Run rig facts for kids
Run rig was a special way of sharing and using farm land in Scotland. It was mostly found in the Highlands and on the Islands. This system was used for growing crops on large, open fields.
No one is completely sure when run rig started. It might have begun in the late Middle Ages. This system slowly faded away between the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Contents
What Was Run Rig?
Run rig was a system where a village's farm land was split into two main parts:
- In-bye land: This was the good land used for growing crops.
- Rough grazing: This was a larger area for animals to graze.
The "in-bye" land was divided into long strips called rigs. These rigs were not owned by one person forever. Instead, they were regularly swapped among the farmers in the village. This made sure that everyone got a turn using the best parts of the land. This regular swapping was a key part of the run rig system.
Most of these farming villages were rented out by a person called a tacksman. The tacksman would then rent smaller parts of the land to the actual farmers. Some tacksmen even rented several villages at once.
How Farmers Worked Together
The way run rig worked could be a bit different depending on the place. Sometimes, farmers worked together a lot. For example, if they used horses to plough the fields, everyone would share the job of ploughing. This was a clear way they cooperated.
However, not all places did this. On the island of Tiree, for instance, there's no sign that farmers shared ploughing teams. Also, in the Hebrides, many farmers used a special tool called a caschrom (a type of foot plough). If you used a caschrom, you didn't need a big team to plough, so less sharing was needed.
Historians have looked at two examples to understand how run rig worked:
- Breadalbane Estate (1785): Here, a typical village had eight farmers. They would all plough the land together. Then, they would divide the land into equal parts. For each crop, they would draw lots to decide who got which part. After that, each farmer would prepare their own section, plant their seeds, and harvest their crops individually.
- North Uist: On this island, farmers used spades and caschroms. The land was divided up before any work started. Each farmer then worked their own section completely by themselves.
So, while some sharing happened, the main idea of run rig was that farmers had their own strips of land mixed in with others. It wasn't about everyone owning everything together. It was more about private property, but with some shared work when it made sense.
The End of Run Rig
From the mid-1700s, the run rig system slowly started to change in Scotland. The "in-bye" land was divided into smaller, fixed areas called crofts. Farmers then rented these crofts for a longer time.
However, run rig didn't disappear everywhere at once. In some parts of the Hebrides, it continued to be used even into the 1900s.
Run Rig vs. Rig and Furrow
It's easy to get "run rig" confused with something called "rig and furrow." They are not the same!
- Run rig is about how land was shared and rented.
- Rig and furrow is about the actual shape of the land. When farmers used horse-drawn ploughs, they would often turn the soil in a way that created permanent ridges and dips in the fields over time. These ridges were called "rigs."
So, a run rig system might or might not have created a rig and furrow landscape. It depended on how the farmers actually worked the soil.
See also
- Open-field system
- Lazy bed
