There will be no further Carmichael Car Boot Sales in the Visitor Centre and Farm Shop car park during 2017. The Car Boot Sale at Carmichael will be relaunched in the Spring of 2018. Please keep in touch for further details.
Category Archives: Carmichael news
The Carmichael Day – Wednesday August 23rd 2017 – Clan Carmichael Gathering 2017
For those who are unable to join the full Clan Gathering but would like to join us for the Carmichael Day on August 23rd we have created two special options:
The Carmichael Day is a full day of activities, food, music, laughter and dancing on the Clan lands at Carmichael Estate. The schedule for the day is currently as below but is still subject to change:
Morning : Clan Carmichael march from Eagle Gates to Kirk Hill to Carmichael House
Late morning : Mini Highland Games
Midday ish : Carmichael Meats BBQ in the Gathering Field Carmichael Estate
Afternoon : Scottish Heritage Demonstrations
Evening : Clan Ceilidh and Buffet Dinner
Option 1 – Carmichael Day Ticket – £100 per person
This option gives access to the full program of events on Wednesday 23rd August at Carmichael Estate as outlined above. The option includes the Clan BBQ, all activities on the day and attendance of the Clan Ceilidh and Dinner (own tartan attire required). The ticket price does not include any travel arrangements, accommodation or beverages.
Option 2 – Carmichael Day BBQ Ticket – £30 per person
This option gives access to the Carmichael Day BBQ and the Scottish Heritage Demonstrations on the 23rd August at Carmichael Estate. The ticket price does not include any travel arrangements, accommodation, beverages or attendance at the Clan Ceilidh.
Those that would like to join us for the Splash of Tartan event at Edinburgh Castle on the 24th August we are able to purchase specially allocated Edinburgh Tattoo tickets on your behalf while they are available until the end of February 2017. Tickets can be purchased by following the link. Own transport, accommodation and meal arrangements are required.
If you would like to be included in the full gathering arrangements please look at the Clan Gathering 2017
A Splash of Tartan
Its official Clan Carmichael will be opening The Edinburgh Military Tattoo on August 24th 2017 in conjunction with the McThomas Clan in what is set to be a spectacular event! The Chief’s retinue will march into the Edinburgh Castle esplanade in front of 8000 + spectators in this unique ‘splash of tartan’ event.
To join the occasion please look for further details of the Clan Carmichael International Gathering on the carmichael.co.uk website – Seats are very limited to this sell out event, so early clan gathering booking is advised.
Clan Carmichael Gathering Highland Tour 2017
Saturday August 26 to Wednesday August 30 2017
Originally designed to encourage Carmichael Gatherers from overseas to stay longer in Scotland to make the long flight more worthwhile, and always led by your Chief in the belief that “real clans and families holiday together”, the Highland tour has in recent years always been my last tour. However each time we launch our Gathering plans I am implored to do just one more. I have led 10 extraordinary tours over the last 33 years to all corners of Scotland and even to Cornwall and France so where to go, and what to do in August 2017?
My answer is we start again.
Our first Gathering tour in the early 1980’s celebrated the origins of the west coast Carmichaels (originally macghilliemichels), often historically kinsmen of the MacDougalls and Stewarts of Appin and Stewarts of Galloway, but more recently the forefathers of many of our overseas enthusiasts in modern day global Clan Carmichael. Its time to do so again!
Patricia and I propose taking you to visit the beautiful Isles of Lismore, Mull and Iona as well as mainland castle and Abbey attractions and basing ourselves for four nights in a fine hotel on the sea shore in the beautiful port of Oban in Argyll.
The 2017 tour will leave Carmichael on Saturday August 26th and will have lunch at Loch Lomond and dinner in Oban. It will return to Carmichael, or we can drop you at your Scottish airport, in the early afternoon of Wednesday August 30th .
All transport, taxes 20%, gratuities, meals, ferries, entry fees and accommodation (but no bar snacks, wines, beers etc) are included in the fixed price as well as the co
mpany and leadership of your Chief and his lady Patricia.
Spaces are very limited and regretfully the tour and its castles, ferries, abbeys, hotels and mini buses are really unsuited to the disabled and young children. There are very limited single places and very limited twin bedded rooms so first come first serve with your deposit to secure a place.
The fixed price for the five days in a double ro
om is £1350 per head with a deposit of £350 per head (payable now) required to secure a place. Single room supplement (whilst available) £150. Balance due 30 June 2017. Regret deposit is non refundable. You must insure yourself for all possible reasons that you may choose to cancel. Balance once paid is fully refundable before July 31st and non refundable thereafter.and non refundable thereafter.
- Highland Tour deposit – double or twin room occupancy – £350 deposit to secure your place
- Highland Tour deposit – single room – £350 deposit to secure your place (£150 supplement to final balance)
To book your place on the Highland Tour please follow this link to pay your deposit. Book your place on the 2017 Highland Tour
Chief Richard
Clan Carmichael Gathering 2017 Announced
Monday August 21st to Saturday August 26th 2017
Following previous gatherings at Carmichael Scotland in 1983, 1986, 1990, 1993, 1996, Roots 1997, 2000, 2004, 2007, Homecoming 2009, 2010 and 2014 we are pleased to announce our 2017 gathering.
Background ..Visit Scotland and Event Scotland have announced that 2017 is to be the Year of History, Heritage & Archaeology and this has inspired the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo to incorporate ‘A Splash of Tartan’ as the theme for their 25 night 2017 production on the castle Esplanade in Edinburgh. To emphasise this theme 25 Chiefs of Scottish Clans and Families have been invited to “host” each of the nights and to have their Clan tartan “splashed” on the castle walls. Carmichael has successfully been awarded the 22nd event which is at 9pm on Thursday August the 24th 2017.
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is a sell out event every year with over 225,000 seats and in early 2016 has gone global with events in Melbourne Australia and Wellington New Zealand. In 2018 it will go to the Gulf States and in 2020 to China. It has a TV audience each rear which globally runs to billions.
Apart from the tartan splash, which is effectively liquid lights, the themes for 2017 are major anniversaries for India, Canada and Quebec and the featured senior service is the Royal Navy. Scotland’s King Robert The Bruce had a navy on the west coast 300 years before any others.
To ensure we do our Carmichael night proud on August 24th we need a good turn out of tartan clad clan members and accordingly our gathering in 2017 will start on Monday August 21st with clan members being picked up from either Edinburgh or Glasgow airports, accommodated in clan lands cottages or local hotels and after the usual mix of historic tours and banquets a big day out in Festival city Edinburgh will conclude at the spectacular tattoo. The gathering will disband on Saturday morning August 26th.
As the Tattoo is a total sell out each year the clans are being given an early booking window from November 1st 2016 so you urgently need to start planning to attend now. As we set out to work out our timetable and costs in more detail early indications of numbers likely to attend are needed now (email thechief@carmichael.co.uk) so we can reserve our clan seats before the deadline. If there is sufficient demand a Highland Tour led again by your Chief and his Lady will follow the gathering in the week starting August 26 2017.
For up to date information on the 11th Clan Carmichael International Gathering please follow the link
Richard Carmichael of Carmichael
30th Chief of the Name & Arms
26th Baron of the lands of Carmichael
August 19 2016.
Scottish Water sells part of ancient family Estate Policy Ground in the National Interest
International press release
Scottish Water sells part of ancient family Estate Policy Ground in the National Interest.
In the year 1058 Queen Margaret established an early Christian church dedicated to the Archangel Saint Michel on a hill “caer” site in Clydesdale and within 200 years the people of our district became “Caer-michels” or “de Carmichael”.
My family have been established here since 1292 and probably earlier. After the Independence struggle we were rewarded by King Robert The Bruce, through The Good Sir James Douglas for services at Bannockburn with a Barony land grant, and I remain today the 26th Baron of those lands and indeed 30th Chief of the name. Throughout history the Baron kept the king’s peace in the district and looked after the people of the district, including ensuring there was water in their wells and food in winter with fresh meat from his dovecot.
In 1750 The Third Earl of Hyndford was ambassador to Prussia for King George and Great Britain and invested considerable sums in landscaping the Policies at the core of the Barony ancient lands. As can be seen on the attached 18th Century plan this project included Bannockburn “shiltron” roundels and Union Jack ditches and plantations to represent both sides of our Scotland origin and UK present reality. This certainly demonstrates that he was a great diplomat in a debate that is current today.
In 1944 The British Parliament passed The Rural Water Supplies & Sewerage Act, which provided Councils with public funds for improving rural water supplies for schools and community, and in 1957 my Cousin, the 25th Baron, sold “in consideration of the price of One Pound Sterling” various sites including a 121 sq m tank site, within the landscaped Policy boundaries and yards from the westernmost shiltron roundels. The disposition was “in favour of the said The County Council of the County of Lanark and their successors as such authority according to the true intent and meaning of the said Act and to their assignees whomsoever heritably and irredeemably”. There was no provision in either the 1944 Act or the 1957 disposition for redundant sites to be returned to original owners. However it is probable that “the true intent and meaning” of the 1944 Act, in persuading the historic land proprietor to part with a number of sites for a pound, anticipated the sit
es would be restored and returned when no longer required. Throughout my 35 years at Carmichael the tank site known as the Carmichael Crossridge Service Reservoir has been in constant use for farms and houses at Crossridge, Newside and Bowhouse. Indeed until recently water board employees regularly visited my office and even in early 2015 the community thought the tank was still in use and it is clearly still signed as such. The boundary fence is broken and various metal hatches and pipes litter the farm ground outside the site. Clearly no attempt at cleaning up the site ready for sale has been made.
On 25 February Scottish Water as successors to Lanark County Council and West of Scotland Water sold the tank site at SVA Auctions in Edinburgh for £2100 as lot 30. Although I am a client at SVA Auctions, and although Scottish Water are familiar with my office and ownership of the ground that surrounds the tank site, no attempt was made to inform me or anyone in the district of the proposed sale. As can be seen in this picture a small SVA auction sale sign was placed on the site, which is barely visible or readable from the public road, and was not spotted even by neighbours who pass every day, until March 8th. This being the date I first became aware of the sale, although adverts were apparently placed in newspapers as far away as John O Groats around February 17th, no press advert was placed in our local Lanark Gazette or The Glasgow Herald, the newspapers read by most people in our district.
Last year Clan Carmichael celebrated the 700 anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn with some 45 clan members from six different countries returning to their clan lands for Homecoming 2014. The attached pictures were taken with, then First Minister, Alec Salmond at Bannockburn field. The realisation that there would have been no Clan lands at the source of our name without the Barony grant after that battle, was sufficient incentive to bring the descendants of our forefathers home from as far away as New Zealand.
I had asked Scottish Water to reconsider their sale of this lot before
completion, to the as yet still unknown purchaser, but was advised in a letter dated 23 March by Tom Axford, Head of Legal, that it could not be stopped as a binding contract is in place between Scottish Water and the purchaser.
Since the 1944 Act, watersupplies have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Ministers, and if this sale is truly in the national interest I would be very surprised. It is an injustice and an affront to our global Clan Carmichael heritage. It is an insult and a demonstration of gross ingratitude for the services provided by successive Carmichael Barons to improve water for our rural community, and is against everything the current SNP government has striven to achieve since gaining power at Holyrood in 2007. It demonstrates a disregard for our heritage landscape and sets an appalling precedent for government supported injustice by ignoring the “true meaning” of the 1944 Act.
Richard Carmichael of Carmichael
25 March 2015
Bad week for Carmichael Heritage property
History of Policies of Carmichael.
1) Source of name 1058 church on “Caer” dedicated saint “michael”
2) First recorded use of surname Carmichael by people of the district 1250
3) earliest record of member of Chief’s family here 1292
4) Barony land grant after Bannockburn battle 1350 (includes this site)
5) Cromwell demolishes Carmichael castle 1650 first Carmichael “immigrants” to America
6) Earl of Hyndford rebuilds and creates historic design landscape of ancient Policies 1750 (Union Jack ditches & Bannockburn roundels) (includes this site)
7) 1957 small portion (121 sq m ) of ancient Policy ground on Crossridge sold for less than a £1 under compulsory purchase provision of 1944 Water supply Act for community benefit to build a tank reservoir called the Carmichael Crossridge Water Service reservoir. Tank built with public UK funds through local Council “in the spirit and true meaning” of the 1944 Water Supply Act.
8) 1957 -2015 we host Scottish Water’s local community water supply tank in our field thinking it is still in use today.
8) 2015 Feb 25 Scottish Water secretly sell site at SVA Property Auction to (unknown) highest bidder for £2100 without informing local community or previous owner (ourselves) that the tank is no longer in use. Estate owner (30th Chief) informed of sale 10 days later, date of entry of new owner is forecast as 25 March 2015. It could even be an Armstrong arch enemy ?
9) 1000 years of Carmichael name heritage control of this small hill site comes to an end through an act of local community service desecrated by a ruthless greedy successor to a vital local public utility.
10) Apparently the sale is (possibly) legal as the 1944 Act made no provision for such sites to be returned to original owners when no longer required for community water storage.
If you feel concerned as a “Carmichael” who has had part of their heritage land stolen after a millenium in this way then follow this saga urgently and contribute
@chiefcarm on twitter or email your views to customer.services@scottishwater.co.uk
Reference lot 30 SVA Property Auction sale 25 Feb 2015 “Carmichael Crossridge water service reservoir”
Legal or not its a crime against our clan lands and heritage and an insult against our fine name.
Richard Carmichael of Carmichael – 30th chief
Last orders for Christmas Meats and Clan Gifts now closed.
Delicious Carmichael Estate Farm Meats, including our award winning venison, beef and lamb are available for order on our website. The last day for sending out mail order deliveries for Christmas and New Year, i.e. deliveries between Monday 21st and Tuesday 12th January has now closed. Orders can also be placed via the website for collection at Glasgow Farmers’ market taking place on Wednesday 23rd December until Sunday 20th December. Please telephone 01899308336 for meats with limited availability.
We also have a wide range of Clan Carmichael crested gifts that can be ordered and shipped almost anywhere in the world.
Have a great festive season everyone!
Carmichael Meats on STV
STV at 6pm St Andrews Day 30th Nov 2014. Watch out for Carmichael Estate Farm Meats sourced and cooked by Chef Jacqueline O’Donnell of the Sisters Restaurant Glasgow. 7 mins 50 seconds in, also available on STV Player below
Jak & Eddie’s Best of Scottish Food – Featuring Carmichael Estate Farm Meats
Carmichael Estate Beef Promotion – 15% Discount
As a special thank you to our customers we are offering an amazing 15% discount on our award winning Carmichael Estate Beef ordered before the 18th November 2014. All you need to do is enter the PROMO CODE: AUTUMN BEEF at checkout and either collect it from a farmers’ market near you, pick it up from our farm shop or have it delivered direct to your door.
Delicious well hung beef this autumn. Stock up on prime cuts before the Christmas rush!
PROMO CODE: AUTUMN BEEF
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