Parish of Kincardine O'Neil

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: Kincardine O'Niel
1834-45: Kincardine O'Niel

Kincardine O'Neil, a village and a parish of S Aberdeenshire. The village stands, 234 feet above sea-level, near the left bank of the Dee, 2 miles ESE of Dess station and 2 7/8 SW of Torphins station, this. being 24 miles W by S of Aberdeen. It has a post office under Aberdeen, with money order and savings' bank departments, an hotel, and fairs on the second Tuesday of May o. s. and the Wednesday and Thursday after the last Tuesday of August o. s.

The parish, containing also Torphins village and station, is bounded N W by Tough, NE by Cluny and Midmar, E and SE by Banchory-Ternan in Kincardineshire, SW by Birse, and W by Aboyne and Lumphanan. Its utmost length, from N to S, is 8 5/8 miles; its utmost width, from E to W, is 7 miles; and its area is 18,260 2/5 acres, of which 16½ are water. The dee winds 4 ¾ miles south-eastward along all the south-western border, being spanned, 1¾ mile SSE of the village, by the three-arched Bridge of Potarch (1812); and the interior is drained to the Dee by Belty Burn and several lesser rivulets. The surface may be described as comprising three straths or parts of straths, together with considerable flanking hills, and attains 700 feet at Sluie Woods, 655 at the Hill of Belty, 800 at Ord Fundlie, 1545 at the *Hill of Fare, 1000 at Learney Hill, and 1621 at *Benaquhallie or Corrennie, where asterisks mark those summits that culminate on the confines of the parish. The rocks include granite, trap, and sandstone; and the soils range from fertile alluvium to barren moor. Since the beginning of the present century reclamation of waste land has added fully 600 acres to the arable area; and general agricultural improvement has made corresponding progress. Plantations of larch and Scotch fir still cover a large area, though a good many of the older trees have been cut down of recent years. Natives were Alexander Ross (1699-1784), a minor poet, and the 'Wizard of the North,' John Henry Anderson (1814-74). The principal mansions are Kincardine Lodge, Learney, and Desswood; and 9 proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 5 of between £100 and £500, and 2 of from £20 to £50. Giving off since 1875 the quoad sacra parish of Torphins, Kincardine O'Neil is the seat of a presbytery in the synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth £372. The parish church, rebuilt about 1863, is situated in the middle of the village, at the W end of which stands Episcopal Christ Church, a Pointed edifice of 1865-66, with 100 sittings. At Craigmyle, 7 furlongs ESE of Torphins station, is a Free church; and four public schools - Greenburn, Kincardine O'Neil, Tornaveen, and Torphins - with respective accommodation for 69, 130, 90, and 143 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 37, 110, 69, and 102, and grants of £31, 16s., £103, 9s., £51, 10s., and £95, 17s. Valuation (1860) £9042, (1882) £11, 583, 8s., plus £940 for railway. Pop. (1801) 1710, (1831) 1936, (1861) 2186, (1871) 2000, (1881) 1931, of whom 1101 were in the ecclesiastical parish.—Ord. Sur., shs. 66, 76, 1871-74.

The presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil comprises the old parishes of Aboyne, Banchory-Ternan, Birse, Cluny, Coull, Crathie and Braemar, Echt, Glenmuick, Kincardine O'Neil, Logie-Coldstone, Lumphanan, Midmar, Strachan, and Tarland-Migvie, the quoad sacra parishes of Braemar, Dinnet, Glengairn, and Torphins, and the chapelry of Finzean. Pop. (1871) 19, 653, (1881) 19,182, of whom 7044 were communicants of the Church of Scotland in 1878.-The Free Church also has a presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil, with churches at Aboyne, Ballater, Banchory-Ternan, Braemar, Cluny, Crathie, Cromar, Echt, Kincardine O'Neil, Lumphanan, Midmar, Strachan, and Tarland, which 13 churches together had 1692 communicants in 1883.

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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