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Strathspey Heritage

Name: Strathspey Heritage
Address: Grantown on Spey, GB
Telephone: +447876235408
Price range: Not Applicable

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Exploring the history & heritage of Strathspey, the people & the place .

02/11/2026

Lochnellan sits off the road side near Loch an Eilean. Now abandoned, it was in recent times the site of a regular clay pigeon shoot.

Back in the late 1800s, James Fraser a shepherd and sheep dealer lived here with his brother and sister. In 1893 he was near Huntly’s Cave when he heard cries for help and murder !

He came across John Morrison, an Irish pedlar assaulting his wife. She was bloody, badly beaten and unconscious. James Fraser carried her to a railway surfaceman’s hut where he tried to revive her. Unfortunately she had died of a broken neck and later, John Morrison handed himself into the police in Grantown.

Another occupant was James Bruce who trapped a wild cat in the Braes of Castle Grant, that measured 49 inches long and was striped like a tiger.

We may not have a tiger but there are recent reports of a large black cat in the Grantown vicinity. 😳

01/11/2026

Dava School photo taken in 1963. The school was opened on 1 January 1878 when the first teacher, Miss Elizabeth Margaret Coventry, a native of Clackmannanshire was appointed.
She was a 20 year old graduate of the Free Church Training College in Edinburgh.

There were 12 pupils on her first day from families on Dava Moor and the railway station. Many of her pupils were Gaelic speakers, yet Miss Coventry had none.

Interestingly her son took the Dava school log book with him to Australia in 1937 but returned it to the National Records of Scotland in 1975.

It’s a fascinating read of the social history of the local families: farming activities, outbreaks of illness, discipline, curriculum and of course the weather in winter.

*Thanks to Michael Shand for class photo. The teacher was Miss Peace who lived in Greengate with he brother a solicitor in Grantown. She would cycle to and from the school.

31/10/2026

Strathspey is not noted for its witches and ghosts, more kelpies and fairy hills. However, there is one tale based on a true story.

Deep in a Strathspey forest there’s a flat stone inscribed with the word ‘WITCH’ and a mason’s mark. No one knows who the witch was but events are believed to have taken place in the 18th century.

Peter Smith of Rynuie was returning from the mill with a load of meal, when a witch sprung from the side of the bank. Unless he shared some of the meal she would curse him. He refused and in the heat of the argument he shot her. She was buried on the spot.

He was never tried for her death, so the event must predate 'The Witch Act' passed by Parliament in 1735, which made it a crime for a person to claim, that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. From then the practice of hunting and executing witches was abolished.

Peter Smith spent the rest of his days unmolested at Rynuie.

Happy Hallowe’en !

30/10/2026

A familiar site at the A939 and A940 junction, the AA box No 746 is a B - designated listed building. These ceased production in 1967 and is one of only 21 left in the U.K. 7 in Scotland.

Its location is oddly identified as Loch Allen (on maps Loch Allan)which is further along the road and less well known than Dava.

Not far from here is a painted boundary marker with the letters M & S engraved on either side.

Erroneously posted elsewhere and according to AI too , it does not stand for Morayshire and Strathspey. The markers extend at intervals over the moor along the march fence line between the respective estates of the Earl of Moray and the Earl of Seafield.

29/10/2026

Rychraggan (shieling of little rocks) is located south of Aittendow on the Dava Moor. Formerly a shieling it became a permanent settlement as improvements were encouraged across the moor.

It was described in the 1860s as ‘a farm steading, dwelling house and out offices, one storey high, thatched and in middling repair.
The Paterson family occupied it for over thirty years. In the 1861 census : William Paterson age 76 and his wife Jane 56 children: John 38, Ann 35, Alex 25, Isabella 19, Janet 14

William Paterson died age 84 in 1870 and the family were gone by 1871. No doubt the arrival of the railway at Dava in 1863 contributed to the younger members moving on.

In the 1841 census William’s mother Ann McQueen age 94 was living with the family at Rychraggan ….hardy people.

28/10/2026

Today roughly 5000 people walk past this building without a second glance near the Dava Way but it was once at the heart of the community.

This was Dava Hall opened on 29 August 1930 by the Earl of Leven & Melville with Lt. Col J Grant D.S.O. After pleasantries the opening was followed by a dance, admission 2s (10pence).

The building had previously been stables belonging to the Earl. An earlier Dava Hall is mentioned at the start of the 20th century.

The Hall was a popular venue for dances, children’s Christmas parties, wedding receptions, whist drives, fund raising for Dava Gun Club, and soldiers returning after WWII.

Have you happy memories of the Dava Hall?

27/10/2026

Aittendow overlooks the Dava Moor to the south with fine views over Strathspey towards the Cairngorms. Farmed by the Fraser and Calder families, it’s now empty.

The original Aittendow is to the east and this site on earlier maps, before the current house was built was called Ruigh Sean (old shieling) and also Ruigh Uaine, Ryhuin (lamb shieling). The footprint of the shieling can still be seen.

Access to the proposed Ourack windfarm will be behind the farmhouse .

26/10/2026

Easter Crannich (place of trees) was listed as an improvement back in 1808.

A Lewis Calder, from Easter Crannich, former prize student at Grantown Grammar School was one of the last to be transported to Australia for sheep stealing. Age 23 he was caught trying to sell stolen sheep from Dava in Huntly and was sentenced for six years and transported in 1862.

Robbie ‘Crannich’ McDonald a fine fiddle player and member of the Strathspey Real Society, I think was possibly the last to permanently live here until the 1950s.

25/10/2026

Normal service continues despite power cut from Storm Boelo.

Today, it’s Heather Bell the abandoned house on Dava Moor. Long the home of the McDonald family- Geordie ‘Bogeney’ McDonald. Bogeney is the name of an abandoned farmstead further along the railway line towards Forres.

The house is built of wood and corrugated iron with a shed and small garden to the front It does not appear on the first Ordnance Survey map surveyed 1868 but does on a later one around 1901.

It is slowly deteriorating but is photogenic in all seasons .

24/10/2026

The Dava Moor Bog Body

In July 1927 two men were cutting peat on the Dava Moor when they unearthed a partially clothed skeleton.

It was difficult to tell the s*x but some reports said there was woollen clothing and a broad bonnet. A birch stick had been laid across the body.

After being taken to Elgin mortuary, it was later examined by Professor T. Bryce who described the individual as over 20 years, of short stature and slim build. The thigh bone suggested a height of 4ft 10 in . S*x uncertain and some dark hair remained.

It was later classified as possibly 17th century burial.

At the time the discovery was widely reported in the press, who wasted no time coming to their own conclusions. It was an Irish navvy who had been murdered building the railway over the moor in the 1860s. A broken cudgel by his side or a Jacobite from Culloden still in Stewart tartan who had succumbed to his wounds.

The remains are in storage in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh but not on public display. The woollen bonnet survived in a good condition due to the preservation from the peat moss.

Unfortunately the men who discovered the body are not named in the reports or the exact location. Does anybody know?

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+447876235408

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