Easter Alcaig

Possible distillery site, GR at NH 5625 5733

The 1st Edition OS survey of 1881 marks a large building next to the shore and a corn and flour mill at Easter Alcaig. The area of Easter Alcaig has been developed relatively recently with at least 6 modern houses and gardens taking the place of the large building next to the shore and the corn and flour mill. 4 of these houses with gardens are fronting the shore where there is a steep bank to the HWM and tidal mud flats. The watercourse marked, on the 1st Edition OS, as running down the side of the large building now runs down the side of one of the gardens in a covered conduit as it passes the house and then in an open overgrown deep slot to the shore.

This garden, at NH 5625 5733, has no evidence of the large building marked on the 1st Edition OS survey but it has two levelled tiers and it is speculated that the building was on the lower tier.

The OSA 1791-92 states;

“There are buildings which during the existence of the Ferintosh privilege were erected by a company for the purpose of distilling and now lie unoccupied. They are of very considerable extent, situated about the middle of the parish and contiguous to the shore, where there is occasionally a depth of water sufficient for vessels of 100 tuns burden”. The HER record, MHG32603, for Alcaig Mill - a threshing/grain mill at NH5632 5726, records the memories of a participant in the Black Isle Heritage Memories project – “Water Mill serving large area of Black Isle. Possibly also the site of a distillery. Became knackery in 1960s”

This site may well have been the former distillery mentioned in the OSA. 200 years ago there may have been “a depth of water sufficient for vessels of 100 tuns burden” but the shore has become so silted up in the intervening years that it would not be possible today.