A policeman's lot in 19th century Brora
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From the Highland Archive Centre
IT is March 5, 1864, and the resident policeman at Brora has had an extremely busy 48 hours.
Not only has he moved people “along the road to Golspie” for begging, but he has also had to deal with a drunken group of people making a great noise and breaking the peace.
And if that was not enough, the officer has been injured by a stone thrown at him while he was trying to break up a fight.
This fascinating account of a day in the life of a 19th century police officer is recorded in one of a collection of 27 historic police occurrence books for Brora police station.
These are stored in the Highland Archive Centre and contain nearly 70 years worth of rich detail about life in the East Sutherland community.
Reference to crimes are made alongside contextual details about a policeman’s daily routine.
Brora is the main settlement in the beautiful coastal parish of Clyne - this month’s stop in the virtual tour we have been taking of Sutherland parishes.
Clyne comes from the Gaelic word “Cluain”, meaning meadow.
The parish is bounded by Golspie to the south-west; Rogart to the west; Kildonan to the north; Loth to the north east; and the North Sea to the south-east.
The river Brora flows into the parish out of Rogart, combining with the Blackwater from Ben Armine, before flowing into the four-mile-long Loch Brora.
Creag Mhor of Ben Armine is the highest point of the parish, but the most impressive sight is perhaps Carrol Rock, with its 200-foot precipice overhanging Loch Brora.
The population of Clyne has fluctuated over the years as local industries waxed and waned, including coal extraction, brickworks, whisky distilling and sea-fishing.
Brora would have originally been settled by people evicted from the inner glens and straths to the coastal areas. The village a rich industrial history and today the town has a population of about 1,160.
The archive centre has many items relating to Clyne in its collections, with school board minutes, admission registers and logbooks telling the story, post 1872, of education in the area.
These records can give specific information about what was happening in the schools on any given date. However not everything is accompanied by such detail.
Business and industry in parish are represented through, among other things, a beautiful scrapbook from Brora colliery, containing newspaper cuttings.
