague. The 6th Earl built the original Dunrobin Castle. In 1651 a contingent of the clan fought with King Charles II when he was defeated at the Battle of Worcester.

There was frequent strife with the Gordon family to the south and at one stage the Gordons usurped the Sutherland earldom. In the eighteenth century the dispute over succession was heard in the House of Lords and the Countess of
Sutherland
was confirmed in the title in her own right. She married the Marquis of
Staf-ford
, who was created 1st Duke of Sutherland in 1833. The Duke and Duchess were responsible for the ‘improvements’ to the estates which resulted in the notorious Clearances and depopulation.

That period in Sutherland history resulted in many with that name being
dispersed
but the name is still the seventh most common in the northern Highlands and fifty-fourth in the whole of Scotland. The Sutherland family of The Grey House have been established in that part of the county that occupies the land
between
the hill range of Mhorvaig and Luath for many generations, however, and have not been dispersed – though most recently John MacKay Sutherland moved to London for some years. In this, he was going against the pattern of settlement laid down by his forebears who had, in unbroken succession, inhabited that particular
area of the county since the early eighteenth century and before. His son, Callum Sutherland, at the time of writing, may be in the process of returning to the House to take up the place there left by his father.

The Sutherland motto is ‘Sans peur’ – ‘Without fear’.

The family records kept in archive detail those sons of the Sutherland family who inherited both the holdings and musical tradition of the House that had been
established
as early as the mid-eighteenth century, though no doubt before that date. These include a more detailed family tree and an additional ‘Tree of Women’, an intricate and detailed drawing created by Elizabeth Clare Sutherland in the second part of the twentieth century. In addition, at the beginning of and in the Crunluath movement of ‘The Big Music’, in the paper ‘gracenotes/piobaireachd, its
genealogy
’, there is presented a table of pipers at The Grey House that spans seven
generations
. In that chart one sees that eldest sons were traditionally named John, though in some cases, following a death, a younger son inherited.