Patrick Sellar
Submitted by Owen McCafferty on Thu, 2009-11-26Patrick Sellar undoubtedly emerges from folklore memory of the clearances as the villain of the piece.
This is not surprising in view of his direct personal involvement in the evictions in his early role as a factor on the Sutherland Estate. What is often not realised is that Sellar was himself a farmer and that when he was clearing Strathnaver he was not acting merely as an employer but in his own personal interest as he had already gained a lease of the affected area.
In 1814 Sellar was already a farmer of note in Sutherland, having acquired from the duchess the lease of Morvich and Culmailly on the East Coast, Containing between them six hundred and fifty acres of arable land.
When virtually the whole of Strathnaver was added he became one of the largest farmers in Britain, being personally responsible for more than a twentieth of the entire agricultural production of Sutherland. His possessions in Strathnaver were divided in to nine herdings, starting with lot one at the Dunviden Burn and working round clockwise to lot nine in what is now the Invernaver Nature Reserve.
Similar of 'Patrick Sellar'