Talk:Reawick House

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia

Lease from Danish crown

Oddrun, I know that Historic Scotland says Reawick had formed part of the large Vaila Estate which the Cheynes had leased from Denmark after Gorvil Fadersdatter had resigned the estate to the Danish crown circa 1580 but we should check this with the Cheyne-family papers kept in Shetland Archive because we do have the clear fact, that Vaila Estate was granted to Robert Cheyne of Ury and 1st of Vaila (* ca 1545) in 1576 by royal charter of James VI. At that time Shetland "was Scottish" - at least administratively - since a couple of years and whatever Gorvil might have done it seems questionable whether or not it had any effect ... although other land transactions of the time were dealt with at the court of Bergen. It's a bit like twighlight zone following the pawning ... ;-) Islandhopper 10:38, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

I just wrote down some info I found in Mike Finnie's book "Shetland".......I left out the part about that Danish woman, whoever she was ;-)....Someplace I saw that the island of Vaila was earlier owned by someone from Giske....That could make sense, because that was the place the Earls of Møre came from, so connections to that part of Norway could exist...Oddrun 11:06, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

Just found ... see Liv Schei's The Shetland Story, p 199, 2nd § ... That's most probably the story which solves the 'problem' ... Dame Gurweill Fatherisdochter sold Vaila to Mr Robert Cheyne with the land deed confirmed by the Scottish Privy Council on 3rd March 1576 ...
Giske: That story belongs to Papa Stour with the lands of Herdis Thorvaldsdatter (who also owned Giske) passing into the hands of Inger Ottersdatter Romer from Austrat ;-) Islandhopper 11:40, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

The Papa Stour story is another story, now I've left out every Danish connection...Hope its OK now. Oddrun 13:46, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

OK, I can't make sense of this old houses stuff, and Oddrun can't put it in plain English, or even plain Norwegian ;-)
Question is,,, Can we take any of the information in Mike Finnie's book as being accurate.???
I'm beginning to think, looking at it from a 'non house person' aspect that Mike Finnie has written a lot of crap if his info is wrong again..
Confused...
Robbie 14:12, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

Robbie, what other info was wrong? Don't see any. For this particular case: I haven't my copy available for a few weeks because I let it to a friend, so I can't check it only via Historic Scotland entries which do not state whether or not the "notes" they have added beside the technical descriptions do refer to Finnie or any other source and the references shown on the HS records are set between the technical descriptions and the notes ...
For all the technical information there is simply no other expert than Finnie. And these technical descriptions are absolutely ok esp. when you do compare them with the old photographic stuff from the museum. They are somtimes a bit 'compressed' for publication on the HS website what sometimes might lead to an error.
Example: Reading the text description of Lunna House only you might (as I did when I made the graph) understand the new sewmi-octagonal entrance as part of the 18th century extension but if you then look at the Museums pics you will easily find out that it has nothing in comon with the old design but is totally matching with all details of the 20th century extension. Going then back to the text you will easily identify the reason for that error - it's a missing semicolon or full stop in the text ... :-)

So what to do? For the questions how the Cheyens did acquire Vaila Estate we do have both versions in the records published on the HS/Pastmap website: The James's version on the Vaila page, the Norwegian's (not Danish) Dame version on the Reawick site, So we could make either proper quotes in this case linking to the higher ranked HS websites as additional info to official records but not quoting Finnie and/or a reference pointing out to the fact that there is a controversy - and in this particular case - quoting form Liv Schei what might solve that problem.

If you want I would restore the original text and add such a footnote to show how we could deal with such things. The subjects and details may be different - houses, wrecks, birds, place names &c - but the problem is 'universal' and will allways happen here and then ... ;-) Islandhopper 15:18, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

I think it's best to leave it as it is....We know nothing about how accurate that Shei woman is...There might be a lot of wrong things in her article too...When we not know, it's best to say nothing,,, maybe there will come someone who knows ....Oddrun 15:30, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

Islandhopper, ;-)
Didn't mean to be controversial, it's just that if Finnie is supposed to be the expert on the subject, then surely it is ok to quote from his publication.
If that quote is immediately picked up as being wrong, then his info is in error.
I've only glanced through the book, and questioned a few things, but then I know nothing about the old houses, so I assumed I was wrong.. Now I wonder.
I think the best way to treat it is to use his publication for dates only, which are easy to check with other sources, and hope that we can find more definitive details on the houses possibly from local history groups. That way we won't have any problems :-)
Robbie 15:45, 9 September 2007 (MDT)

*GGG* Well, Oddrun, that touches a very sensible point which I don't want to discuss in public ... ;-))) But for the whole of her 264 pages I didn't find any wrong in her text (1st edition I refer to) with some minor points regarding the withdrawl of the Hanseatic League from Orkney/Shetland ... absolutely minor and no "normal user" would find these details without checking the original responses in the archives of the hanseatic towns over here ... ;-)

@Robbie: I see what you mean but as far as I know Finnie was partly commissioned by HS to carry out that work ... because there was no other expert ... ;-) Islandhopper 15:59, 9 September 2007 (MDT)