Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Fearn

Fearn, a village and a coast parish of NE Ross and Cromarty. The village, Hill of Fearn, stands 50 feet above sea-level, 1¼ mile E by S of Fearn station, on the Highland railway, this being 3½ miles SE of Tain, and 22 NE of Dingwall; at it is a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and railway telegraph departments. The parish, containing also the fishing villages of Balintore and Hilton of Cadboll, 2½ miles SE and 2¾ ESE of Hill of Fearn, is bounded NW by Tain, NE by Tarbat, SE by the Moray Firth, S by Nigg, and SW and W by Logie-Easter. Its utmost length, from E to W, is 5 miles; its utmost breadth, from N to S, is 45/8. miles; and its area is 77117/8. acres, of which 123½ are foreshore and 289¼ water. The coast-line, 3¼ miles long, rises steeply near Geanies in precipitous cliffs to a height of 200 feet above the sea, but southward is low and sandy; inland the surface is much of it nearly flat, and nowhere exceeds 150 feet. Loch Eye (1¾ mile x 4½ furl.; 51 feet), on the Tain border, is almost the only lake that has not been drained; and there are no streams of any consequence. The predominant rock is Old Red sandstone; but the small vein of limestone that runs from the North Sutor to Tarbat Ness, crops out at Geanies. The soil is largely a very rich fertile loam, and agriculture is carried to high perfection, steam-ploughing having been introduced in 1875, whilst from a little knoll near Cadboll no fewer than eighteen steam-stalks may be counted. Cattle-feeding, too, is carried on, especially on the farms of the Cadboll property, belonging to Macleod of Invergordon. Geanies estate underwent great improvement from 1840 under the care of that eminent agriculturist, Kenneth Murray, Esq. (1826-76), who succeeded his brother in 1867, and who extended the arable area from 2016 to 4000 acres, the new land being partly reclaimed from bog and moss, partly from moor, and partly from lochs. Geanies House, 4 miles ENE of Hill of Fearn, commands a glorious view over the Moray Firth, and is now the seat of his son, William Hugh Eric Murray, Esq. (b. 1858), who holds 5303 acres in the shire, valued at £4401 per annum (only £2160 in 1843). Other mansions are Allan House and Rhynie House, standing 1¼ mile SW and 1½ NE of Hill of Fearn. The Præmonstratensian Abbey of Fearn was founded in 1221 by Ferchard Macintaggart, Earl of Ross, in Edderton parish, but in 1338 was transferred to Fearn to escape the ferocity of neighbouring clans. Of its twenty-one abbots the fifteenth was the protomartyr of the Scottish Reformation, Patrick Hamilton (1503-28), who was burned at St Andrews. He was but a youth when he obtained the abbacy in 1524, and it is doubtful whether he ever took orders; anyhow his connection with Fearn was little more than titular. The abbey church comprised a nave, a choir (99 x 25½ feet), a Lady chapel, and-two transeptal chapels. First Pointed mainly in style, with later insertions and additions, the whole having been completed by Abbot James Cairncross in 1545. It served as the parish church from the Dissolution till 1742, when on a Sunday of October the ponderous stone roof fell in, as graphically told in Hugh Miller's Scenes and Legends, under the title of ` The Washing of the Mermaid.' Forty-four persons were killed, and more must have lost their lives, but that the stalwart preacher, Robertson of Gairloch, set his shoulder against the door, and so propped up the side wall. The pile lay in ruins till 1772, when it was patched up to serve anew as parish church; and though lamentably mutilated, with its E end cut off for the Balnagowan mausoleum, it still retains many features of interest-three sedilia, two piscinas, a credence, three monumental effigies, and some good lancet and traceried windows. Another antiquity, noticed separately, is Lochslin Castle. Five proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 3 of between £100 and £500, and 3 of less than £100. Fearn is in the presbytery of Tain and synod of Ross; the living is worth £332. The parish or abbey church stands 5 furlongs SE of the village, and a Free church 1¼ mile E by N. Three public schools, all of recent erection, at Balmuchy, Hill of Fearn, and Hilton, with respective accommodation for 80, 120, and 178 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 51, 102, and 160, and grants of £41, 6s., £96, 11s., and £135, 17s. Valuation (1882) £10, 467, 2s. 6d. Pop. (1801) 1528, (1831) 1695, (1861) 2083, (1871) 2135, (1881) 2135.—Ord. Sur., sh. 94, 1878.


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a coast parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Fearn ScoP       Cromarty ScoCnty       Ross Shire ScoCnty
Place: Fearn

Go to the linked place page for a location map, and for access to other historical writing about the place. Pages for linked administrative units may contain historical statistics and information on boundaries.