scottish name place please

[kylejustin]

having proper difficulty uploading this image, so here is the link to it:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/36909742@N03/51237843628/in/dateposted-public/

can anyone read the place name after "alexander mclennan" please? i would expect it to be a village, perhaps a property in the applecross/lochalsh area of the highlands. but getting nowhere trying to find it!

[Anne in Carlisle]

Is it two words? I think the second word might be fraoich, which is a Gaelic word making up the names of various landscape features. But I can't find it as part of a place name. I do have the 1:25k OS map with gazetteer but its not coming up with anything except hills, streams and islands. Even then fraoich is just a part of the name, probably descriptive.
Anne

edit to say Google thinks it means 'heather'. Haha, plenty of that around there!

[kylejustin]

It seems to be. The fact it's not findable suggests it's horribly mangled or no longer in existence. His grandchildren lived in a place called cathair, in applecross in the 1841/51 census. Googling that, it no longer exists and is thought to be located on the mckenzie estate of applecross, noted by some ruins. Wouldn't be surprised if this place was a village that disappeared in the highland clearances?

[GallowayLass]

Have pmd you

[GallowayLass]

I’ve checked all the parishes on here which include the place names you had in your email but found nothing that looks like what my guess for the place is - Gontenfuarich or perhaps frarich. I’m not sure if that’s written as one word or two.

https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books

[kylejustin]

I am starting to think it's the name of a property, or a village that was cleared + destroyed. I don't know the occupation of alexander mclennan either, so can't guess what kind of location to look for. I had wondered if it may be on the opposite side of ross and cromarty, near dingwall and "the black isle".

[kylejustin]

i emailed a man who has a blog about applecross history, and it's quite detailed. he delves into farm names and outbuildings. he says it's "Goirtean Fraoich" which roughly means "corn field among the heather", and is in the parish of lochcarron. it's to the east of applecross, north of lochcarron, on the carron river.

on a modern map it is between the towns of achnashellach and craig (not to be confused with the village of craig near plockton) on the carron river, along the A890. it was cleared around 1860.

[kylejustin]

any ideas how i may find the place in the census? FMP isn't recognising any spellings i have found.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Great result, Kyle! Glad I got the second word right. But I have no clue about Scottish censuses to help find it. If it's anything like English ones the location would be very vague. I think you might need to trawl through (if that's possible) the area between those two places along the Carron river.
Anne