Brora

(Inverbrora)

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Brora, a village in Clyne parish, SE Sutherland. Standing on the coast, and on the Sutherland railway, at the mouth of the Brora river, 4½ miles NE of Golspie, it includes the suburbs of Inver-Brora, Kyle-Brora, and Glaslochin. At it are two hotels, Clyne parish church (e. 17-70; 900 sittings), Clyne Free church, a public school, a reading room, a post office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, a railway station, and a small harbour; and fairs are held on the Friday of May and October before Beauly. The rocks around it possess uncommon interest to geologists for the occurrence in them of a coal formation belonging to the Lias and the Oolite epochs, and for the juxtaposition of that formation with granite. The coal was worked as long ago as 1573, and at various subsequent periods, but ceased to yield a compensating output. A new pit was sunk about 1820 at a cost of £16,000, and struck, at 250 feet from the surface, a seam about 3½ feet thick; and coal, from that pit, was conveyed to the harbour on a railway 800 yards long. Four large salt - pans also were erected at a cost of £3327, and long gave employment to a considerable number of the inhabitants. Renewed mining operations for coal were commenced on a large scale in 1872, and since have yielded about 5000 tons annually, whilst at brickworks, under the same management as the coalpit, 686,278 brick and tiles were made in 1879. Sawmills and steam carpentry works have also been erected by the Duke of Sutherland, where fittings for all buildings in connection with the estate improvements are made. Peter Sutherland, or 'Luckie' (1768-1880), was a native of Brora. Pop. (1861) 482, (1871) 474, (1881) 532.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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