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Robert Mylne, Thomas Telford and the architecture of improvement: the planned villages of the British Fisheries Society, 1786–1817

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2007

DANIEL MAUDLIN
DANIEL MAUDLIN*
Affiliation:
School of Architecture and Design, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
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Abstract

This article examines the architecture and design of the pioneering planned fishing villages established by the British Fisheries Society across the Highlands of Scotland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Society established a utilitarian planning model which fundamentally influenced the subsequent planned village boom that remains so evident in the historic landscape of the Scottish Highlands today. The British Fisheries Society also made a significant contribution to urban history with Thomas Telford's innovative plan for its last development of Pulteneytown. Pulteneytown remains the most complete example of Telford's work as a town planner.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , December 2007 , pp. 453 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 The primary documentary sources for the British Fisheries Society are the British Fisheries Society Papers (NAS/GD9) held by the National Archives of Scotland (gifted by the dukes of Argyll). A particular debt of gratitude is owed to Jean Dunlop's pioneering account of the political and economic history of the Society, The British Fisheries Society, 1786–1893 (Edinburgh, 1978). This paper is an architectural history and I direct anyone seeking a detailed account of the political and economic history of the British Fisheries Society towards her excellent book, reissued by Birlinn under the John Donald imprint in 2005.

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39 NAS/GD9/3/49.

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55 MMA/3/2/2; RCAHMS, Inventory of Argyll, 3 (Edinburgh, 1980), 236.

56 Adams, Peter May, Land Surveyor, 18. Aitken rejected May's plan for Ullapool drawn up for the Annexed Estates Commission (NAS/RHP/3400), A Survey and Design for a Village at Ullapool, Peter May for the Annexed Estates Commission, 1756.

57 NAS/GD9/3/616.

58 NAS/GD9/3/617.

59 Allen, ‘Highland planned villages’, 40–9.

60 Other examples: Plockton, Lochalsh, Ross-shire, founded by Mackenzie of Seaforth, 1801, plan by William Cumming; Poolewe, Gairloch, Ross-shire, founded by Mackenzie of Gairloch, 1808; Golspie, Sutherland, duke of Sutherland, plan by David Wilson, 1805; and Helmsdale, Sutherland, duke of Sutherland, plan by William Forbes, 1816.

61 NAS/GD9/3/448; NAS/GD9/3/553.

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63 King, D., The Complete Works of Robert and James Adam (Oxford, 1991), 385Google Scholar. Planned villages incorporating crescents and semicircles had also been attempted in Scotland, such as Lord Garlies' crescent-plan for Garliestown, Wigtownshire, 1760.

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72 The industrial theme was lost when later changed to Saltoune Terrace, Telford St, and Burn St.

73 Thomas Telford, Thomas Telford by Himself (London, 1838), 115–20.

74 NAS/GD9/59; NAS/GD9/248/29/4/89; NAS/GD9/334/16/11/91.

75 NAS/GD9/3/183; NAS/GD9/8/119. Robert Melville was a bankrupt fishing agent from Dunbar, East Lothian, who persuaded the Board of Directors to grant him the majority of the contracts for Ullapool. Melville employed James Miller, a minor Edinburgh architect, to produce the plans for his various contracted buildings at Ullapool. Anon., Plan of Harbour and Breakwater, 1854 (NAS/RHP/4286).

76 NAS/GD9/10, 45; NAS/GD9/1/164; NAS/GD9/21/28.5.92; NAS/GD9/9/13; NAS/GD9/22/9.5.01. William Mackenzie, Sketch of the Pier at Stein in the Island of Skye, 1807 (NAS/RHP/11800).

77 NAS/GD9/21/18.7.91.

78 Smiles, The Life of Thomas Telford, 154.

79 Telford, ‘Harbours, wharfs and piers’, in Telford, Thomas Telford by Himself; RCAMHS/NMRS/XSD/158/1. Other examples of Highland Road and Bridge Commission harbours include: Avoch Harbour, Ballintraed Harbour, Banff Harbour, Burgh-Head Harbour, Channery Point Ferry Pier, Corran Ferry Pier, Cullen Harbour, Dornie Ferry, East Tarbet Harbour, Feoline Harbour, Fortrose Harbour, Fraserburgh Harbour, Gordon Harbour, Inverfarigaig Landing Pier, Invergordon Ferry Pier, Kirkwall Harbour, Kyle Ferry Pier, Nairn Harbour, Peterhead Harbour, Portmahomack Harbour, Portree Harbour, Small Isles Harbour, St Catherine's Ferry Pier and Tobermory Harbour Pier.

80 NAS/GD9/3/144.

81 RCAHMS, Inventory of Argyll, 7 (Edinburgh, 1994), 443.

82 Samuel, Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (London, 1775), 140Google Scholar.

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84 NAS/GD9/3/553; NAS/GD9/4/248; NAS/GD9/162; RCAHMS, Inventory of Argyll, 3 (Edinburgh, 1980), 237. An 1812 sketch of the harbour front at Tobermory by William Daniel shows the inn completed according to Mylne's design. However, the inn was subsequently extended and latterly converted into a supermarket.

85 Gaskell, P., Morvern Transformed: A Highland Parish in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1968), 244CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maudlin, D., ‘Tradition and change: a study of Argyll tacksmen's houses in Morvern’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 133 (Edinburgh, 2004), 1–16Google Scholar.

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87 NAS/GD9/3/140–7.

88 NAS/GD9/3/593; NAS/SRO/GD9/3/627.

89 NAS/GD9/3/144.

90 NAS/GD9/289/21.5.08.

91 NAS/GD9/289/14/05/08.

92 Several of the merchants and curers that took up leases at Pulteneytown were from Leith.

93 NAS/GD9/4/113.

94 NAS/GD9/3/177.

95 NAS/GD9/3/441.

96 NAS/GD9/3/57; NAS/GD9/3/553.

97 NAS/GD9/3/607.

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102 NAS/GD9/100/1/7/91.

103 King, Complete Works of Robert and James Adam, 385.

104 NAS/RHP/11798.