Badenoch

The area is bounded on the north by the Monadhliath Mountains, on the east by the Cairngorms and Braemar, on the south by Atholl and the Grampians, and on the west by Lochaber.

[11] In the mid-1750s, the first flood banks on the River Spey in Badenoch were built at Pitmain,[12] just southwest of the modern day edge of Kingussie.

High timber prices during the Napoleonic Wars led to substantial tree felling in Glenmore, Rothiemurchus, Inshriach and Glen Feshie, with many of the logs being floated down the Spey to the coast.

[13] Farming tenants suffered hardship again in the years 1836-39 when severe weather resulted in crop failures and substantial losses of livestock.

The requirement that deer forests be free of sheep and cattle brought the hill farming economy of these areas to an end, resulting in more people leaving the land.

In 1836, Ewen Macpherson of Cluny converted his lands of Benalder and Gallovie (Ardverikie) into one large deer forest for James Hamilton, Marquis of Abercorn.

[9] A significant proportion of the population was dependent on seasonal employment outwith the Highlands, but depopulation as a result of large-scale emigration occurred later in Badenoch than in other areas.

Poor market prices, harvest failures, farm amalgamations, rent rises and the creation of sheep walks and deer forests led to a steady exedus of people from the 1830s onwards.