Engulfed in common ruin

It was not just the Laird who suffered devastation. The same fate befell all those who lived and worked in the Barony of Culbin

It is said that many of the tenants on the estate lingered long in the old habitations, always cherishing the hope that the sand would make no further progress. So determined were some of them to keep possession of their dwellings that when the sand was heaped up in front of their houses they still managed with great labour to clear an entrance but soon the accumulation became too great to be cleared away and at last every way of access in front was completely blocked up. Notwithstanding the threatening appearance of matters they still clung to their abodes and broke out an entrance in the back wall of their houses, but this was only a temporary advantage, for the sand accumulated around them with every wind, and soon overtopped the houses, and at length engulfed them in common ruin.

The pitiless progress of the invading element seems to have been erratic rather than continuous. Sometimes a year or two would elapse without any serious encroachment, and then would come a violent storm, and in a single night many fields would be absolutely obliterated. Frequently, a field ploughed during the day was buried during the night, and at the present day one often sees in the valleys among the sand hills furrow that were turned up more than two hundred years ago. A few decades after the great storm a single farm was all that remained of those once broad and fertile acres of Culbin. Of even that poor remnant nothing now remains. The very names of the hamlets and holdings are as completely forgotten as if they have never been.