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MHG4581 - Smith's Town

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NH91SW 12 94 13.

Baileghobain, Smith's Town, is the site of forges connected with great wood and iron works conducted by the English in the 18th century. There is a point in the Kincardine Sluggan (An Slugan: name - NH 942 132) called Cadhaig Nicoll where one of their men was killed.
Rev Dr Forsyth 1898.

Forsyth's text is repeated in `In the Shadow of Cairngorm,' p 29, but re-phrased: `There is a point in the Kincardine Slugan called Cadhaig Nicoll, where one of their men lost his life. The place where their forges were erected is still called Baileghobhainn, Smith's town, and higher up on the Nethy is the Old Mill Croft.'
He goes on to say (p 200): ` Works were erected on the Nethy, smelting furnaces at Balnagown, and a mill for forging and other purposes higher up near Causair, where the foundation beams, with their cross-bindings and broad-headed iron nails, may still be seen in the bed of the river.'
Also (p 263): `Half-a-mile above Nethy Bridge is the Iron Mill Croft, celebrated by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. see Appendix note 15, p 386.
This is lifted from Lauder's `The Great Floods of August, 1829, in the Province of Moray and Adjoining Districts.' (Known as `The Moray Floods') On p 103 (in 3rd edition) - `At some distance below the Dell of Abernethy, and on the right bank of the river, lay the Iron Mill Croft, ...' He describes how the York Buildings Co. came, and established their works, and were forgotten, (p 105) ` ...each successive inundation spread over the ground, where they deposit a deep and fertile soil, ... the surface of which is six or eight feet above the ground the works stood on.' Then came the flood of 1829, and (p 106 ) `The whole of the Iron Mill Croft has disappeared, and is now a waste of sand, gravel and stones.'
From which it will be seen that Baileghobhainn (Balgown) is at Nethy Bridge, and Cadhaig Nicoll is in the Slugan. (O.S. Sluggan) I do not know of any commemorative cairn for the unfortunate tree-feller, Nicoll.

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Grid reference	Centred NH 9421 1322 (20m by 20m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NH91SW
Civil Parish	ABERNETHY AND KINCARDINE
Geographical Area	BADENOCH AND STRATHSPEY

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