The Colonist
This is the name of a group of people that lived on the slopes of Bennachie in the 1800s. By 1850 there were 60 people living on the hill. They moved to the slopes of Bennachie as there was a shortage of land locally.

The Colony
About the start of the 19th century one or two pioneers went up into the lower lying hill land of Bennachie and began to make a living off the land.  The Hill (mostly treeless and covered with low scrub and heather) was also Common Land. These pioneers "squatted" on the land, building walls and little homesteads with stones from the fields. These people were quiet and hard working and earned their living labouring on nearby farms, building dykes and working at the harvest. All went well for about 50 years, during which land was improved, buildings altered and life was secure, if a bit hard. In 1859 however, the court action raised in 1844 to divide the Common land among the eight neighbouring estates succeeded. This meant that the land, clawed back from the Hill , became the property of the neighbouring landowners. The squatters then became tenants. When times got really bad in the 1800s, rents became impossible to pay and the squatters were squeezed off the land. One Colonist -George Esson, refused to admit defeat and died there in 1938. The croft still bears his name.
The Bailies of Bennachie have funded research  (by Jennifer Fagen) into the families and this work will be published early next year.

Bennachie Settlers
A research project on The Bennachie Settlers was produced by Marcia Hendry who has been very kind in allowing us to use it on our website, if you would like to read this document please click here.

Colony Surveying June 2010
A short version of this article was printed in our 2010 Newsletter, to read the full article click here.

Colony Walk Leaflet
The Bailies of Bennachie are producing a series of leaflets with information about the Colony Walk, the first leaflet shows the route for the walk with numbers that correspond to numbered posts at each colony site, this leaflet is about to go to print and will be available from the Bennachie Centre soon, if you would like to print a copy of this leaflet now please  click here, we would really appreciate feedback on this leaflet, ie: did you find it easy to follow, how long did it take you etc.
The next leaflets will explain about each Colony site, who lived there, how they made a living etc.
If you are related to any of the families who used to live on the Colonies on Bennachie we would love to hear from you.