Counties > Moray (Elgin) and Nairn Shires > 1863 - Black's Morayshire directory, including the upper district of Banffshire

DIRECTORY, &c.
THE COUNTY OF MORAY.
The ancient Province of Moray extended along the north-eastern shore
of the Moray Firth, from the mouth of the river Spey to the river
Beauty, and,, included within its boundaries the whole course of the
Spey even to Lochaber. The breadth of the Province, according to
Shaw, from the Firth at Inverness to the Braes of Glenfeshie in
Badenoch, was fifty-seven miles ; and from south-west to north-east
the length was one hundred and four miles, and the sea-shore of Moray
from the mouth of the Spey to the river Farar, or Beauty, was sixty
miles. This large Province, famous in the history of Scotland, was
cut up into counties or shires. A part of Banffshire and of Inverness-
shire, and the whole county of Nairn, was taken from it, thus leaving
Morayshire only a part of the great Province that gave titles to
powerful barons and ecclesiastics.
Morayshire, like all other Scottish counties, is of a very irregular
form — so much so, indeed, that one portion of the county is entirely
detached from the rest by a part of Inverness-shire, that cuts through
Moray in Strathspey, a little above Ballindalloch. A traveller in going
up Strathspey, after passing the mouth of the river Avon a short
way, finds that he is into Inverness-shire, but, near Grantown, he is
again in Moray, which extends along the Spey to Aviemore. The
Spey forms a boundary line of Morayshire only at intervals, for por-
tions of the county would almost seem to have been thrown down at
random on both sides of the river. A large tract of country, of a tri-
angular form, with the Spey at Fochabers as a base, and reaching
nearly to Keith, belongs to Morayshire, and, as the saying goes, one-
half of Gordon Castle is in Banffshire and the other in Moray. Farther
up the Spey, in Inveravon, we may see again several farms belonging
to Moray on the right bank of the river.
A straight line, from angle to angle, along the north side of the
county, measures twenty-four and a-half miles, but everywhere cuts
off a belt of seaboard, which, in general, is narrow, but a little west
of the Lossie has a breadth of four and a-half miles ; a straight line