The Uig Tower, also known as Captain Fraser's Folly, is a nineteenth century folly located in Uig on the island of Skye in the Highlands of Scotland. It is a category B listed building. [1]
The Uig Tower, also known as Captain Fraser's Folly, is a nineteenth century folly located in Uig on the island of Skye in the Highlands of Scotland. It is a category B listed building. [1]
The Uig Tower stands along the A87, which connects Portree and Uig, about two kilometers south of Uig. The tower is positioned on the southeastern side of the bay on its southern headland opposite Rubha Idrigil. [2]
Major William Fraser became the owner of the Kilmuir Estate in 1855 [2] and the tower was constructed around 1860 at a place where the local tenants had to go to pay their rents to his Factor. [3]
Fraser was, like many other landlords in Scotland, notorious for his contribution to the Highland Clearances, during which tenants were evicted so the land could become available for large-scale sheep farming. The folly is still associated by locals with the Clearances. [4] Fraser lived in a large house called Uig Lodge, which was washed away in a flood in 1877 shortly after the conclusion of the clearances. [2] [4]
In 1884 Fraser attempted to evict a family at Garafad in Staffin during a rent strike. Fraser called for help from the Government to break the strike, claiming that the local people were in rebellion. In November 1884 a flotilla of naval ships arrived in Uig Bay and the police and marines took up positions in Uig. However, strike was not broken, the family remained in their home, and the police and military left shortly thereafter. [3]
The tower was later turned into a family home, but this was abandoned in the 1950s. [4]
The Uig Tower is a round tower of two floors and was built in Norman style. The tower has narrow vertical slits instead of windows. The gaps resemble loopholes of a castle through which arrows could be fired on attackers, although it has no defensive function and was built purely as a show of wealth. [4] On the outside, the gaps are decorated with cross shapes.
The tower is no longer owned by the Uig Hotel but by a local land owner.[ citation needed ]
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The Tenantry Column is a monument to the south of Alnwick town centre, in Northumberland, England. It was erected in 1816 by the tenants of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland in thanks for his reduction of their rents during the post-Napoleonic depression. It is a Doric column standing 83 feet (25 m) tall and surmounted by a lion en passant, the symbol of the Percy family. Four more lions stand on a platform at the base of the column. A muster roll of the Percy Tenantry Volunteers was sealed into the foundation. The structure was granted protection as a listed building in 1952 and since 1977 has been listed in the highest category, grade I.
Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosed by a mortgagee.
Uig, also known as Sgìr' Ùig, is a civil parish and community in the west of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The Parish of Uig is one of the four civil parishes of the Isle of Lewis. It contains the districts of Carloway, East Uig, Bernera and West Uig. The name derives from the Norse word Vik meaning 'a bay'.
A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlords. In a rent strike, a group of tenants come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent en masse until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord. This can be a useful tactic of final resort for use against intransigent landlords, but carries the obvious risk of eviction and bad credit history in some cases.
The Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created legal definitions of crofting parish and crofter, granted security of land tenure to crofters and produced the first Crofters Commission, a land court which ruled on disputes between landlords and crofters. The same court ruled on whether parishes were or were not crofting parishes. In many respects the Act was modelled on the Irish Land Acts of 1870 and 1881. By granting the crofters security of tenure, the Act put an end to the Highland Clearances.
The Napier Commission, officially the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands was a royal commission and public inquiry into the condition of crofters and cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
In Scotland a factor is a person or firm charged with superintending or managing properties and estates—sometimes where the owner or landlord is unable to or uninterested in attending to such details personally, or in tenements in which several owners of individual flats contribute to the factoring of communal areas.
George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland KG, PC, known as Viscount Trentham from 1758 to 1786, as Earl Gower from 1786 to 1803 and as The Marquess of Stafford from 1803 to 1833, was an English politician, diplomat, landowner and patron of the arts from the Leveson-Gower family. He was the wealthiest man in Britain during the latter part of his life. He remains a controversial figure for his role in the Highland Clearances.
Sollas is a small crofting township on the northern coast of the island of North Uist, Scotland.
Strathnaver or Strath Naver is the fertile strath of the River Naver, a famous salmon river that flows from Loch Naver to the north coast of Scotland. The term has a broader use as the name of an ancient province also known as the Mackay Country, once controlled by the Clan Mackay and extending over most of northwest Sutherland.
Elizabeth Sutherland Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland, also suo jure19th Countess of Sutherland, was a Scottish peer from the Leveson-Gower family, best remembered for her involvement in the Highland Clearances.
Glenveagh Castle is a large castellated mansion located in Glenveagh National Park, County Donegal, Ireland and was built in about 1870.
Moniack Castle is a 16th-century tower house located 7 miles (11 km) west of Inverness, and just south of Beauly in Highland, Scotland. The castle was built in 1580 by members of the Clan Fraser. The castle is protected as a category B listed building.
Scolpaig Tower is a Georgian folly located near the village of Scolpaig on the island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. The name probably derives from the Old Norse scolpvik, or 'Scolp Bay'.
The Bernera Riot occurred in 1874, on the island of Great Bernera, in Scotland in response to the Highland Clearances. The use of the term 'Bernera Riot' correctly relates to the court case which exposed the maltreatment of the peasant classes in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and exposed the corruption that was inherent in the landowning class. The 'riot' was not fought in the streets or in the fields but in the Scots Lawcourts. It is notable as the first successful legal challenge to nineteenth century Landlordism in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and was the catalyst for future resistance in what became known as the Crofters War. Modern land reform in Scotland has its roots in the outcome of this event.
Swainbost is a village on the Isle of Lewis in the district of Ness, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The name Swainbost meaning Sweins steading is of Viking derivation. The settlement is situated in the parish of Barvas. According to Ronald Black, Swainbost was re-settled during the Highland Clearances in 1842. The island's Anglo-Scottish landlord had expected the crofters evicted from Uig to emigrate and only reluctantly granted them land at Swainbost to avert the threat of violence.
Camustianavaig is a crofting township on the island of Skye in Scotland. It is located on the shores of the Sound of Raasay, 5 kilometres southeast of Portree. The Lòn Bàn watercourse flows from Loch Fada to "An Eas Mhòr" below which it is named "Allt Ósglan" and discharges into the sea at Camas Tianabhaig. The stream forms the boundary between the township and Conordan to the south. Ósglan itself is the land on the right bank of Allt Ósglan.
The Highland Clearances were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly from 1750 to 1860.
Events from the year 1884 in Scotland.
The Costa–Hawkins Rental Housing Act ("Costa–Hawkins") is a California state law, enacted in 1995, which places limits on municipal rent control ordinances. Costa–Hawkins preempts the field in two major ways. First, it prohibits cities from establishing rent control over certain kinds of residential units, e.g., single-family dwellings and condominiums, and newly constructed apartment units; these are deemed exempt. Second, it prohibits "vacancy control", also called "strict" rent control. The legislation was sponsored by Democratic Senator Jim Costa and Republican Assemblymember Phil Hawkins.