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The first Esson living on the hillside is believed to have been John Esson who, in 1847, married Sarah Findlater, daughter of one of the original colonist families, James Findlater and his wife Ann Ross.

This could be Esson’s old house. Three families of the Esson’s settled on the Colony in the mid-1840s, before living at Boghead of Tullos. In 1860, evidence suggests that this ruin was a former Esson house which was divided for two pauper families’…

There are two quarries on the Bennachie colony - the one you can see here and another about 50 m north in the woods. This quarry is shown on the Ordnance Survey 25" map surveyed in 1866-7. An earlier map produced in 1844, for division of the…

Shepherd’s Lodge was the home of the Littlejohn family. David Littlejohn was born 24 August 1838 – the second recorded birth on the Colony. The Littlejohn’s had a large family of twelve children although not all are recorded living on the hillside at…

This is the Western-most croft of the colonies and it is said that when the foundations were first laid, the Laird’s men kept knocking them down. But persistence prevailed and eventually the house was built.