The stone-walled fields that rise above the northern outskirts of Golspie belong to Golspie Tower Farm. Their neat rectangles are a sure sign that they date from the Age of Improvement, the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Before it, multiple tenants held small parcels of unenclosed land from the Golspie Tower tacksman, fields worked by the runrig system.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century surveys were carried out of the Sutherland Estate's land and, following these, larger farms were created. In John Kirk's map....
....of Golspitower, dated around 1772, both the existing patchwork of runrig fields and a proposal for new, larger fields are shown.
St Andrew's Church, in Golspie itself, is marked 'C'. Golspitower Farm is circled on this map, while the main area occupied by the township, where the tenants lived, is marked 'T'. The large number of buildings gives some idea of the number of people living in Golspitower.
The township area is now occupied by the houses which can be seen at top right in the photograph, and the proposed farm fields have been further divided by walls running north-south. While the northern fields in the map remain farmland, the large north-south fields are now occupied by Golspie's houses.
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