Gaelic report asks ‘What next?’ for Kingussie’s lost livestock market
Questions are now being asked about the future of Kingussie’s historic livestock market.
On BBC Alba last night local Highland Councillor Russell Jones waxed lyrical about its past, but was less poetic about its present and positively clueless about its future.
He is asking the public to come up with ideas on how the sizeable piece of real estate could best be put to use for the community.
“My dad retired from Edinburgh in the 1960s and when we moved here he wasn’t a proper crofter but he had a couple of fields and some sheep and we used to come here to the sheep sales.
“I’d be standing here looking through the barrier and then waiting outside the Silverfjord, the local pub there (now The Crossing) to go home late on. So, a lot of memories from the Seventies, and market days were huge and were very, very busy.
“But you know, things move on and we are where we are now. And we should make better use of this site now.”
As Nicole Dempster reported for the programme: “For generations, the people of Badenoch and Strathspey sold their livestock at the market in Kingussie.
“Their last fair was in 2021 and now there are plans to demolish the historic market stand.
“The old market is on good public land and councillors are seeking ideas on how to use it in the future.
“The barn was used by cattle for the last time this week, in preparation for a show at the Royal Highland Fair in Edinburgh.
“Ruaridh Ormiston would hear Gaelic songs at the fair in his youth. He would come to the market as a young boy, with his family from Laggan in Strathmashie at the time. He remembers that in the 1970s, there would be about 3,000 or 4,000 sheep being sold.
“But you don't have to go much further back, to the 1930s, for figures such as 500 cattle being sold at a fair, and about 6,000 animals at a sheep fair.”
Mr Ormiston, now of Highland Horse Fun next door to the market site in Ruthven Road, told the programme: "The best thing about coming to this market wasn't the fair itself, but going to the Silverfjord afterwards!
"Even 20 years ago, it wouldn't have been unusual to go in and hear the likes of Donnie Wilson from Lairg, and his friend Walter, and Donald Craggan and Donald MacKenzie and a few others singing in Gaelic."
Cattle would be driven on foot from far and wide to the market in the earliest days. Mr Ormiston led a few of his own Highland cattle into the rickety old arena especially for the programme.
“The market was moved to the site when the railway line was established, and crofters would drive their animals to the market, then take them by train to a nearby abattoir.
“Kingussie was on the main droving routes," he reminisced.
"It would not be unusual for cattle to walk 12 miles a day, so even those coming from Laggan and Dalkeith, they might take two days to get to the market."
Councillor Jones wants to hear local people's views on repurposing site.
