Series 1 > Diary of the Reverend John Mill, minister of the parishes of Dunrossness Sandwick and Cunningsburgh in Shetland, 1740-1803. With selections from local records and original documents relating to the district

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INTRODUCTION
COMMISSARIOT OF ORKNEY AND ZETLAND
Testaments, 1611 to 1684, with Index.
Decreets, 1648 to 1668 (fragment).
Sheriff-Court Records—
Sheriff Court of Orkney and Zetland, 1564, etc., and
from 1612 to 1665.
Sheriff Court of Zetland, 1602 to 1604.
II.—Extracts from the Records of the Presrytery of
Zetland anent the Glere Lands of Dunrossness,
1737-1764.
These extracts have been given in fuller detail than was at
first proposed, but they are not without importance as indi¬
cating the confused and dilapidated state in which, in many
instances, the property of the Church must have come down
from earlier times—apparently no distinct title and no clear
definition of boundaries. The origin and history of the glebe
cannot now be learned; but all goes to show that the 10
merks of land in Skelberry, originally intermixed—‘ runrig ’—
with the conterminous properties, formed the patrimony of
the Church and the residence of the parish priest from the
earliest time of a settled parochial system. The ground, like
the revenues, in all likelihood suffered diminution at the
convulsions of the Reformation, though it is true that in
Shetland the transition was accomplished more smoothly than
in most other places. As was common in many districts, the
vicarage of Dunrossness passed into the hands of a layman, as
shown elsewhere in the Appendix.
III.—Account of the Parish of Dunrossness, by the
Rev. John Mill, 1793.
This has already been noticed under the head of Mill’s own
writings, ante.