Timmer Floater
Timmer Floater
Steering his timmer
With cleek and currach
Treacherous waters
Spur on the raft
The restless River Spey gathers in speed as it descends from the Cairngorm mountains to the sea. The fastest flowing river in Scotland, for centuries the Spey has shaped the landscape and character of Moray, driving local industry and passions.
In the 1600s timber felled in the ancient inland forests was transported downriver by men known locally as ‘timmer floaters’. Equipped with a long stick, called a floater’s cleek, the men would buckle their raft and float it downstream for forty miles to the firth. It was gruelling work and their spirits would be kept up with drams of warming whisky. The timber was used to meet the high demand for railway construction, and later for shipbuilding where the river meets the sea at Kingston and Garmouth, from where over 500 vessels were launched. For 200 years, Moray was the leading exporter of timber in Britain.
The following short stories were very kindly communicated to us by Ben Hinnie, who offers these fantastic opportunities in Moray www.stories-by-the-way.co.uk
A Hazardous Journey
The timmer floaters faced many obstacles on their long and perilous journey down the River Spey. Their rafts would often be made up of 150 to 200 sleepers and as well as manoeuvring them around large rocks and boulders, the floaters had to navigate a notorious pool on the Tulchan estate where the water level drops dramatically.
When they eventually reached the estuary at Garmouth, a rope boom would be waiting, stretched across the river, to snag the rafts. On at least one occasion, two rafters were drowned when the river was low. The rope was too high to snag the raft and caught the men at chest level. They were knocked from the raft and swept to their deaths.
The Story of Lobban
On one trip, a raft guided by a skilled floater called Lobban, got stuck on the big rocks at Carron for 3 hours. By the time he delivered his load to Garmouth and been paid the last coach back to Grantown had left.
Undaunted, he left his cleek and put his address on it to be sent with the coach the next day. He then proceeded to walk the forty miles to his home at Lower Dell. All that he carried was a small bag o’ meal. He asked for hot water at cottages on the way, then made a bowl of brose and enjoyed a smoke before continuing his walk.
He left Garmouth at eleven o’ clock in the morning and arrived home next morning at six o’ clock, having walked all day and through the night. After a hearty breakfast he walked the two and a half miles down to the River Spey and started to construct his next raft.
Boatbuilding on the Spey
Once the timber from the forests of Rothiemurchus had been rafted down the Spey, it was shipped from Garmouth to the rest of Britain and beyond. Archaelogical excavations of the area of the Great Fire of London have uncovered timber bearing the Rothiemurchus mark.
In 1785 two shipbuilders bought the Glenmore forest from the Duke of Gordon. The men were William Osbourne of Kingston-upon-Hull and his partner, Ralph Dodsworth of York. The pair established a shipyard at Kingston, naming the village after Osbourne’s home town. Their business thrived and some 60 or so wooden vessels were constructed there before the yard closed in 1815.
Memoires of a Highland Lady
This is a charming description of the economic and cultural relationship between the upstream forests and the timber distributors of Speymouth from Elizabeth Grant’s memoires, dated 1809 -
“On leaving Duffus we drove on to Garmouth to see Mr Steenson, my father's wood agent there ; he had charge of all the timber floated down the Spey from the forest of Rothiemurchus where it had grown for ages, to the shore near Fochabers where it was sorted and stacked for sale.
There was a good-natured wife who made me a present of a milk-jug in the form of a cow, which did duty at our nursery feasts for a wonderful while, considering it was made of crockery ware ; and rather a pretty daughter, just come from the finishing school at Elgin, and stiff and shy of course. These ladies interested me much less than did the timber-yard, where all my old friends the logs, the spars, and the deals and my mother's oars were piled in such quantities as appeared to me endless.
The great width of the Spey, the bridge at Fochabers, and the peep of the towers of Gordon Castle from amongst the cluster of trees that concealed the rest of the building, all return to me now as a picture of beauty. The Duke lived very disreputably in this solitude, for he was very little noticed, and, I believe, preferred seclusion.”
Boring Mill Cottage
“Half of London Used Them”
The thriving timber industry led to the construction of many sawmills along the River Spey. In the Cairngorms National Park on the banks of the river lies an 18th Century Mill House. It was originally built as a corn mill and was extended in the 1800s to incorporate a sawmill.
Logs were floated down the River Spey from the forests of Rothiemurchus to the mill where they were bored into drainpipes before continuing their journey downriver. From Garmouth they were transported to the city of London and archaeological excavations of the area of the Great Fire of London have uncovered timber bearing the Rothiemurchus mark.
At one time there were many water powered sawmills at various points along the river. We’re interested to learn more about these mills, their locations and purpose. What can you tell us?
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