Ray Colliers Wildlife in the North – Doocots

Many people who are interested in wildlife eventually think in terms of recording what they see by photography and there is  great satisfaction from obtaining images.   It also gives a chance to look at certain  features, of say birds, more closely when you look at the  photographs.       In the same way you can assess and interpret buildings and such is the case with the doocot shown here.  It is close to  Cadboll near the east coast and  to the “Seaboard villages”  of Hilton, Balintore and Shandwick.    It is one of a number of doocots in the Highlands, a total of 50 if you include the Northern Isles that has 15,  Inverness-shire (inc Skye) has 9, Caithness 9, Ross-shire 8 whilst Sutherland   only has 4 and Nairnshire 5.   To my mind Cadboll in Ross-shire is the finest and most impressive of them all.   It was built around 1700 and, with the scattering of icehouses in the Highlands, indicates a bygone age long forgotten and past.

Doocots were made to hold pigeons, in the Highlands called “doos”, and they were there to supply the larger landowners with food all the year round before the days  of refrigeration.      Adult birds and eggs were harvested although the main source of meat came from the young birds called “squabs”.   In an old cookery book I have there are no less than 11 recipes for squabs that were very much prized.   So the design of the doocots was based entirely on the needs of the doos and you can readily see this from the outside.  There  are several  designs that include octagonal, cylindrical and rectangular, whilst the  Cadboll example is called a lectern after its shape.   The access holes  for the doos can be seen in the photograph and shows  six on the dormer slope and this slope is facing south for catching the warmth  of the sun.  There are another two access holes  in the east gable.

Much has been written about the alighting ledges so that the birds can land or  sun themselves or simply rest during  the day.  However, the continuous ledges, two can be seen in the photograph,  that some  authors put down as alighting ledges could have had another use.      Some people think these ledges are in fact rat ledges to stop brown rats from  predating the doos and their eggs and  squabs.  The fact that they are incorporated into the design and built before brown rats became widespread problem  is interesting.  Could it be that the rat ledges were simply copied from doocot  designs brought in from the continent where rats were a problem?   As for the doos, when they were inside the doocot there were a series of boxes designed for their nests and the Cadboll doocot had room for over 400 nests.   This meant a continuous supply of food but the sheer numbers, in  the latter years of the overall use of doocots, led to serious probelsm.

To realise this problem you only have to look at a difference in the design of this doocot to any other in the Highlands.  On the top is what is commonly referred  to as a weather  vane which may at first look like any figure of a man.  However,  this is supposed  to be a likeness to a Crawford Ross, a tacksman with the “vane”  showing his likeness to a gentleman with his hunting attire, breeches, high boots and tall hat.   It commemorates the fact that he altered the basic design of the doocot.  He had installed a new ceiling  inside that effectively split the doocot into two with the top still used as a normal doocot and the bottom  a store.   Other doocots already had this split level or had it installed afterwards.  The problem was that the number of doos started causing problems over the small grain crops  managed by local crofters.  So a decision to lower the  number of doos was taken in many doocots.   In the Cadboll  case this was carried out  in 1863,   a fact registered  by the  date  on the lintel on the small low door to ground level.  Whilst in this case the lower part became a store in other doocots they were used for other purposes, including in one case a small pig sty.