Inver Cottage - Deeside 2014
The images presented here by Alistair Cassie whose father, George, and grandfather, Adam, worked for the Forestry Commission for most of their working lives.
Alistair recalls that this house was built by the Forestry Commission in the 1950s as a forest worker’s house initially with a sheet asbestos roof and cement rendered steel sheet laths formed the walls over its un-insulated wooden frame structure. Indeed a far from cosy home in cold winter weather!
Alistair recalls that there were at one time two wood cutter huts on the opposite side of the road at Inver.
The first Forestry Commission tenant in the house was Jim Walsh, a Newfoundlander originally based at the wartime timber camp at Dalmuchie, who married a local Ballater girl, Peggy Henderson, and joined the Forestry Commission as a worker after the war. As time passed the Forestry Commission sold the house at auction and it was bought privately and updated by the new owners with a slate roof as shown in the photographs along with most likely other internal improvements.
Since this photograph was taken the old Inver Cottage has been demolished and a new modern house built in its place. Alistair remembers that bats were found in the roof and a car port with a bat roost had to be built to re-accommodate them.
Any more details of the original house and the names of other people who stayed there would be very welcome.
Groups: Buildings in Forests, Forestry Areas