Parish of Meldrum

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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1791-99: Meldrum
1834-45: Meldrum

Meldrum (Gael. meall-droma, ` hill of the ridge '), a village and a parish of Garioch district, central Aberdeenshire. The village of Old Meldrum stands, 378 feet above sea-level, near the southern boundary of the parish, at the terminus of a branch line (1856) of the Great North of Scotland railway, by rail being 5¾ miles NNE of Inverurie Junction and 22 (by road 19) NNW of Aberdeen. Erected into a burgh of barony in 1672, it offers a very irregular alignment, but contains some good houses, and has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, branches of the North of Scotland and the Aberdeen Town and County Banks, 9 insurance agencies, 4 hotels, a gas company, a water supply, a new public hall (1877), horticultural, Bible, and clothing societies, a young men's Christian association, a brewery, a distillery, and cattle markets on every third Tuesday throughout the year. The antique parish church of 1684 was enlarged in 1767, and, as reseated in 1810, contains 674 sittings. Other places of worship are a Free church, a U.P. church (1822; 312 sittings), and St Matthew's Episcopal church (1863), the last an Early Decorated edifice, with nave, chancel, organ chamber, vestry, and spire. Pop. (1841) 1102, (1861) 1553, (1871) 1535, (1881) 1494, of whom 817 were females. Houses (1881) 309 inhabited, 14 vacant, 2 building.

The parish, called Bethelnie till 1684, is bounded NE and E by Tarves, SE and S by Bourtie, W by Daviot and Fyvie, and N by Fyvie. Its utmost length, from NW to SE, is 65/8 miles; its breadth varies between 4¼ furlongs and 3½ miles; and its area is 81111/3 acres, of which 9 are water. Streams there are none of any size, but the drainage is carried mainly to the Ury and partly to the Ythan. Along the southern boundary the surface sinks to 270 feet above sea-level; and thence it rises in easy gradient to 564 feet near Chapelhouse, 567 near Bethelnie, and 804 at Core Hill in the NW corner of the parish. The central district presents a diversity of rich well-cultivated table-land, sloping southward, eastward, and westward, and commanding from many standpoints extensive views, on the one hand over Formartine and Buchan, on the other over Garioch to Bennochie. Hornblende rock of a quality that admits of its taking a polish like marble occurs in large detached masses; rock crystal is found on the Core Hill of Bethelnie; limestone occurs on the NE border, and was for some time worked; and eruptive rocks are predominant. The soil of the northern district is mossy, heathy, and nowhere deep or fertile; but elsewhere, especially on the south-westward and southward slopes, is a deep loam. Nearly three-fourths of the entire area are in tillage; more than 500 acres are under wood; and the rest is either pastoral or waste. A small so-called ` Roman camp '-on Bethelnie farm has been erased by the plough; a graveyard, around the site of the ancient parish church, St Nathalin's, is at Bethelnie; and another graveyard, with foundations of a small preReformation chapel, is at Chapelhouse, ½ mile from which some ancient sepulchral remains were exhumed in 1837. William Forsyth (1737-1804), the arboriculturist, was a native. Meldrum House, 1 mile N by E of the village, is a large modern Grecian mansion, with finely wooded policies. From the Setons the property passed by marriage in 1610 to the Urquharts; and its present owner, Beauchamp Colclough Urquhart, Esq. (b. 1830; suc. 1861), holds 5837 acres in the shire, valued at £6707 per annum. Another mansion is Tulloch Cottage; and, in all, 4 proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 5 of between £100 and £500, 8 of from £50 to £100, and 40 of from £20 to £50. Since 1875 giving off a portion to the quoad sacra parish of Barthol Chapel, Meldrum is in the presbytery of Garioch and the synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth £335. Three public schools-Commercial Road, Kirk Street infant, and Tulloch-with respective accommodation for 446, 126, and 70 children, had (1883) an average attendance of 234, 89, and 42, and grants of £212, 14s., £61, 16s., and £33, 16s. Valuation (1860) £8528, (1884) £11,710, 6s. 3d., plus £303 for railway. Pop. (1801) 1584, (1831) 1790, (1861) 2343, (1871) 2330, (1881) 2254, of whom 2136 were in the ecclesiastical parish.—Ord. Sur., shs. 76, 77, 86, 87, 1873-76.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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