Series 5 > Calendar of Fearn

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Council of the Society is pleased
to record that the publication of the
Calendar of Team, with its importance
for the history of Easter Ross, has
been aided by generous sponsorship
from the Glenmorangie Distillery Coy.,
an internationally renowned
malt whisky distillers
based in the area.
The publication of Robin Adam’s edition of the Calendar of Fearn
represents the culmination of a project which has been of very great
interest to the Glenmorangie Distillery Company. With our roots in
Tain, only a few miles from the remains of Fearn Abbey, we would
naturally welcome any research which increases knowledge of our
home district in Ross-shire, but this present project has touched us even
more closely. Next year is the 150th anniversary of the official licensing
of our distillery outside Tain at Glenmorangie, and it has been
especially gratifying to find at this particular time that we have a
personal link to the men who compiled the greater part of the original
Calendar itself, Thomas Ross, the last abbot of Fearn, and his eldest
son, Walter, who converted the former church lands of Morangie into
part of their family estate. It is interesting to note that in the ‘Tain and
Balnagown Documents’ reference is made to the ‘aqua vitae pot still
and ffleak (worm)’ which were numbered amongst Thomas’s
possessions at the time of his death in 1703. It was as laird of Morangie
that Walter Ross was to make additions to his father’s writings. Our
Company’s connection with Fearn has been further reinforced by our
purchase of the Cadboll estate to the east of Tain, another portion
of the monastic lands whose later owners and their doings feature
prominently in the Calendar’s pages.
N. A. H. McKerrow
Managing Director
The Glenmorangie Distillery Coy.