5 - The planned village movement

Summary

The planned villages became an essential element in the improving movement, distinctly complementary to the reorganisation and expansion of farming. The creation of new settlements was not an entirely new phenomenon. When the feudal system was first imposed some of the royal burghs, such as Elgin (Moray) and Nairn, were stimulated by plantation and did not develop spontaneously. The origins of Newton Stewart (Merrick) lie in the founding of a burgh of barony by Walter Stewart in 1677, while further seventeenth-century precedents are evident in the support given by the Earl of Argyll and Earl of Seaforth to Campbeltown (Argyll & Bute) and Stornoway (Western Isles) respectively. New villages were also being created at this time, notably Houston (Renfrew) where the old settlement was resited to ‘ensure more distance between mansion and village’, a motive that was subsequently to transform both Cullen (1820) and Fochabers (1778). However, the eighteenth century shows a very significant surge of interest in developing new market centres especially in areas remote from existing centres. Of course estates were no longer closed economic entities: even in the seventeenth century the Earl of Seafield, with estates on the Moray coast, found the Edinburgh grain market extremely lucrative and an agent was maintained to look after his interests when ships arrived. But, nevertheless, a local market provided some security when national markets became difficult and also stimulated more intensive activity than would otherwise have been justified.