MacNies of Port of Monteith

Port of Menteith is the location of our earliest MacNie ancestors.  

The earliest McNies I have traced lived in an area of highland and valley settlements between Loch Tay and the Firth of Forth, starting in and around Balquhidder, but then gradually moving southwards out of the Highlands, with a considerable concentration in Port.  Between 1700 and 1800 Scottish Old Parish Registers reveal that of a total of 284 MacNie births, 145 were registered in Balquhidder, and 51 in Port of Mentieth.  

Port, 177-1804 James Stobie map series. Note Loch Macinrie.

I can trace our ancestry back definitively to a Duncan MacNie (1761-1830) and tentatively two generations earlier.  A memorial erected in the Port of Menteith churchyard by Alexander McNie memorialized his father, Duncan, and two of his own children who died at a young age.  This memorial provided sufficient data to eventually establish the relationship of Duncan and Margaret as the parents of John McNie of Gartur.

Port of Menteith lies between the River Teith and the Forth, on the north shore of Lake Menteith. It is overshadowed by the Menteith Hills, which rise steeply to the north with the Trossachs and southern Highlands beyond. The highest mountain is Craig Dhu, or Black Craig, which reaches about 2000 feet. To the south lies the Forth Valley’s flat carselands with Flanders Moss, the largest raised peat bog in Europe and important National Nature Reserve at its centre. While it is now in the county of Stirling, it was historically in Perthshire.  

Lake Menteith, also known as Loch Inchmahom or in Gaelic Port Loch Innis Mo Cholmaig, is not, contrary to popular lore, the only body of water in Scotland that is referred to as a lake.  The name “Lake of Menteith” is believed to date to the 1838 Ordnance Survey which mapped the area for the first time and identified it as a “lake” because it was referred to as a lake in literature that was prominent at the time.  Until the early 19th century, the loch was more commonly known by the Scottish name, “Loch of Menteith”, and in the 1654 map, Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, it is identified as “Loch Inche Mahumo”. 

There are three islands in the lake.  On the island of Inchmahone stand the ruins of an Augustinian priory, while Inchtalla, to the west of Inchmahome, contains the ruins of the ancient home of the Earls of Menteith. Inchcuan (“Isle of Dogs”), the third and smallest island, is near the western shore, reputedly where the earls kenneled their dogs.

Inchmahome

The name, Port, referred to the landing place for Inchmahone and Tulla, and when a church was built on the mainland it gave its name to the parish.  The current Port of Menteith Church was built between 1876 and 1878 on the site of a previous church, dating from 1771. 

The parish is a rural, largely farming, community, though productive land is limited by the mountainous moorlands, the extensive areas of peatmoss, and many lakes, the largest being Inchmahone.  Others of note are Rusky, Loch Anballoch, Loch Lettir, Loch Macanree and part of Loch Drunky.  The sluggish river Guidie flows a few miles from the Lake of Menteith to the river Forth, while a much livelier stream, the Glenny, flows deep and fast down the mountainside to the north of the lake.

The moors rising above Port of Menteith

A few dates of note in Port's history

1107: Augustinian monks settled on the island of Inchmahone.  It may have been the site of an earlier religious foundation with possible links to St.Columba. 

1238: the priory of Inchmahone was established. 

1466: The village of Port was established as a King's residence by King James III in 1466-67, with the Earl of Monteith as tenant-in-chief.  

1547: the infant Queen Mary - the future Mary Queen of Scots, and rival to the throne of England to Elizabeth 1 - was hidden from the English at the priory before being conveyed to safety in France.  

The Statistical Accounts, 1793 and 1845 [1]

The documents known as the Statistical Accounts, were nationwide surveys of every Scottish parish, the first in the 1790s, a second in the 1840s.  They provide details about life in Port of Menteith during Duncan McNie's lifetime (1761-1830).

The first or ‘Old’ Statistical Account (1791-99), was based on responses to 171 queries by ministers in each of the 938 parishes of Scotland.  For the second or ‘New’ Statistical Account (1834-45) the clergy were once again asked to describe their parishes…  the time was ripe for a new edition because of the great changes which had taken place in Scotland since the 1790s.

At the time of the earlier report, when Duncan was a child, the population of the parish was 1,865.  The author, a Mr. W. Stirling, described them as "in general .. sober and industrious" and quite long-lived - "one man died at the age of 92, and a man and a woman aged 96." While most adults were employed in agriculture, there were a few "weavers, taylors, shoemakers, blacksmiths and wrights, stationed in different places for the accommodation of the neighbourhood."  33-40 people could be counted as poor, and they were supported in part by the "private charities of their neighbours of different ranks, who are in general well inclined, according to their ability, to assist and relieve the indigent and distressed."

The major crops grown were beans, peas, oats, barley, clover and turnip, and "potatoes in great abundance, the chief subsistence of the poor for most of the year."  Oatmeal and barley were exported to Glasgow, Dumbarton and the Highlands, the barley mostly for whiskey, while butter and cheese were also sent to markets in the "great towns". The abundant peat moss provided household fuel, while the Loch of Monteith "abounds with perch, pike, and eel and affords some large trout."

Of the 20 or so "heritors", or landowners, the only two who maintained residences in the parish were Erskine of Cardross and Graham of Gartmore, two of the great families of Scotland.

A changing economy: Enclosure, moss drainage and mansions

This was a time of significant change in the economy of rural Scotland, and Port was not immune, according to the meager data in the Statistical Accounts.  The population fluctuated over the years, reaching a peak of 1664 in 1831, but then declining in the next decade to 1446 in 1841.  The number of poor had declined too, to 16, the funds for their support now coming from church collections and marriage fees. There were four schools and five public houses.  

Three overlapping factors emerge from the two accounts as to what might have led to this decline: enclosure, moss drainage, and a concentration of wealth.  In the first report the author writes simply that a "considerable proportion of the parish is now inclosed," the small farming plots increasingly being consolidated under the ownership and farming practices of the landowners.  In the second account there is no mention of subsistence and market crops, and the sole reference to farming is to cows - a cross of Highland and lowland - and of sheep - "the black-faced" - and these are listed under "Industry".  

In the second account, written some fifty years later, the author writes that Mr. Erskine of Cardross had undertaken the clearance of peat from the Flanders Moss, draining the peat bogs into the River Forth, thus "acquiring a rich alluvial soil" for more intensive agriculture.  Flanders Moss is now a National Nature Reserve.

Flanders Moss Reserve (visitscotland.com)

At the same time the landowners at Cardross, Gartmore, Rednock and elsewhere, were building new and ever grander residences: "the principal mansion-houses in the parish are … all of them large and commodious.  "Mrs. Eastmon is at present erecting a mansion on her property at Drunkie … which will command a fine view" while "Leichtown, the property of James Graham Esq…. is very favourably situated on a wooded bank with a southern aspect."  "Rednock House has received a great addition" and the proprietor has added two artificial sheets of water amid the plantations." (Rednock, a historic Laird's House, was remodelled by the architect Robert Brown of Edinburgh in 1827 according to Wikipedia).

Rednock House, 2021

Two properties have links to the McNies.  The farm of Ballinnugator was associated with a McNie as early as the 1680s, according to the will of a Janet McNie, wife of James Leich. (Did James Leich give his name to the Leichtown named in the previous paragraph?)   The farm was identified in the 1862-3 Ordinance Survey maps, on the property of J.G. Stirling Esq of Rednock.  

That same source locates a Peter McNie occupying Auchrig, just north of the ruined Castle Rednock.

The Smithies

Of most interest, given the occupation of Duncan and several of his sons, are the smithies.  There were two smithies not far from the Port village centre.  One, Hammersmith (a reference to the noise, according to the Ordnance Survey names analysis) was located on the main road to Stirling east of Port on a farm called Ballabeg. The smithy has given its name to a row of houses, Hammersmith, at the intersection of the A81 and A873.  The cottages and the farm are the property of J.G. Stirling Esq of Rednock, who may be the same person or of the same family as J.G. Graham of Rednock. In 1851 it was operated by Duncan’s grandson, the son of Alexander.  (This younger Duncan left the Port area and was working as a blacksmith in St. Ninians by 1861). 

The second smithy was on the north side of the A81 road almost halfway between the school and Portend.  It may have been on Nether Glenny land, or possibly Knockmally.  No longer in use as a smithy by 1859, it may have been operated by one of the other sons after Duncan sr. died. 

Gartur in Menteith and Cambusbarron.

Duncan's eldest son John, my great-great-grandfather, was born in Port, but spent much of his life at an estate named Gartur, in Cambusbarron near Stirling.   

Laird’s House, Gartur, Cambusbarron, Stirlingshire (Canmore photo)

Old Gartur in Menteith was one of the Graham homes for generations.  In 1553 the estate was granted to Walter Graham, second son of the second earl of Monteith, later Montrose, by the Abbot of Inchmahome.  By the 1800s, the Grahams, by now Dukes of Montrose, also owned several other Port estates, including Gartmore, Gartavertane, Rednock and Duchray.  At some point the Grahams bought a farm in Cambusbarron from Lord Murray of Polmaise and named it Gartur.  

Old Gartur, Port of Menteith (Canmore photo)

Was there a connection between the McNie family and the Grahams?

Loch Macanrie Fens

I have written of a purported connection between the MacNies and Loch Mac-an-rie.  It certainly makes a visit to the Loch of interest.  The loch is described in the 1859-62 Ordnance Survey: 

A small sheet of water, near the Lake of Monteith, on the estate of the Duke of Montrose, the Gaelic name of this, Loch Mac-an-righe, (the Kings Sons Loch) is rendered to its present spelling by the Revd. [Reverend] Mr Stewart.  OS1/25/69/54 

The Loch Macanrie Fens are considered a Site of Special Scientific Interest by Scottish Natural Heritage. 

Centred on a cut over lowland raised bog, this peatland site supports an impressive range of wetland communities including an extensive area of lowland raised bog and various types of fen, including the area around Loch Macanrie itself, which has a very diverse flora. The site is one of the largest and most species- rich examples of this range of wetland communities in the Stirling Council area.  The extensive lowland raised bog community, which covers much of the site, supports a variety of important bog mosses, with cranberry, round-leaved sundew and bog myrtle. 

Loch Macanrie (get outside Scotland)