Garioch, an inland district of Aberdeenshire. It is bounded on the NE and E by Formartine, on the S by Mar, on the W by Mar and Strathbogie, and on the NW by Strathbogie. It has an area of about 150 square miles, contains 15 parishes, and gives name to a presbytery in the synod of Aberdeen. It is bounded or bordered by a range of hills, extending about 20 miles westward from the vicinity of Old Meldrum ; it comprises fertile, warm, well-sheltered valleys, notable for the salubrity of their climate ; it used, on account of its fertility, to be called the granary of Aberdeenshire it has long been famed as a summer resort for invalids ; it experienced great development of its resources from the opening of the Inverurie Canal, and now enjoys better advantages from the superseding of that canal by the Great North of Scotland railway; and it has a farmers' club, dating from 1808, and a medical association, dating from 1867. The presbytery of Garioch, meeting at Inverurie and Insch, comprehends the parishes of Bourtie, Chapel of Garioch, Culsalmond, Daviot, Insch, Inverurie, Keithhall, Kemnay, Kintore, Leslie, Meldrum, Monymusk, Oyne, Premnay, and Rayne, with the chapelry of Blairdaff. Pop. (1871) 20,132, (1881) 20,136, of whom 5781, according to a Parliamentary Return (1 May 1879), were communicants of the Church of Scotland in 1878. &emdash; The Free Church also has a presbytery of Garioch, meeting at Pitcaple, and comprising churches at Blairdaff, Chapel of Garioch, Culsalmond, Insch, Inverurie, Kemnay, Kintore, Leslie, Oyne, and Rayne, which ten churches together had 2173 communicants in 1881.
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