Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

ARDONALD
oblong form, 1060 by 900 feet; possessed accommodation
for 4000 men ; and, excepting vestiges of two gates on the
N and the S, has all been obliterated by the plough. The
great camp, lying NW of the procestrium, has an ap-
proximately oblong outline, 2800 feet by 1950; could
accommodate 26, 000 men ; seems to have had on the
northern part of the E side considerable outworks, com-
prising a square redoubt and a clavicle; is diametrically
traversed by the old road from Stirling to Crieff; and can
now be traced by vestiges in only its eastern half. The
small camp lies on the W of the great camp, or rather
lies one-half within that camp, and one-half westward ;
occupies higher ground than the other works; appears
to have been constructed after the great camp ceased to
be used; measures 1910 feet by 1340; could accommo-
date 12,000 men; and is still in a comparatively perfect
condition (R. Stuart's Caledonia Romana, pp. 187-194).
Ardoch is in the presbytery of Auchterarder, in the
synod of Perth and Stirling, and its living is worth
£138. The public schools at Braco and Greenloaning,
with respective accommodation for 153 and 75 children,
had (1891) an average attendance of 67 and 52, and
grants of £61, 6s. 6d. and £42, 2s. Pop. (1861) 1418,
(1871) 1316, (1881) 1102, (1891) 959.— Ord. Sun., sh.
39, 1869.
Ardonald, a place with great limeworks (now aban-
doned) in Cairnie parish, Aberdeenshire. The quantity
of calcined lime turned out here, in the years 1818-1841,
was 620,269 bolls, sold for £69,771.
Ardovie, a place in Brechin parish, Forfarshire, 2J
miles SSW of Brechin.
Ardoyne, a hill, 600 feet above sea-level, in the N of
Oyne parish, Aberdeenshire. It commands an exten-
sive view.
Ardpatrick, a hamlet and a headland at the N side
of the mouth of West Loch Tarbert, and at the SW
extremity of Knapdale, Argyllshire. The hamlet is 10
miles SW of Tarbert, under which it has a post office,
with money order and savings bank departments.
The headland is said to have been the landing-place of
St Patrick, on his way from Ireland to Iona.
Ardrishaig (Gael, ard-driseach, 'height full of briers'),
a seaport village in South Knapdale parish, and a quoad
tacra parish partly also in Glassary parish, Argyllshire.
The village stands on the W side of Loch Gilp, at the
entrance of the Crinan Canal, 2 miles SSW of Lochgilp-
head. The entrepfit of the canal, the port of Lochgilp-
head, and the centre of an extensive herring fishery,
it mainly consists of plain-looking cottages with a few
neat villas, pleasantly situated on a green hill-side; and
it has a post office, with money order, savings bank,
insurance, and telegraph departments, several hotels,
a very commodious harbour, with a pier and a slip, an
Established church (1860), a Free church, a Board school
to accommodate 238 children, and an Episcopal school.
The vessels passing through the Crinan Canal occasion
considerable business, several steamers daily in summer
arriving and departing from and to Greenock; large
quantities of sheep and cattle are shipped; and dur-
ing the fishing season about 170 fishing boats are in
service. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert landed here
18 Aug. 1847, on their way from Inverary to Ardverikie.
Pop. of village (1871) 1177, (1881) 1224, (1891) 1258.
The quoad sacra parish, constituted in 1875, is 7 miles
long and 4 broad, and is in the presbytery of Inverary
and synod of Argyll; its minister's income is £195.
Ardross, a hamlet and a mansion of NE Ross-shire.
The hamlet, in Rosskeen parish, lies in the valley of
the Alness river, 5 miles SN¥ of Alness, under which
it has a post office. Its public school, with accommoda-
tion for 114 children, had (1891) an average attendance
of 51, and a grant of £63, 2s. Ardross Castle is the
property of Sir Kenneth James Matheson, Bart., who
is owner of 220,433 acres in the shire, valued at £20,246
per annum. The Ardross estates extend between Alness
and Rorie Waters westward into the uplands along the
sources of these streams, the former fastness of the clan
Ross; they have at various times undergone vast im-
provements.
ARDEOSSAN
Ardross, an ancient barony in Elie parish, Fife. It
comprised the greater part of the parish ; belonged to a
family of the name of Dischington; passed, about the
beginning of the 17th century, to Sir William Scott; and
went, about the close of that century, to Sir William An-
struther. The ruins of its mansion, or old baronial castle,
still stand on the coast, about 1 mile ENE of Elie village.
Ardrossan (Gael, ard-rois-an, 'highish foreland),
a seaport town and watering-place of Cunningham, N
Ayrshire, 1 mile WNW of Saltcoats. By water it is 13
miles E by N of Brodick in Arran, 14J NNW of Ayr,
and 87 NE of Belfast; and by a section of the Glasgow
and South-Western railway it is 11 miles SSE of Largs
terminus, and 6 WSW of Kilwinning Junction. Lying
on the northern shore of Ayr Bay, at the entrance of
the Firth of Clyde, Ardrossan has its own little North
and South Bays, parted by the low headland of Castle
Craigs, which got its name from the great stronghold
of the Montgomeries. By them acquired about 1376
through marriage with the sole heiress of Sir Hugh de
Eglinton, this castle, according to tradition, had been
the scene of one of Wallace's exploits, who by firing the
neighbouring hamlet lured forth its English garrison
to quench the flames, slew them as they returned, and
cast their bodies into a dungeon, thereafter known as
' Wallace's Larder. ' Cromwell is said to have demolished
it; and its scanty but picturesque remains comprise only
the angle of one tower, the vaulted kitchen, and two
arched cellars, with a broad stepped passage leading
down to them. On the Cannon Hill, hard by, stood
the old parish church, overwhelmed by the storm of
1691; a tombstone in its kirkyard is sculptured with
two escutcheons, one of them bearing the lion ram-
pant of Scotland, and is popularly associated with a
warlock baron, the ' Deil o' Ardrossan. ' It was believed
that ' were any portion of the mould to be taken from
under this stone and cast into the sea, forthwith would
ensue a dreadful tempest to devastate sea and land.'
There is also upon an adjoining eminence a handsome
monument, erected to a deceased philanthropic gentle-
man who during the later years of his life interested
himself deeply in the various institutions connected with
the place.
The town, which arose as an adjunct of the harbour,
consists of wide, well-built streets, crossing each other
at right angles, with a handsome crescent to the E, a
good many tasteful villas, and the Pavilion, an occasional
residence of the Earl of Eglinton. Erected into a burgh
of barony in 1846, it partially adopted the General
Police Act prior to 1871, and is governed by a provost,
2 junior magistrates, and 6 commissioners. The gas
and water supply are under their control. It has a post
office, with money order, savings bank, insurance, and
telegraph departments, branches of the Bank of Scotland,
the Royal, the Union, and the Clydesdale Bank, a large
hotel, a bathing establishment, the Railway Hotel, a
neat town-hall, a reading-room, a lifeboat institution,
and two Friday papers, the Ardrossan and Saltcoats
Herald (1853) and the Ayrshire Weekly News (1859),
and an Agricultural Society. Places of worship are the
New Parish or quoad sacra church (1844; 840 sittings)
with a spire, a Free church (1859) also with a spire, a
U.P. church (1857), an Evangelical Union church (1861),
and St Andrew's Episcopal church (1875). Two public
schools, with respective accommodation for 138 and 565
children, had (1891) an average attendance of 126 and
407, and grants of £106, 12s. and £413, 14s. There is
also an academy, with accommodation for 254 pupils.
The harbour was founded on 31 July 1806 by Hugh,
twelfth Earl of Eglinton (1740-1819), who the same
year was raised to the British peerage as Baron Ardros-
san. Steam-tugs were then unknown, and the naviga-
tion of the Clyde above the Cumbraes was often baffling
and tedious, above Port Glasgow open to none but very
small craft, so his lordship's idea was to make this the
port of Glasgow, with which it should be connected by
the Glasgow, Paisley, and Johnstone Canal (now
a branch of the Glasgow and South-Western railway).
Accordingly the works were projected on a scale so
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