The MacKenzie family
Rod and Emma MacKenzie and Rod’s father, Hugh, took turns using one shared camera for this project. They have deep local roots in the Seaboard on Hugh’s mother’s side and run a farm together on top of the brae in Hilton of Cadboll.
Click on the images below to enlarge
1. Knocking-stone from our MacAngus ancestors (Rod MacKenzie)
This knocking-stone (used for husking and milling grain) travelled down to Hilton from Sutherland in a boat with my MacAngus ancestors when they were cleared from the Strath of Kildonan. It must have been very important to their lives and livelihoods for them to take it with them. The knocking-stone has moved around some of the local houses in Hilton with various members of my family before ending up with me. It’s a lump of a thing and has broken wheelbarrows before!
2. Rush-hour at the crossroads (Rod MacKenzie)
Here we are moving sheep along the road with Buddy and Dave the sheepdogs. Tourist and locals alike are held up as we pass the Balintore crossroads. The tourists love it and are always out with their cameras – the locals less so, but they are used to it.
3. Shearing (Rod MacKenzie)
We use contractors for our shearing – we don’t do it ourselves. And so we’ve used the same guy for a number of years now. If they had three of them shearing non-stop, they’d easily do over 600 sheep in a day.
4. Farming & tourism in harmony (Rod MacKenzie)
I am spraying a field of spring barley destined for malting which may well end up in our local Glenmorangie whisky. A tourist parks in the lay-by to walk down to the Hilton of Cadboll stone. I planted a strip of sunflowers next to the road to bring some cheer to everyone after a couple difficult years – tourists and locals alike.
5. Protest against post office branch closure (Rod MacKenzie)
This shows a group of people gathering to protest the closure of the local post office branch in Balintore. There used to be three shops, a butcher and a fish and chips shop in the Seaboard villages but we have lost many services over the past couple decades. Fortunately, the Seaboard Memorial Hall has stepped in and now hosts the post office so villagers can keep using this important service.
6. ROC Bunker (Rod MacKenzie)
A Cold War Royal Observers Corps monitoring post (bunker) stands in one of our farm fields. As a boy I used to love playing in and around it and now my wee boy loves it too. A few years ago BT renewed the phone line going to it. Maybe they know something we don’t!
7. Tea and scones (Emma MacKenzie)
We run a small bed & breakfast in our household and guests are served tea on this tray. To a visitor, they might just look like everyday items but to me they represent some of my personal heritage. The tea cosy made of Harris tweed, for example, belonged to my granny. It came to me in immaculate condition because she’d only use it for special occasions because they had to be careful with their pennies.
8a. The breakfast room, pre- and post-COVID-19 lockdown (Emma MacKenzie)
The breakfast room where guests in the B&B have their meals was turned into a playroom for our wee boy during lockdown. As things opened up we had to change it back to a room for the bed & breakfast. This shows one of the small ways that tourism is part of our lives. Kenny-Hugh misses his playroom!
8b. The breakfast room, pre- and post-COVID-19 lockdown (Emma MacKenzie)
The breakfast room where guests in the B&B have their meals was turned into a playroom for our wee boy during lockdown. As things opened up we had to change it back to a room for the bed & breakfast. This shows one of the small ways that tourism is part of our lives. Kenny-Hugh misses his playroom!
9a Hilton of Cadboll Farmhouse (Hugh Mackenzie)
These photos show the view looking up from the village of Hilton towards the farmhouse where my wife and I now live, and the back down the hill to the village below. We moved there after we took on the farm the early 1970s. As a boy I would be sent up from the village to collect milk from the stern housewife who lived in the farmhouse. I would be terrified! But I was doing what I was told, I had to go and get the milk and I would creep up and I would have my pennies with me to pay for the milk and I would get my milk from Miss Rutherford and then go down the hill. And then for me to be living up there now is comic.
9b Hilton of Cadboll Farmhouse (Hugh Mackenzie)
These photos show the view looking up from the village of Hilton towards the farmhouse where my wife and I now live, and the back down the hill to the village below. We moved there after we took on the farm the early 1970s. As a boy I would be sent up from the village to collect milk from the stern housewife who lived in the farmhouse. I would be terrified! But I was doing what I was told, I had to go and get the milk and I would creep up and I would have my pennies with me to pay for the milk and I would get my milk from Miss Rutherford and then go down the hill. And then for me to be living up there now is comic.
10. Ashfield Road ditch (Hugh MacKenzie)
When I took on Hilton of Cadboll Farm, it had a water table that was only 9 inches below the surface. We dug this ditch in order to drain the land and lower the water table. This enabled arable operations to take place and greatly increased the productivity of our land.