The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: shygirl on May 27, 2013, 08:46:57 pm
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is anyone following the Hebrides programmes on BBC1?
it looks so lovely.
where do you look for farmland / houses for sale over there? is it all croft land? i cant seem to find anything more than 2 acres, whereas i need atleast 20 - or does crofting mean you share the land with everyone else?
does anyone know what the schooling is like for older children?
thanks
BBC iPlayer - Hebrides: Islands on the Edge: Episode 1 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p014g3vx/)
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I must get onto iplayer and watch that. It looks fascinating.
With island life, it depends on the size of the island. Most smaller ones will have primary schools but secondary schools are fewer and, frequently, the older children are ferried to another island on the Monday morning and home again on Friday afternoon. You would need to check with any island you fancied living on.
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I've only been to an Outer Hebridean Island once, and then I was so seasick I didn't see much while I was there. What did strike me though (on N Uist) is that when you're there, it's definitely not some remote place miles from any civilisation - it seems like the centre of the world. People are no different on the island, there are nice people and unpleasant people, old fashioned people and very modern people, people with aspirations and feelings and hopes and ambitions, just like everywhere else. There also seems to be lots of gossip and everyone really does know everyone else.
I think you would need to be a special kind of person to live on a tiny island with a population of 20 - I would get cabin fever in winter, then hate all the tourists in the summer. I might manage an island just for the two of us though - until I was taken ill of course............
I have really enjoyed the programmes although my one bugbear is that they kept re-using the same bits of film - a bit cheap :innocent: But some wonderfully atmospheric photography :thumbsup:
Tonight it showed a puffin colony, with the puffins waiting for the tourist boat to arrive in the afternoon so the ravens and hoodies were scared off - the puffins then took advantage of clear runs from the sea to feed their pufflets, and payed by allowing the tourists to film them close up.
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Benbecula some crofts for sale fantastic place to live everey bodey bartas.
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Morning all,
Mad GWoM - Islands on the edge is only on BBC iPlayer Scotland, not the "normal one". Easy enough to find mind. I think this was the last of the 4 parts. Repeated on Sunday evening IIRC. Should be on normal BBC later this year....nicely timed to MISS the tourist season...thanks BBC ???
To the original poster...shygirl.
#1 - Pick an Island and rent a cottage for a few weeks in winter. It can be rough over here. Give it a try as it is not to everyones taste. Then, if you survivie that OK, book the place again for a few weeks in summer and tra again ;D . Should give you a reasonable idea of things. There's quite a big turnaround of people moving over this way but, often after a year or two, they sell up and move away to somewhere not quite so "on the edge" :excited: I likes it on the edge....
#2 - There are places with larger tracts of land but, like most places, the usually come at a price. Especially when, on an island, land is finite. You say you need 20 acres, perhaps you could ellaborate a little as to why because there my be ways to be a bit flexible.
#3 I'll pull together a few estate agent sorts soon and post them up. There are quite a few but, sometimes, a little digging is needed to find them.
Rgds
Sskye.
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This one suit you shygirl?
http://www.remax-scotland.com/Small-Holding-For-Sale-Broadford-Isle-of-Skye_748891008-426 (http://www.remax-scotland.com/Small-Holding-For-Sale-Broadford-Isle-of-Skye_748891008-426)
;D
Or at the other end of the financial scale...South Uist...
http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/listing/assignation-of-croft-tenancy-17-ormiclate/ (http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/listing/assignation-of-croft-tenancy-17-ormiclate/)
http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Schedule-17-Ormiclate.pdf (http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Schedule-17-Ormiclate.pdf)
Rgds
Sskye
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i have a small herd of native cattle (5 but expecting to rise to 10) plus a few ponies, so need enough land for them. and i presume i need barns to winter in. plus il need enough land to grow enough hay for them - we usually need 60-70 bigs bales a year. i presume it is difficult to buy in haylage being on islands?
we have considered orkney and shetland, but the hebrides were stunning. i do like hills and the fact that deer are there (no deer in orkney)
we dont want to spend more than £175k as we have seen a few for that price up north, with house, barns and 70 odd acres.
a tatty 3-4 bed croft house is fine, not looking for posh.
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we dont want to spend more than £175k as we have seen a few for that price up north, with house, barns and 70 odd acres.
a tatty 3-4 bed croft house is fine, not looking for posh.
Looks like the one on the Uists I posted earlier would suit......
http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/listing/assignation-of-croft-tenancy-17-ormiclate/ (http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/listing/assignation-of-croft-tenancy-17-ormiclate/)
http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Schedule-17-Ormiclate.pdf (http://www.uistproperty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Schedule-17-Ormiclate.pdf)
Often crofts come with an allocation of common grazing. Our neighbour has about 10 acres, a big barn and a herd of Limi X cattle. He winters in, early (now) lets them out on the croft, especially Mothers and young, the others go out on the common grazing. So you may not need to have 20 acres if there is enough common grazing rights too. Keep the horses at home, overwinter cattle at home, common graze during the good months.
Others with native cattle leave theirs to outwinter.
Hay etc. No idea for the outer isles regarding availability. my neighbour buys in, large rounds get dropped off in the lay-by and he collects them with his tractor.
Rgds
Sskye.
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i like the big posh one
anyone got half a million i can scrounge???
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What may look great on TV is not to be taken lightly. island living is tough. My mother lived on Shetland for 27 years and I would have moved there in a heartbeat. if OH could have got a job. Not a hardship for me as we are so used to the weather in the North East of Scotland. I have seen Shetland at all times of the year. Hay this Spring was £90 for a round bale. Friends rent land for their animals which works out well for them. Good grazing though is hard to come by. Island life has lots going for it if you are not a city person. Lots of events go on and I would say its a better way to bring up children,
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Hay this Spring was £90 for a round bale.
is that the price in shetland? omg, thats an awful lot, that would bankrupt me pretty quickly.
thanks sskye, it would suit actually. being english i dont quite understand the crofting red tape, will have to resarch it some more.
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Mmmmm ..... so how busy do the islands get in the summer months? :-\
OH has always liked the idea of living there. We watched the first episode of this and he was quite taken.
We rarely see anyone up here .... other than the locals ;D and it suits me that way.
Is it like the Lake District in summer :( .... wouldn't like many tourists. ;D
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Shygirl.
Crofting - simple overview follows.
Owner Occupied croft is, as it says, a croft (agri land but often can be rough grazing mostly) that is owned outright and you live on it.
Tennancy of a croft is where you buy the right to lease from the landowner, often a local Laird. Annual rent is usually buttons, £15 a year or so. The lease has heirloom rights and can be handed down through the family.
Usually the part the house is built on is de-crofted. Simply means that is no longer crofted land and is like any other house site.
The most important part is that you should use the croft for a genuine crofting activity. cattle, sheep, veg, hay, whatever. As long as you can show it is/will be used and not left to become overgrown.
If you do not use the croft for crofting activities the tennancy can be taken from you and the croft let to someone else. Or a tennant can sub-let to someone who will use it.Starting to happen a bit more than it used to.
If it is owner Occ. and you are not using it you can be forced to let the land to someone who will use it correctly.
In a nutshell, that's it. I suppose the phrase should be "Use it or Lose it" ;D
Rgds
Sskye
NB - To those many who are crofters, I know there's a lot more to it and I try to take all the info. from my SCF news letters but, for someone with no knowledge of crofting I hope this throws a little light on the subject....it ain't frightening ;)
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and any common grazing rights would be different for each property?
common grazing would per head?
i presume you couldnt put a bull on common land? rams?
i did look on the crofters commission website but couldnt find the beginners guide for english people...lol
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Try the Scottish Crofting Federation rather than the Crofting Commission - the former is run by crofters.
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Good suggestion by Rosemary
http://www.crofting.org/index.php/home (http://www.crofting.org/index.php/home)
Here's the web site. Worth a look even if just for the Home page pictures that change at the top ;D
You don't always get Common Grazing rights with a croft. Some have them, some don't. It is mentioned when advertised or, if not, worth an email to the agent involved.
Rgds
Sskye
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thanks guys, a beginner guide...lol...for anyone else who is interested. :excited:
http://www.crofting.org/index.php/faqs/67 (http://www.crofting.org/index.php/faqs/67)
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Good suggestion by Rosemary
http://www.crofting.org/index.php/home (http://www.crofting.org/index.php/home)
Here's the web site. Worth a look even if just for the Home page pictures that change at the top ;D
You don't always get Common Grazing rights with a croft. Some have them, some don't. It is mentioned when advertised or, if not, worth an email to the agent involved.
Rgds
Sskye
You're right - lovely pictures. I would love to take on a croft. ah well, I can dream.
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sounds about right Southernskye. The red tape etc can be a nightmare but lots of helpful info from Scottish Crofters Federation as Rosemary says.
We are part of the Assynt Crofters Trust so its a more personal relationship with the 'land owners' than some faceless organisation etc.
Crofts are also not huge areas of land, and can be just a parcel of land of a couple of hectares and you need to know about the common grazing rights as someone else may have those (dad has mine just now)
Great idea though about renting a cottage for a couple of weeks in middle of winter as a practice run, spend the time finding about feed supplies/prices etc, schools (our nearest secondary is 50 miles away!) that is of course if you are not in the middle of a storm and still have working phonelines and electricity ;D
Oh and be prepared for SILLY SEASON when the roads get blocked up with holidaymakers driving at 5 miles an hour when you have to go to work and ones that think its quaint to see real 'crofters' while you're trying to cut your peats and are knee deep in mud >:( >:( >:(
But I wouldn't live anywhere else :thumbsup:
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Oh I got the giggles imagining you cutting peat with an audience of photo snapping tourists :roflanim:
There should be some extra income in some way there
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Oh I got the giggles imagining you cutting peat with an audience of photo snapping tourists :roflanim:
There should be some extra income in some way there
I'd go bonkers if anybody pointed the camera at me without asking permission. And they wouldn't get it...
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its gets so annoying, feel like throwing them a big soggy peat! One nice lady did send us copies of the pics she had taken and they were in old sepia colours so looked lovely but as for the rest of them >:(
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I think you would need to be a special kind of person to live on a tiny island with a population of 20
Not special, just a particular kind of person.
Me and the OH lived on an island with a winter population of 4 for four years (in our final winter we had a small baby and there were just the three of us!). You do have to able to do stuff without calling on others all the time - you get good at problem solving, but when there is a big job to do, very small communities are very good at pulling together as you need each other to get by. You learn to look out for each other eg in the winter, we always made sure we had seen the other inhabitants, even if it was only on the skyline, to be sure they were ok, and I know they did the same for us.
On the other hand, unless you are careful not to live in each other's pockets, they will drive you nuts, so a careful balancing act is needed. Summer visitors are good at asking dumb questions, but everyone will know who you are because as a year round resident, you become something of a summer celebrity - we hardly ever ate at home over the summer months as we were constantly being asked to dinner by holiday visitors.
I was only 21 when we moved there - it taught us a huge amount and it was a brilliant thing to have done while we were young, fit and had few responsibilities. I am eternally thankful to have had such a brilliant oportunity at the start of my adult life!
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im seriously considering island life, not sure where yet, but my children are causing me to have a restricted choice. going to some places means my eldest will go straight off to weekly boarding school, which is fine if they are happy but terrible if they hate it. with the chance of them going on a boat to school - i really shouldn't have let them watch the titanic :roflanim:
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My concern with living on a smaller island would be making an income. That's what has always put me off. Selling livestock must be much less profitable with the transport costs involved and tourism aside surely jobs are thin on the ground. I have often contemplated living on Islay. Love the place having spent a bit of time there. Everyone was so friendly and im sure I would fit in well there but I just couldn't make the figures work unfortunately.
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I was only 21 when we moved there - it taught us a huge amount and it was a brilliant thing to have done while we were young, fit and had few responsibilities. I am eternally thankful to have had such a brilliant oportunity at the start of my adult life!
I don't think there are many 21 year olds that would even think it possible to live that way - no clubs, places to hang out and friends to talk to... I am sure it wouldn't have worked for me then, now maybe... Even though we do have neighbours, I can go for days without seeing anyone or speaking to anyone other than my OH and (human) kids, but I do talk to the caprine ones...
Our main concern was actually schooling for the girls when we were looking and we ruled out the islands and North-west of Scotland for that reason. I don't believe in boarding from the age of 12, so we choose to stay where there are local schools (Scottish Borders), even though that meant to keep a mortgage and OH working up in the city 4 days a week... limits what we can do with the holding right now.
I maybe would have considered home-educating them for primary, but not so much for secondary. Just my personal choice, but if you can (and want) to home-educate, then Island life should be fine... (as long as you have a good broadband connection)
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There should be some extra income in some way there
On Arran when I lived there, a photo of someone peat cutting made the front page of the local paper. The photo was taken from the main road which ran past the peat bogs and showed the man was wearing nothing but wellies. :roflanim:
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I know this calender has been done in many variations but here is our local one
http://www.ranningsvallen.se/kalender.html (http://www.ranningsvallen.se/kalender.html)
klick in on Bilder and the various years.
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Think I prefer the ones with their clothes ON.
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Hay was so expensive in the Spring in Shetland due to being very hard to get. I was told it is for sale around us for £45 per round bale again due to late Spring and bad weather. Almost all of our local feed merchants have sold out.
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Hay was so expensive in the Spring in Shetland due to being very hard to get. I was told it is for sale around us for £45 per round bale again due to late Spring and bad weather. Almost all of our local feed merchants have sold out.
thanks. thats really helpful as iv been thinking about downsizing the farm, but maybe not if i need to be self-sufficient in hay. iv never done it myself before but i suppose it cant be that difficult. unless there are reliable contractors around. i did read someones blog in orkney and they mentioned the "silage boys" who came to cut their hay. its a big deal for me - taking animals to an island as iv heard horror stories of incomers not being able to get feed mid-winter and the animals starving to death.
are their any island farming forums around? cos i keep wondering about contractors, feed supplies and also things do they have knackermen or do they still bury carcusses etc
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Our main concern was actually schooling for the girls when we were looking and we ruled out the islands and North-west of Scotland for that reason. I don't believe in boarding from the age of 12, so we choose to stay where there are local schools (Scottish Borders), even though that meant to keep a mortgage and OH working up in the city 4 days a week... limits what we can do with the holding right now.
I maybe would have considered home-educating them for primary, but not so much for secondary. Just my personal choice, but if you can (and want) to home-educate, then Island life should be fine... (as long as you have a good broadband connection)
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Well I boarded from the age of 12 and I turned out alright :innocent:
In fact I would go so far as to say it prepared me far better for real life when i left school/home
As for carcasses, we have dispensation t bury them in the appropriate place etc etc
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Our main concern was actually schooling for the girls when we were looking and we ruled out the islands and North-west of Scotland for that reason. I don't believe in boarding from the age of 12, so we choose to stay where there are local schools (Scottish Borders), even though that meant to keep a mortgage and OH working up in the city 4 days a week... limits what we can do with the holding right now.
I maybe would have considered home-educating them for primary, but not so much for secondary. Just my personal choice, but if you can (and want) to home-educate, then Island life should be fine... (as long as you have a good broadband connection)
[/quote]
Well I boarded from the age of 12 and I turned out alright :innocent:
In fact I would go so far as to say it prepared me far better for real life when i left school/home
As for carcasses, we have dispensation t bury them in the appropriate place etc etc
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the orkney isles we are considering dont send them away til S4, which is 15 yrs. my boy is 14 at present and is more than happy with the idea of staying at school during the week, and im sure he'd have alot more opportunities for hobbies etc than he would staying at home.