The Invergordon Archive
No: 1627 Contributor: Karen Graham Year: 1914
Saltburn West End looking eastAnother postcard showing the same view as picture #1614 and this one is dated 23/12/1914. It was sent from "Rockfields" Saltburn to Mabel Jamieson, London. The message reads "Behold my Village - it is easily a mile long" - still no electricity/telegraph poles. In 1923 there was no water supply to houses on beach side of road. Road still looks like it is of compacted earth. I can remember my grandparents having electricity installed in mid 50's. I did my homework by light of Tilly Lamp.
(Residents of houses visible from left to right at later date possibly 1940s: Simpson, unknown, Dean, Geordie Davidson - known as Geordie Doll, Watson)
Regarding picture #1614: second house no longer thatched and has added upper storey. Telegraph/electricity poles now visible and road surfaced. All houses had grass outfront where now there is pavement.
An interesting set of postcard images of same view.
Picture added on 06 August 2014 at 12:59
Lovely pic! "Rose cottage" (my grandparents post mid '60s) is I think the 3rd house along in this photo. Geordie Davidson's cottage was set back a little hence not actually visible here. I remember him and the punts which he launched via rollers on the shoreline. Grass verges ie no pavement was still the case in the mid '60s as I remember! A Mrs Dean I vaguely recall c1960s. A Mrs Watson and also a Colin Watson also. Not sure if "Rockfields" survives?
Added by Dave Fleming on 10 August 2014
The only place with a wall like that is the old school Saltburn, and that would make the house with the gable end Nan and Dennis Cahill's.
Added by Alistair Wilson on 12 August 2014
Eighteen-year-old John Allan McLoughlin, Rockfield, Saltburn, has been appointed on probation to a Permanent Commission in the Secretarial Branch of the Royal Air Force. After initial training at the Officer Cadet Training Unit, RAF Henlow, Bedfordshire, he will attend Aberdeen University.
Rockfield was the house the McLoughlin's lived at in the ’60s. Above is from the Ross-shire in 1968.
Not sure who lived there before that.
So Rockfield is much further along the village from the " Schoolie".
Rockfield was the house the McLoughlin's lived at in the ’60s. Above is from the Ross-shire in 1968.
Not sure who lived there before that.
So Rockfield is much further along the village from the " Schoolie".
Added by David Gordon on 03 September 2014
Allan was in my class at school and if I remember correctly the family lived at the other end of the village from the school.
Added by Graham MacKenzie on 03 September 2014
My brother Cam thinks the Garsons lived in Rockfield before the McLoughlins but moved to the "New Houses" built by Ross & Ross (now numbered 70 and 71) in the '60s.
Added by David Gordon on 13 September 2014
Yes David you are right I think. Rockfield always had a wooden chest/seat on the pavement outside the garden wall and I remember it as being the Garsons. The Mcloughlin family lived there after, I was in school with Andrew the younger son.
Added by Liz Taylor nee Askew on 13 September 2014
I am unsure how the street numbers run here, but would presume the school was No 1, and the building shown here could have been No 2, or possibly if joint residences, Nos 2 and 3. Using Google Maps I can pick up a no 8 on a house a couple of residences down, and Rose Cottage that Dave Fleming mentioned here still bears the name, but has no visible number. I believe that carpenter George Munro, his wife Margaret Ross, and their children were in the building for the 1861 census when listed as the last family in Saltburn, and next to the "Day School". Next door were William and Mary Adam who's son James had married George Munro's daughter Margaret, and in separate premises within the same building lived George's spinster sister Isabella. George Munro and his family had been there for the 1851 census when again listed as the end of the village of Saltburn, and George had also been in Saltburn in 1841, but the actual location could not then be identified. George had moved, and was a house carpenter at Outram Street, Invergordon in 1871 when the Saltburn census had the first residence occupied by his daughter Margaret Adam, and next to them again was his spinster sister Isabella, this time living with their brother Donald Munro who was my ancestor. George, Donald, and Isabella Munro were all born at Upper Tullich, Kilmuir Easter, children of Donald Munro, a merchant and tailor there, and Catherine McKenzie. I have plenty of information on this family and would love to hear from anyone interested in them.
Added by Paul Munro on 29 June 2019
Earlier occupants of this house, or possibly the house next door, might have been David Ross and Isabel Munro. They were the parents of Margaret Ross mentioned above, and were Margaret and George Munro's neighbours on the 1841 census when both families were listed simply as Village of Saltburn. David Ross was then the Saltburn harbour inspector, and was in his fifties. but for most of his working life he had been a mason of Ord. When daughter Margaret Ross was baptised at Rosskeen in 1813 David was a mason "at the Ord", so may not have been at Saltburn as far back as then, although the house could have been built shortly after that year when the residents of Easter Ord farm directly behind the school were displaced, with most being resettled along the firth at the new Saltburn village.
Added by Paul Munro on 30 June 2019
The numbering of the houses in Saltburn was only for the advantage of the post office for delivering the mail and no other. The only houses on the back road then, were the farm workers houses (4 off) where John Bell now lives.
I gave John a grid reference map of Saltburn which I received from MK Shand dating back to the early 1920's where the feus went all the way up to the railway line for 99% of the houses in Saltburn, whom were identified by their Names and NOT numbers, these feus were given to Ord Farm because the government at the time claimed that Britain had not enough land to feed the country, this of course was the usual Westminster propaganda and the people fell for it.
I gave John a grid reference map of Saltburn which I received from MK Shand dating back to the early 1920's where the feus went all the way up to the railway line for 99% of the houses in Saltburn, whom were identified by their Names and NOT numbers, these feus were given to Ord Farm because the government at the time claimed that Britain had not enough land to feed the country, this of course was the usual Westminster propaganda and the people fell for it.
Added by Alistair Wilson on 30 June 2019
Thanks for sorting out my house numbering dilemma Alistair, very much appreciated. It all makes complete sense to me now. The brick wall seen in this photo now has a large tree and over grown land with a sign for the Community Education Saltburn Centre, that building being behind a similar wall set further back. When I say “now” I mean a Google Maps image capture that is time stamped June 2011, so the scenery would have changed again since then I would imagine. The Community Centre is a really old building, and the peaked roof is visible on the right hand side of the 1952 contributor picture #1041 with the children sitting on the stone wall. I wouldn’t like to post a copyrighted Google Maps shot, and quite honestly wouldn’t know how to, but I was able to capture an image of the wall and the house next to it on the other side of the lane, and there is absolutely no doubt that the stately old house still stands. It has been rendered white, but other than that the scene is so similar that I could almost super-impose the new photo over the old. An almost identical home next door has also been rendered white, and that one has number eight as it’s current address. Next is a large, beautiful home set back behind a wrought iron fence, then comes Rose Cottage, complete with roses, and probably looking much as it always did except for the solar panels.
Would the street behind where John Bell lives be Ault-Sallan Road? There are large fields further to the north of there, and sitting in the middle of them is a farm, about where I would have expected to find the Ord. There are still a few outlying buildings standing, but prior to 1813 I imagine it would have been a busy little community with many surrounding crofts. Do you, or any other contributors, happen to know where the nineteenth century ex-Ord, Saltburn residents who mostly were paupers would have been buried? Not many would have been able to afford headstones, so would have ended up in unmarked graves. At least the brick wall is still there!
Would the street behind where John Bell lives be Ault-Sallan Road? There are large fields further to the north of there, and sitting in the middle of them is a farm, about where I would have expected to find the Ord. There are still a few outlying buildings standing, but prior to 1813 I imagine it would have been a busy little community with many surrounding crofts. Do you, or any other contributors, happen to know where the nineteenth century ex-Ord, Saltburn residents who mostly were paupers would have been buried? Not many would have been able to afford headstones, so would have ended up in unmarked graves. At least the brick wall is still there!
Added by Paul Munro on 01 July 2019