Family history: Rayne

This is the very distinctive farmhouse of Mastrick in the parish of Rayne, Aberdeenshire. Its plan of central block and wings is in sharp contrast to the 'one and a half storey' plan so typical of the farms of the county. This was the farm my father grew up on. Tenanted by my grandfather from the Gordon of Newton estate from 1930, he later bought it from the estate after the Second World War.

In about 1840 the minister of Rayne called Aberdeenshire 'the poor man's country' because of the gradation of holdings from crofts to large farms. This was also the sub-title of the maginificent book on Farm Life in North East Scotland by Ian Carter which inspired my own work on rural Lancashire. My family moved over the course of the nineteenth century from being crofters and farm servants to the status of small farmers. (And from the 1950s to farming on a much larger scale). I want to explore this history in much more detail. This will also involve looking at the crofting community of Culthibbert in the parish of Tough. This settlement on bleak moorland, now abandoned and largely under forestry, was the home of the Cameron family, ancestors of my paternal grandmother.

I am very attached to my Aberdeenshire ancestry, although I probably couldn't stand the cold! I try to visit when I can and hope to do much more archival work, linked as well to my work on agriculture and empire.