Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Auchtergaven

Auchtergaven (Gael. uachdar-gamhainn, ` upland of the yearling cattle '), a village and a parish in the Strathtay district of Perthshire. The village of Auchtergaven or Bankfoot stands at 226 feet above sea-level, on the Corral Burn, a little above its confluence with the Garry, and on the highroad from Perth to Dunkeld, and is 3¼ miles NNW of Luncarty station on the Highland railway, this being 4¼ miles N by W of Perth. A modern place, it has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments; sheep and cattle fairs on the Thursday of May after Amulree and the Friday of November after Dunkeld; gas-works; and three inns, at one of which the Queen changed horses, 7 Sept. 1842. Here, too, are the parish church, an oblong building with a tower, seating nearly 1200, and erected about 1812; a Free and a U.P. church; and a public school, which, with accommodation for 300 children, had (1879) an average attendance of 164, and a grant of £153,12s. Weaving is the staple industry, many of the inhabitants being employed in the neighbouring Airleywight linen works. Pop. (1861) 748, (1871) 689, (1881).

The parish contains also the station and most of the village of Stanley, at its south-eastern angle, 3¾ miles ESE of Bankfoot, and the hamlet of Waterloo, 1½ mile NNW; and it comprises the small old parish of Logiebride, annexed in 1618 and again about 1647. It is bounded NE by Little Dunkeld; E by Kinclaven, parted from it by the Benshiel Burn; SE for 1¾ mile by the winding Tay, separating it from Cargill and St Martins, and by Redgorton; S by Moneydie; SW by the Shochie Burn, dividing it from Monzie and the Mullion portion of Redgorton; W by Little Dunkeld and the Tullybeagles portion of Methven. Presenting a very irregular outline that rudely resembles a tooth with long north-westward-pointing fangs, it has a length from NW to SE of from 13/8 to 6½ miles, an extreme width of 5 miles, and an area of 13,004¾ acres, of which 121¾ lie detached, and 63½ are water. The Benshiel, the confluent Garry and Ordie, the Shochie, and lesser burns, all take a south-eastward or east-south-eastward course towards the Tay; and the surface accordingly rises north-westward and west-north-westward. In the latter direction it has an altitude above sea-level of 107 feet at Newmill, 207 near Loak, 282 at Rashieley, 392 near Tullybelton House, 464 near Corrielea, 1022 near Drumquhar, and 1493 in Creag na Criche; in the former, of 230 feet near Stanley, 320 near Ardonachie, 378 near Coulterenny, 429 near Muirlands, 578 at Upper Obney, and 1323 in the Obney Hills, whose summit is 13/8 mile S by W of that of Birnam Hill in Little Dunkeld. The tract along the Tay ends in bold rocky banks; and a spit from it, consisting of trap rock, crosses the river's bed near Stanley, forming the celebrated Linn of Campsie. Cairnleith Moss in the NE was once a dismal waste, a robbers, fastness, and the spot where legal retribution was signally dealt upon Highland caterans; but it has been so drained, planted, and otherwise improved as well to harmonise with what Scott described as ` one of the loveliest and richest views of Scotland-the NW opening of Strathmore.' The rocks of the hills are clay-slate and greywacke, with masses of quartz and roofing slates, both blue and grey; those in the S are chiefly Devonian; and close-grained sandstone, greenish and taking a fine polish, is quarried here. The soils are various, but may be generally described as sandy loam, mixed with gravel or small stones. Antiquities are St Bride's Well, marking the site of Logiebride church, 11/8 mile SW of Bankfoot, a stone circle, standing stones at three different points, and a court hill. Thomas Nairne of Mukkersy had a charter of the lands of Anchtergaven in 1605; his grandson, Robert Nairne of Strathord (d. 1683), was, for loyalty in the Great Rebellion, created Lord Nairne in the peerage of Scotland in 1681. John, the third Lord (1691-1777), was out in the '15, and again in the '45; on the second occasion he had just done building Nairne House, near Loak, to which in September he welcomed Prince Charles Edward, and which three years later was wholly demolished by the Duke of Athole, its purchaser. The forfeited title was restored in 1824 to William Murray Nairne (1757-1830), husband of Carolina Oliphant of Gask; with William, their son, it became extinct in 1837, but was again revived in 1874 in favour of Baroness Keith of Meikleour. Robert Nicoll (181437), styled `Scotland's second Burns ' by Ebenezer Elliot, was born at Little Tullybelton farm, and records how ` the memories o' his father's hame and its kindly dwellers a'

Are twined wi' the stanes o' the silver burn
An' its fairy crooks and bays,
That onward sang 'neath the gowden broom
Upon bonnie Ordie braes'—

those braes where a boy he tended cattle, as is told in the touching memoir prefixed to the latest and best edition of his Poems (Paisley, 1877). The principal residences are Stanley House, Airleywight, and Tullybelton House, at whose predecessor (then owned by Patrick Græme of Inchbrakie) the great Marquis of Montrose arrived in disguise, to enter on his campaign of 1644-45. Baroness Nairne, the Duke of Athole, Sir Archibald Drummond-Stewart, and two others, hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards; 3 proprietors hold between £100 and £200,2 between £50 and £100, and 10 between £20 and £50. In 1877 Stanley was erected into a quoad sacra parish; the remainder of Anchtergaven is in the presbytery of Dunkeld and synod of Perth and Stirling, its minister's income being £355. Valuation of civil parish (1881) £15,047,16s. 7d. Pop. thereof (1755) 1677, (1831) 3417, (1871) 2141, (1881) 2194; of quoad sacra parish (1881) 1338.—Ord. Sur., sh. 48,1868.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Auchtergaven ScoP       Perthshire ScoCnty
Place names: AUCHTERGAVEN     |     UACHDAR GAMHAINN
Place: Bankfoot

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