Talk:Brochs of Shetland

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia that anyone can edit

Does the broch listed for the Holm of Benston have the incorrect parish? The map reference is for Nesting, and there's a Benston there, there's no Benston in Dunrossness as best as I know.

Ghostrider 13:44, 5 August 2007 (MDT)

You are perfectly right ... as are the map references for the 2 brochs in Benston and on the Holm in Loch Benston resp. ... but for some unknown reasons RCAHMS says Dunrossness ... just another mistake which we may report one day ... :-)))) Islandhopper 13:55, 5 August 2007 (MDT)

It'll become self-apparent as you plot the co-ordinates on a map, but some of the descriptions given by RCAHMS are on the face of it, rather misleading. For example, Mail, Aithsetter, Houlland, and Burraland which are included as Dunrossness, are not technically incorrect as such, but with Mail and Aithsetter being in Cunningsburgh, and Houlland and Burraland (Almost always called Burland though) being in Sandwick, most folk do not think of them as being in Dunrossness. Likewise West Burra/Southerhouse and Burland being listed as Lerwick is equally confusing, as they're in Burra and Trondra respectively, but being as Lerwick, Trondra and Burra were linked as one parish at one time, it's not technically wrong either.

It might be an idea to plot the map references on a modern map, and add a note where necessary detailing what the location is known as today, where a significant difference occurs between it and the RCAHMS description.

Ghostrider 15:36, 5 August 2007 (MDT)

@Ghostrider
I do see your probs but for the moment I don't have an answer ... ;-) I'm preparing a question to address to RCAHMS "what definition of parish" they are using. Cunningsburgh and Sandwick were no longer existent as independent parishes since the time of the New Statistical Account (I pointed to the prob that older territorial definitions were still in use on that site), Burra and Trondra were at no time (at least not up to the date of the OS mapping (for this part of Shetland that's to say 1904) part of one parish ... The prob we do have on Shetlopedia for the moment is "where there different parishes past 1904" to which RCAHMS may refer. That damned prob is simply based in the fact that Scotland never had "civil parishes" as counterpart to the "church parishes" but the term "parish" is used everywhere. I'll see, what could be done, may be we add a column saying "Parish according to official registers" vs "Parishes according to local perception". I really don't have an answer for that at the moment. For the moment I have just one offer of a solution: i) we do leave the table as it is for the moment, ii) when I come across a significant number of errors, when plotting the site to a map (that's to say more than a dozen in different areas) I will add a note like "locally known as n the area of ..." or "former parish of ... " or "formerly XYZ" as an add to the existing parish or something like this ... Islandhopper 16:27, 5 August 2007 (MDT)

BDW: The fact that Scottish parishes have never been "civil parishes" as they used to be in England but everyone is using them synonymously and the resulting erros in interpreting older statistical accounts might be worth a doctoral thesis of its own ... and from this I guess that some thousands of websites would have to be rewritten ... ;-) Islandhopper 16:40, 5 August 2007 (MDT)

I agree, definitely keep the table as is for the meantime. It is the 'official' record after all, and add any notes to better explain things as and where required as their need is discovered.

You've described the problem perfectly, the term 'parish' unfortunately has never been an exactly defined term for everyone involved, in a Shetland context. Different people have applied the term at different times in the manner best suiting their own ends. For example if you'd suggested to a Cunningsburgh resident probably no more than even 50 years ago they stayed in the same parish as a Sandwick resident, or vice versa, you'd have been lucky to live to tell the tale. Both areas were firecely territorial, and each described the other area as a wholly seperate 'parish', and similar divisions existed almost island wide.

It comes down to finding a way of making the information as "user friendly" as possible, by including as much of both the 'official' details, and of the terminology it is popularly known as locally as possible, without the entries being too cumbersome. As no doubt some viewing the entries will find the official details most useful, and some will find the local information approach best.

Ghostrider 17:23, 5 August 2007 (MDT)