Ardersier, United Kingdom

Church lands of Ardersier owned by the Bishop of Ross and Delnies had passed into the hands of the Leslies of Ardersier, and they sold them on to Cawdor in the year 1574, "having consideration of the great and intolerable damage, injury, and skaith done to them by Lachlan Mackintosh and others of the Clan Chattan, in harrying, destroying, and making hardships upon the said hail lands of Ardersier and fishings thereof," and no apparent hope of reparation for the "customary enormities of the said Clan Chattan." It is charged against the Mackintoshes that they depauperised the tenants, debarred them from fishing at the stell of Ardersier, breaking their boats and cutting their nets. The Laird of Cawdor was not allowed to have peaceable possession, and he raised an action against Lachlan Mackintosh and his clansmen for the slaughter of several of his servants and tenants. In 1581, Lachlan renounced all claim to the Ardersier lands and to Wester and Easter Delnies, and the legal proceedings were dropped.

After the Jacobite rising of 1745, there was a fear of further French-supported risings, especially of the possibility of a naval assault quickly landing a large number of rebels. The fort provided the facility to house an increased number of soldiers (compared to the original Fort George built in Inverness in 1727) and its position on the coast both guarded the Firth at its narrowest point, and allowed for supplies to be brought in by sea in the event of a land siege.

The requirement for the fort to be built opposite Chanonry Point where the firth narrowed considerably, meant that the population of a small fishing hamlet at the Ness had to resettle about one mile (1.5 kilometres) away on the shores of the Moray Firth. Here were founded two different communities, separated by land ownership. The narrow strip of land along the shore, on which Stewart-town was built belonged to the Earl of Moray and fell within the parish of Petty. Literally across the road, the householders of Campbell-town rented their feus from the Earl of Cawdor, a Campbell. Collectively these two settlements were later referred to by the parish name, as Ardersier, but it was not officially known as such until the late 1970s, thus presenting confusion on postal deliveries to the other Campbeltown in Argyll.

The Annual Reports of the Fishery Board for Scotland provide an insight into the fishing in Arderseir in the years before the First World War. The report for 1900 relates that "the fishermen are principally engaged at the white-fishing. Five large boats were fitted out for the prosecution of the herring fishing on the East and West Coasts of Scotland. Some of the crews were fairly successful." By 1913 we learn that the majority of the fishermen were employed at herring fishing at the principal stations.