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The Camerons of Granish.
Granish Farm, or Grainish if you prefer, used to be about a mile North East of Aviemore. I say used to be, as much of the farm was demolished to make way for the A9 road to Inverness when it was upgraded in the 1980's. There are a few remaining building, still called Granish. These are now holiday cottages having been largely rebuilt in the 1980's, and bearing little resemblance to the original buildings, or so I am told. To the best of my knowledge none of the original houses have survived intact.
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Like many other farms, Granish is not just one farmhouse and a few farm buildings, this may be how it started but over time as more land was gained it was split into a group of farms. Whilst all tending to be lumped together and referred to as Granish, each farm does have its own name. So there is Granish itself, Knock Granish North, Knock Granish South & Sluggan Granish. In addition there were a number of cottages, Ardrocher, Tullochan, Oak Bank Cottage and more.
Cameron Family
Tree 1650-1745.
Click to enlarge.
Site of Granish 2015. AKA Aviemore municipal dump !!
The first Cameron to farm at Granish was John Cameron (1765-1835) and his wife Elspet Cumming. Though I have found nothing to give a precise date, the family were clearly at Granish by 1804 as their daughter Isobel was born there. 130 years later there is still a James Cameron at Sluggan-Granish. He was sub-tenant of Peter McIntosh who rented a number of farms from the Seafield estate.
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The most recent publicly available census is that of 1911 but Valuation rolls are available up to 1935 These give few details but say who occupied each house, if it was owned or rented and if rented, who was the landlord. Putting these together, there are at least three separate households of Camerons at Granish in the years leading up to the First World War, of these James Cameron was at Sluggan-Granish with his brother John and sisters Margaret & Mary, they are all in their 60's and unmarried. Oakbank House nearby was owned and occupied by another James Cameron, he was also in his 60's and single. Vulcan Cottage housed Peter Cameron together with his ancient mother, he also was unmarried. At this time there were also a number of unoccupied houses and the two farms North & South Knock-Granish were unoccupied.
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Quite why so many of these Camerons never married, one can only speculate, though it does seem rather strange. It would seem that the family did not leave Granish, they just died out. Having said this, two of the girls, Janet Cameron 1846-1906 and Elspet1849-1892 managed to reproduce! However they were both married and living elsewhere.
Janet married John Dallas from Milton Farm just down the road from Granish and following a move to Kingussie raised a brood of Children. Elspet married Ewan Campbell a young carpenter from Kingussie, they lived over the shop in Kingussie High Street where as well as his carpentry Ewan had an Ironmongers shop. They had 5 children and were about to have number six when disaster struck. In her pregnancy Elspet developed the rare but frequently lethal condition of " Placenta Previa " where as the afterbirth develops, it grows over the outlet of the womb. When the mother goes into labour the afterbirth is in the way. As the womb starts contracting it gets torn off the inside of the womb causing bleeding as well as obstructing the only way out. The end result of this is normally death of both mother and baby, Mum from blood loss, baby from having no oxygen supply as the afterbirth is detached whilst baby is still inside. The only way of saving either of them is for a highly skilled obstetrician to spot the condition and perform a super rapid caesarian section. In 1890's Kingussie this was not going to happen, they both died, leaving Ewan with five children between four and fourteen years old.
There is no documentary evidence available after 1935 so it is impossible to say what happened in more recent times, other than most of the houses at Granish were obliterated by the A9 road and Aviemore municipal dump !!
John Dallas & Family.
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From left to right: Back Row: John C. John(father) Marjory Front Row: Jessie William Jessie(mother) with Alistair on knee Mary Ann Archibald (blurred) James
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Click image to enlarge
Janet Cameron
1846-1906
John Dallas 1845-1915