Duror & Kentallen Parish Review 1990
Aerial view of Duror, image courtesy Natasha Millar
The Review states that “The villages of Duror and Kentallen are intimately linked with significant periods and events in Scottish history, the arrest of James Stewart, James of the Glen, for the murder of Colin Campbell, the Red Fox, being the most famous, described with dramatic licence by Robert Louis Stevenson in Kidnapped."
It continues “By 1900 the land in Duror and Kentallen was divided into four estates: Appin; Keil; Ardsheal; Achara. Appin was the largest and extended almost as far as Glennachulish. These estates were a main source of employment.. with “servants” and "labourers" being the main categories… Numerous tradesmen lived in the area, many employed by the estates.” Showing how dependent the area was on local estates for employment at the time.
However changes were afoot, and “for Duror and Kentallen the major change was the establishment of forestry, affecting the landscape considerably. The Forestry Commission had planted Glenduror by 1926 and employed around twelve women weeding their seedling nursery behind Achindarroch. …in the heyday before mechanisation the Commission employed over 50 workers from a wide area.” Sadly today, that figure has vastly decreased.
After the 2nd World War, the area changed little and “by the 1960s, the village of Duror is described as “a quiet, rural community of farms and crofts, its slopes covered with conifers, its waters yielding seafood. It had one hotel, a shop and Post Office.”
However in the years between 1960s and 1990s, there was “a marked population and housing increase, in its terms almost an explosion, a changed employment scene (more people working from home as its the case today) and the incoming of new groups of residents.”
But some things haven’t changed much. Even in 1990 it was reported that: “There is an active Community Council in Kentallen and Duror. There has been concern for environmental issues, and a bottle bank has been established in the grounds of the Village Hall which is widely used. Crime is virtually unknown but there is a problem of litter along the shores of the loch and the road-side.” The bottle bank is no more, but sadly littering is still a problem!
The difference between the two villages was noted in that “The village of Kentallen presents a somewhat different picture. Population figures show a sharp increase between 1971 and 1981 for which we cannot account, and a fall between 1981 and 1990. Kentallen School closed in 1964, the shop in 1986, and the Post Office in 1988.”