The present village of Dallas was feu’d out about 1811. Prior to that time the bulk of the population of the village stayed in houses on the south side of the Lossie, up towards Hillockhead and Torchastle.
The village stands in a flat valley surrounded by hills – the Wangie to the north, the Mulundy to the north-west, the Hill of Millbuies to the west and Delnahe and the Meikle Hill to the south. The altitude of these hills ranges from about 700 to 1100 feet.
The valley was once an inland loch perhaps stretching from around Dallas Lodge to the Mill of Kellas. The name Dallas is understood to be derived from the fact that a loch had existed – coming from Dale (meaning ‘valley’) and Uis (meaning ‘water’).
The river Lossie entered this loch near the church and school but in those early days it left the loch near Dallas Lodge, flowing through Branchill into the Lochty or Black Burn. As outlined earlier, the previous name for Dallas Lodge was ‘Rhininver House’ which means the house at the headland by the mouth of the water. This backs up the fact that the ancient outlet of the Lossie was towards the west.
A small part of the Loch of Dallas (not to be confused with Loch Dallas, which was at one time in the Parish of Dallas but now lies within the bounds of Altyre Estate) existed until fairly recent times but drainage has meant that this has been reduced to nothing more than some marshy ground. The clearest evidence of the loch is the high bank which can be seen at the end of the valley beyond the Mill of Kellas.
In the olden days, all around the loch was a dense forest in which wild boar and other animals roamed. Remnants of this forest can be found in the peat moss beyond Aultahuish. Roots of the ancient trees have been preserved in the peat and were often uncovered during the digging of the winter fuel.
When the houses were first built in the village, each house was also able to rent a piece of land of 2 Scots acres (which was around 2½ acres). This enabled the householders to grow potatoes and vegetables for household use and grass and hay as fodder for animals. The pieces of land were generally wider than the feus for the houses so, whilst the pieces of land were opposite the houses at the south-west end of the village, by the time it came to the north-east end the land was considerably to the side of the relevant house.
The builders of the first houses in the village must have had considerable foresight in making the street as wide as they did. It was certainly not required for the volume of traffic as can be seen from the following photograph which would have been taken in the early 1900’s.
Compare this to the situation in 2004 from approximately the same position. How many other villages have a street of sufficient width that cars can pass even though there are vehicles parked on either side of the street?
Dallas 2004
Dallas Village
Dallas from the Air Circa 1990
