In Scotland a

crofting Crofting is a form of land tenure and small-scale food production particular to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland, and formerly on the Isle of Man. Within the 19th century townships, individual crofts were established on the bette ...

township is a group of

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

smallholdings (each with its own few

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

s of

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swin ...

and

arable land Arable land (from the la, arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.'' Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for th ...

(in-bye land)) holding in common a substantial tract of unimproved upland grazing. Each township comprises a formal legal unit. Like older

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

land measurements, such as the

davoch The davoch, davach or daugh is an ancient Scottish land measurement. All of these terms are cognate with modern Scottish Gaelic '' dabhach''. The word ''dabh'' or '' damh'' means an " ox" (cf. oxgang, ''damh-imir''), but ''dabhach'' can also refe ...

quarterland A Quarterland or Ceathramh (Scottish Gaelic) was a Scottish land measurement. It was used mainly in the west and north. It was supposed to be equivalent to eight fourpennylands, roughly equivalent to a quarter of a markland. However, in Islay, a ...

and

oxgang An oxgang or bovate ( ang, oxangang; da, oxgang; gd, damh-imir; lat-med, bovāta) is an old land measurement formerly used in Scotland and England as early as the 16th century sometimes referred to as an oxgait. It averaged around 20 English ...

, the extent of a township often varies according to the quality of the land it is on, and this can range from a hundred to a few thousand hectares. There is often a substantial tract of unimproved upland common grazing - known as a "

shieling A shieling is a hut or collection of huts on a seasonal pasture high in the hills, once common in wild or sparsely populated places in Scotland. Usually rectangular with a doorway on the south side and few or no windows, they were often cons ...

" or "''àirigh''" which is held in common. This tends to be used in the summer, but with the advent of fertilisers it is often used in colder times as well. In reference to the history of Scotland, a township is often called a toun (the Lowland Scots word for a

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

), although before the Anglic language Scots became widespread in Scotland the word baile was more commonly used. Traditional townships were largely wiped out during the

Highland Clearances The Highland Clearances ( gd, Fuadaichean nan Gàidheal , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase result ...

Auchindrain Auchindrain ( gd, Achadh an Droighinn: 'thorn field') lies on the A83, south of Inveraray in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is the only township to survive substantially unaltered from amongst the many hundreds that existed across the Scottish ...

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland. Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...

, once occupied by up to seven tenant families who farmed the land cooperatively, was the last to survive. This was down to the 19th century landowner, the

8th Duke of Argyll George John Douglas Campbell, 8th and 1st Duke of Argyll (30 April 1823 – 24 April 1900; styled Marquess of Lorne until 1847), was a Scottish polymath and Liberal statesman. He made a significant geological discovery in the 1850s when his ten ...

, who decided that splitting the township into individual crofts would not be financially viable and encouraged his tenants to modernise their methods. The final tenant departed Auchindrain in 1963. The traditional houses and other buildings still stand, and have been turned into an open-air museum.

References

Scotland Crofting Scottish society {{agri-stub

See also

References