Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

FED
530
«FER
the introduction of Gothic architecture to the coun-
try. The upper part of the parish is wholly unpro-
vided with facilities of communication ; and the lower
part possesses only such roads as would he a nuisance
in a less sequestered district. Population, in 1801,
448; in 1S31, 450. Houses 88. Assessed property,
in 1815, £753. — Fearn is in the presbytery of Bre-
chin, and synod of Angus and Mearns. Patron, the
Crown. Stipend £155 3s. 5d. ; glebe £18 18s.,
witi the privilege of cutting peat and divot. School-
master's salary £28 12s. 6d., with £13 10s. school-
fees, and a house and the legal garden-ground.
FEDDERATT CASTLE. See Deer (New).
FEDDICH. See Fiddich.
FENELLA'S CASTLE. See Fettercairn.
FENTON, See Dirleton.
FENWICK, a parish in the district of Cunning-
ham, Ayrshire ; bounded on the north by Renfrew-
shire ; on the east by Loudon ; on the south by
Kilmarnock ; and on the west by Stewarton. It is
about 9 miles long from east to west, and 6 miles
broad, and contains an area of 14,500 acres. Though
high above the level of the sea, it is not mountainous ;
and seen from the hills of Craigie in Kyle, it ap-
pears a large plain ; but it possesses, in reality, a
sloping surface, inclining easily from its boundary
with Renfrewshire to the south-west, and command-
ing, on many spots, or from almost every farm and
every house, extensive views toward Kyle and Car-
rick, the frith of Clyde, and the Arran and Argyle-
shire mountains. At a former period the district was
almost all a fen or bog ; and, in 1 642 — when it was
disjoined from Kilmarnock, and erected into a sepa-
rate parish — was considered as a moorland region.
Except in the southern or lower division, the soil in
every part is still mossy ; and nearly one-fourth of
the entire parish continues to be hog. All the sur-
face of the reclaimed sections, though thinly sheltered
with plantation, has a verdant and cultivated aspect,
and is distributed chiefly into meadow and natural
pasture, with about 1,600 acres of tillage. The live
stock consists of nearly equal numbers of sheep and
milk cows, a considerable proportion of pigs, and
about 160 horses. The climate, though humid, is
not unhealthy. Two small brooks, each having tiny
tributaries, rise in the northern limits of the parish
and flow south-westward through it to make a
confluence after entering the parish of Kilmarnock.
The brooks abound with trouts, but possess no
scenic beauties. A thin seam of coal and a free-
stone quarry occur on the western limits. Lime-
stone is abundant, and exhibits numerous marine
shells, and other memorials of the ancient inhabitants
of tlie ocean. The great road from Glasgow to Kil-
marnock traverses the parish in a direction west of
south, and sends off one branch-road southward to
Galston, and another westward to Stewarton The
village of Fenwick stands on the Glasgow road, at
the point where that to Stewarton branches off,
nearly 4 miles north by east from Kilmarnock; and
is a considerable agglomeration of small houses occu-
pied almost all by weavers as dwelling-houses and
work-shops. Here are the parish-church, and a
capacious meeting-house of the United Secession.
Another village, called Rose-Fenwick, similar in
character to Fenwick, but smaller, stands half-a-
inile south of it on the Glasgow road. Population
of the parish, in 1801, 1,280; in 1831, 2,018. Houses
279. Assessed property, in 1815, £8,987 — Fenwick
is in the presbytery of Irving, and synod of Glasgow
and Ayr. Patron, the Earl of Glasgow. Stipend
£149 8s. Id. ; glebe £23. Unappropriated teinds
£132 17s. 5d. Schoolmaster's salary £25 13s. 3d.,
with from £15 to £18 school-fees, and about £3
other emoluments. There are three schools not
parochial, attended by a maximum of 137 scholars.
Maximum attendance at the parish-school 68 Fen-
wick, for some time after its establishment as a sepa-
rate parish, was called New Kilmarnock ; but it
eventually acquired its present descriptive name,
which means the village of the fen This parish is
celebrated for having enjoyed the ministry of the
devout though eccentric Guthrie, not the least of
Scotland's worthies, a firm assertor of the cause of
Presbyterianism under the persecuting innovations
of the Stuarts, and the author of writings which have
shed the light of heaven over the hearts and minds of
the inmates of many a cottage In this parish is the
venerable dwelling of the Howies of Lochgoin, that
during the persecution frequently afforded an asylum
to those who for conscience' sake were obliged to flee
from their homes, — to such men as Captain Paton,
and to many such worthy ministers as the intrepid
Richard Cameron, which rendered this house so ob-
noxious that, during these trying periods, it was
twelve times plundered, and the inmates forced to
take refuge in the barren muirs around. Here are
preserved many of the relics of those days of "fiery
trial," in the Bible and the sword used by Captain
Paton, — the flag of Fenwick parish, — the drum beat
at the battle of Drumclog, &c. If antiquity can add
any lustre to birth, the present generation of the
Howies may lay claim to a remote ancestry ; being
descended from the great "VYaldenses, three brothers
of whom, of the name of Howie — probably Houy,
still common in France — fled for safety and settled
in Ayrshire, in 1178. One of these brothers took
up his residence in Lochgoin, and his posterity to
this day inhabit the same spot, retaining all the pri-
mitive and pastoral habits which distinguished the
Waldenses. The father of the present generation,
John Howie, compiler of the lives of the ' Scots
Worthies,' will be remembered by every Scotsman
with a peculiar interest, in having furnished his coun-
try with short though valuable sketches of the most
remarkable transactions of those who suffered for the
covenanted work of reformation.
FERGUS (St.),* a parish politically belonging to
Banffshire,f but situated in the district of Buchan, }:
* This parish was originally named Inverurie, and occa-
Bioutdly Lagley, uutil 1616, when tin? name — fi»r what reason .s
not known — was changed to St. Fergus. We may here ob-
serve that the Rev. John Craigie, writer of the Old Statistical
Account of St. Fergus, and minister of the parish, in stating that
the common patois, or "dialect, called Broad Buchans, is spoken
here," as it still continues to be, although it is now losing much
of its provincial peculiarity, and that " it is thought to approach
nearer to the ancient Gothic than the language of any other
district in Scotland," — remarks, that "as the Picts were the an-
cient inhabitants of the east coast of Scotland, they imposed
names on the different places, expressive, (in their language,)
of their situation, or some particular property. It is not easy
to assign any good reason for attempting to derive the names
of places in this country from the Celtic, as there is no evidence
that it was inhabited by the Celts. The names of all the places
in this parish and the adjacent country plainly appear to be
Gothic, Saxon, or Danish."
f The reason of this political connexion is said, in the Old
Statistical Account, to have been, " that the Cheynes of Iuver-
ugie, the ancient proprietors, who were heritable sheriffs of
Banff, obtained an act of the legislature, declaring their own
lands to be within their own jurisdiction. St. Fergus, Fetter-
angus, and Strolach, in Nevv-Machar parish, which also be-
longed to the Cheynes, pay the land-tax and window-tax, aa
parts of Banffshire, but in every other respect are subject to
the jurisdiction of the sheriff of Aberdeen."
} Tho Cuoiines, Earls of Bucltan, and proprietors of this
district, were anciently the most eminent family in Scotland.
" The chief of tins family was Cumine, Lord Badenoch, of whom
were descended the Earls of Buohan and Monteith, and 8<3
knights. This faction, with the Earls of Marr and Athole, with
whom they were connected by marriages, ruled the kingdom
as they pleased, during some years in the latter part of the
reign of Alexander the II. and during the first part of the
reign of Alexander III. The male line of the ancient Earls of
Buchan failing in the person of Fergus, the last Earl of the an-
cient race, his daughter Marjory married William Cumine of
the house of Badenoch, who in his right became Earl of Buchan
about the beginning of the l.'iih century. His posterity con.
tinucd to enjoy this great estate for 1U0 years, and were the