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On Loch Tayside, the farms of Morenish (NN597351), Kiltyrie (NN629367) and Cloichran (NN618343) were cleared by the Marquis of Breadalbane’s factor before the middle of the 19th century. These areas do not include many place-names. The few present are in English or anglicised. The edge of the loch, despite its many bays, points and confluences, and despite the site of the old settlement of Lawers at the water’s edge, is almost entirely devoid of names. It is as if the new sheep farming society had cut the link between water and hill. All had been foreseen by the Lady of Lawers in the mid 17th century.

‘The land will first be sifted, then riddled of its people. The jaw of the sheep will drive the plough from the ground. The homesteads on Loch Tay will be so far apart that a cock will not hear its neighbour crow.’

(Robertson 2006 20)

Toponymic emptiness can be seen in nearby Glen Quaich, cleared by the Marquis’s factor at the same time. There was nobody left to tell the mapmakers what to enter in their name books. Duncan MacGregor Crerar of Glen Quaich wrote from Ontario, Canada: