James Strachan – fiddler -
Drumnagarrow
This tale begins many
years ago when I bought a book called Albyn’s Anthology volume 1 published in
1816. I had always wanted to get hold of this song collection and a friend of
mine, who worked in an antiquarian bookshop at the time, told me a copy had
just come in to the shop, so I agreed to purchase it and she sent it to me in
the post.
When it arrived it was a
very large volume and I discovered that not only did it contain Albyn’s Anthology
but many other books as well. These had been bound into one personal collection
by a Captain John Grant in 1847.
In addition to Albyns
Anthology was a rare copy of Donald MacDonalds “A Collection of the Ancient
Martial Music of Caledonia called Piobaireachd and performed on the Great
Highland Bagpipe” and a handwritten collection of Captain John Grant’s (1799
-1869) own favourite fiddle tunes as well as many extra and interesting tunes
he had stuck into the book.
I enjoyed playing
through the hand written fiddle tunes and one of them had an interesting note
written on it “The tunes here have been sent to me by Drumnagarrow June 1844.”
This intrigued me and I looked up Drumnagarrow to see if I could find any more information. I
found the tune Drumnagarrow (or Drumnagarry) and that Drumnagarrow was a well
known fiddler called James Strachan (1783 - 1847) from Glenbuchat, Strathdon. .
It is amazing that this characterfull portrait of him has survived.
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He lived at 53 Drumnagarrow Croft high up on the hillside
above Blackhillock farm in Glenbuchat.
I went to see James
Beaton, the librarian at the National Piping Centre, to ask him about Captain
John Grant and the Donald MacDonald Collection. He was very helpful and we
spent a few hours looking up Captain John Grant and Drumnagarrow and gathered
some of the information here.
James Strachan’s
daughter Mary married William Hardie whose son was one of the Scotland’s most
famous violin makers, James Hardie. The composer of the tune is a bit ambiguous from the information available - the tune has been attributed to
Scott Skinner though in a note on the Glenbuchat website he is said to have
attributed the tune to James Hardy with input by Drumnagarrow himself. The tune is
also known as The Fisher’s Rant.
I found a photo of the
cottage on the Glenbuchat Heritage website and the cottage was still intact but
with no water, electricity or even a road to it.
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| The once huge steadings were ruins. The cottage has a most beautiful view over the surrounding glen |
In February 2016 I was
in the Strathdon area and I thought it would be good to go and see if the
cottage was still there. I was staying with friends and asked if they had heard
of this cottage which was about five miles away, and they had not. However the
lady who kept sheep on my friend’s land came from Glenbuchat so we asked her if
she knew about the Drumnagarrow croft and to our surprise she said yes and that
she owned that croft and Blackhillock farm and to come over and have a look.
She was actually selling the farm and 53 Drumnagarrow!
The next day we had an
expedition and went to see where James Strachan the fiddler lived and it was
all still there as it had been for two hundred years! It was a beautiful walk
up to the house and the situation was amazing. There must have been people
living there not too long ago as there were remains of furniture and even
washed dishes on a stand in the kitchen.
I took my fiddle up to
the house and played the tune Drumnagarrow outside his door on a beautiful
sunny day in February and it seemed a fitting tribute to the man who lived
there nearly two hundred years ago.
I do hope the new owners
of this house learn the history of James Strachan and keep his memory alive there.
I have enclosed some photos taken in February of Drumnagarry's house and a portrait of the man himself from the informative Glenbuchat website: http://www.glenbuchatheritage.com/picture/number675.asp
