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V I L L A G E N E W S

T H E G U I S A C H A N G A Z E T T E

Guisachan 2

On-line Auction 2

Aiges Center News 2

Nous, a profile 3

Volunteers Needed 4

Friends Board 4

INSIDE THIS

ISSUE:

Tomich Holidays Hydro Electric Plant Goes into Operation

Power generation in the village of Tomich is moving, in part, into the 21st century. The new hydro-electric plant at Tomich Holidays is being commissioned this month and is expected to be fully operational shortly. It is a “run of river” scheme meaning it takes just a portion of the wa-ter that would normally flow down the burn and then deposits it back in the same water course approximately 1 km downstream. Unlike large hydro schemes, it does not have a dam or reser-voir/loch. As only a 90kw scheme, it is termed a micro hydro.

The system is well hidden, according to Nigel Fraser, proprietor ot Tomich Holidays and was a relatively simple scheme to build. No explosives were needed. The turbine has been imported from the Czech Republic and is the size of a small car. It costs about the same as a three bedroom house according to Fraser. The pipe is made of ductile iron and is 300 mm diameter. The turbine building will be partially buried and covered by Guisachan Larch.

It is plugged straight into the network so it will not supply Tomich Holidays directly as it is too far away. “We are maximizing our green creden-tials to maintain our Green Tourism Gold sta-tus,” says Fraser.

C O F F E E S H O P / F A R M S T O R E The Post Office continues to function as such but come spring, there will be a coffee shop farm store adjacent to the post office.

Just received word the old Guisachan Brewery, now a private home, is coming up for sale.

In November we introduced the Marcia Schlehr Collection of Guisachan Stone jewelry, i.e. pendants of stone upon which Marcia had painted Golden heads. Her latest paintings were of pup-pies. One of our pendants will be in a Feb. 1-6 on-line benefit auc-tion, www.goldenretrieversanctuary.org/page-84.

Now we have moved on to paper weights painted on chunks of stone of various sizes and shapes with a variety of scenes featuring Goldens in many poses.

The first paper weight featured on our Facebook page sold within two hours to someone in Tasmania, Aus-tralia! It seems Marcia had judged there in 2009 and put his dog up with a Challenge Certificate (like Winner’s

M A R C I A S C H L E H R C O L L E C T I O N O F G U I S A C H A N S T O N E A R T

G O L D E N I T E M S N E E D E D F O R S P R I N G O N - L I N E A U C T I O N

Page 2 T H E G U I S A C H A N G A Z E T T E

Two beautiful Anheuser Busch Beer steins featuring Golden Re-

trievers are among the first items to arrive for our spring auction.

Additional items include an autographed copy of Guisachan: A

History, and a fascinating publication, Come Dawn, Come Dusk:

Fifty Years a Gamekeeper by Norman Mursell, gamekeeper to

the Dukes of Westminster.

Elizabeth Platais, daughter of Pagey Elliott who was known for

her hand-cut wooden jigsaw puzzles, is creating a puppy scene

puzzle for the auction.

To donate an item for this on-line silent auction, please con-

tact: Joy Viola at ajviola@verizon.net.

N E W S F R O M N E I G H B O R I N G A I G E S F I E L D C E N T R E

“Gods of the Morning—A Bird’s Eye view of a Highland Year,” by the Scottish natu-

ralist Sir John Lister Kaye, is a new book that follows a year through the turning of

the seasons at Aigas Field Centre in Beauly, adjacent to the Guisachan lands. The

book explores the habits of Highland animals and birds. Sir John is Known to Gold-

en history buffs as the man who once purchased and renovated the Guisachan

kennels and as his home a center of his natural history touring business. The Cen-

tre has now released its extensive roster of 2016 Field Trips .

http://www.aigas.co.uk/

MARCIA’S NOTES FROM THE PAST BY MARCIA SCHLEHR, HISTORIAN,

OF THE GOLDEN RETRIEVER CLUB OF AMERICA

NOUS — FORE FATHER OF THE GOLDEN RETRIEVER

It was the summer of 1865, Father and son, Dudley Marjoribanks and teenage Edward, were walking the

downs north of the seaside town of Brighton on the south coast of England. Along the way, they met a man

with a handsome retriever dog on leash. Marjoribanks, a man with a keen eye for dogs and livestock, was

much taken with this dog of brilliant golden coloring. Engaging the man, a cobbler, in conversation, he was

told that the dog had been given to him by Obed Miles, a gamekeeper for Lord Chichester at the Stanmer es-

tate, in lieu of payment for a debt.

The dog had been the only yellow pup in a litter of black wavy-coated retriev-

ers. Usually “off color” pups were destroyed, black then being the only ac-

cepted color. But Lord Chichesterr had some liking for exotics and animal

curiosities, as evidenced by his private menagerie at Stanmer. So the odd

pup was kept for awhile, though Chichester left matters concerning the work-

ing dogs on the estate to Miles, his head keeper. Miles gave the dog to the

cobbler, when pinched to pay a debt. The cobbler having no use for a retriev-

er was quite willing to accept Marjoribanks’ offer to purchase the young dog.

And so the young golden dog joined the Marjoribanks. It was early summer and only a few days until the en-

tire Marjoribanks household made the semiannual journey from their London townhouse to their Guisachan

estate in the Scottish Highlands. There, Nous joined the rest of the Marjoribanks dogs—pointers, deerhounds,

and retrievers—in the commodious kennels ot the estate. In the hands of the head keeper, Simon Munroe,

the young dog showed a remarkable aptitude for his work and was given the name of Nous, from the Greek

for “wisdom.”

It was from two breedings of Nous with the Tweed Water dog, Belle, that

came the yellows—Crocus, Cowslip, Primrose, and Ada (and possibly

others not recorded.) who lie behind the earliest strain that became

known as Golden Retrievers.

There are two known photographs of Nous taken around 1870 on the

steps of Guisachan House. They show a handsome dog with very typical

Golden Retriever head and expression. His coat is wavy, shaded with

light underparts and darker on back and body. The Guisachan record

book, now in the possession of the Kennel Club in London, ends in 1890.

Not long ago, British historians have found kennel records from Lord

Portsmouth (who purchased Guisachan circa 1908) and some oth4ers,

which strengthen the connection between Marjoribanks’ retrievers and

the earliest registered with the Kennel Club.

And today, nearly a century and a half later than Nous, we can still see

his talent, his wisdom, his noble features, in the best of our modern Gold-

en Retrievers. Though they may not all be serving the gun as Nous did,

many of them are doing work that no one in the 19th century could have

envisioned— as service dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, guides for the

blind, scent detection dogs, and others.

T H E G U I S A C H A N G A Z E T T E Page 3

Friends of Guisachan

P.O. Box 101

Wayland, MA 01778 USA

Email: contactus@friendsofguisachan.org

The Friends of Guisachan was established in 2013. Since that time, funds were raised for the commissioning

of the bronze life-size Golden Retriever statue that now rests along the village road to the Guisachan Mansion

ruins in Tomich, Inverness-shire, Scotland. A Walking Guide to Historic Guisachan also has been published

and distributed free of charge to area hotels and businesses to aid visitors in understand the life of 19th centu-

ry Guisachan.

Volunteers Needed

Volunteers are needed to help the Friends of Guisachan with Mail/Chimp and with

helping to augment our presence on the world-wide web. If you have a talent for

working with computers, we’d love to hear from you.

We’d also like to find volunteers to contact Golden Retriever Clubs on every conti-

nent (well, maybe not Antarctica) to establish links to our website and develop com-

munication networks within individual countries. Can you help? If so, please con-

tact Joy Viola, President, Friends of Guisachan email: AJVIOLA@Verizon.net

Board of Directors and Officers

John Cotter, Chairman, President emeritus, Golden Retriever Club of America (GRCA)

Marcia Schlehr, Author, Artist and Historian, Golden Retriever Club of America (GRCA)

Ainslie Mills, Golden Retriever Club of Canada & Judges Education Committee Chair, Golden Retriever Club of America

Joy Viola, President, past Director of Development, Golden Retriever Foundation

Patricia Lindquist, Secretary-Treasurer, past Treasurer, Yankee Golden Retriever Club

Advisory Board

Doreen McGugan, Chair, Golden Retriever Club of Scotland

Jackie & Bernard Gill, Proprietors, Tomich Hotel, Tomich, Inverness-shire, Scotland

Marilynn Morphet, author, Golden Retrievers: Research into the First Century in the Show Ring and Golden

Retrievers, the E-Book (due out 2016); Past Secretary, Australian National Golden Retriever Council.

Webmaster

Janette Stubelt

Visit our website: www.friendsofguisachan.org.

Chat with us on Facebook

Check out our website on-line Store with our many exclusive hand made

Guisachan tweed items and the Marcia Schlehr Collection of Guisachan stone

pendants and paper weights.