Helmsdale - 1890

During the nineteenth century the village of Helmsdale in Sutherland was one of the largest centres for herring fishing in Scotland. The village and harbour were built around 1818 as part of efforts at economic development by the Sutherland Estate. The new fishing port was intended to provide employment and housing for families who had been forcibly driven out from farms in the Kildonan area during the Highland clearances. This reconstruction shows how Helmsdale may have looked in about 1890, when the herring trade was still thriving. Fish was unloaded on the shore and then taken along to the curing yards, where it was processed and packed into barrels for transport to other parts of the United Kingdom and overseas. Herring from Helmsdale was sent as far away as the West Indies – where in the early nineteenth century it formed part of the diet of slaves working on the plantations. The modern Timespan centre is on the site of the nineteenth century curing yard represented in this reconstruction.

Sarah Kennedy, Jacquie Aitken, Iain Oliver, Adeola Fabola, Lucy Hardie, Catherine Anne Cassidy, Alan Miller

Jacquie Aitken (Timespan)

The reconstruction is rooted is research undertaken by the team at the Timespan Centre, and in particular advice from Jacquie Aitken (Heritage Officer for Timespan). There survive early nineteenth-century plans for the original design of Helmsdale, as well as a number of later maps. There are also numerous Victorian photographs, both of the buildings and of men and women at work in the fishing industry, which heavily informed this representation.

A digital landscape was created using survey data and height map. Models were created in 3D modelling programs and imported into UNREAL (a cross-platform game engine for creating virtual worlds). The models were then scaled, orientated and assembled. The landscapes were populated with flora and fauna. Where applicable, models of characters and animals were imported and animated.