Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

ARAY
namurchan Point, and 38J W by N of Fort William. A
small place, with only a few scattered houses, it serves as
a centre of business and a point of communication for an
extensive but thinly-peopled tract of country ; maintained
formerly a regular ferry to Skye, and still can furnish
boats for passengers thither ; communicates regularly
with the steamers plying between the Clyde and Skye ;
and has a post office under Fort William, a large inn, a
mission church of the Establishment, a Free Church mis-
sion station, a Roman Catholic chapel (1849 ; 600 sittings),
a Christian Knowledge Society's school ; and fairs on the
Saturday before the second Wednesday of June, on the
fourth Tuesday of August, and on the third Tuesday of
October. The minister of the Established mission church
receives £60 a-year from the Royal Bounty grant, and has
a manse. Arasaig House, near the village, was the resi-
dence of the tenth Lord Cranstoun (1809-69).
The territorial district is bounded by Loch Morar on
the N, by Loch Aylort on the S ; has a rugged, sterile,
mountainous character; and terminates seaward in a pro-
montory, called Arasaig Point, nearly opposite the middle
of Eigg island. Pop. of registration district (1861) 1343,
(1871) 1131, (1881) 1130.
Aray or Ary (Gael, a-reidh, 'smooth water'), a stream
of the Argyll district of Argyllshire, rising in several
head-streams near the watershed between the head of
Loch Fyne and the foot of Loch Awe, and running about
9 miles southward to Loch Fyne, which it enters near
Inverary Castle, giving name to Inverary. It is crossed
at its mouth by a bridge on the line of road along the
W shore of Loch Fyne, and is followed down its whole
course by the road from Oban to Inverary. It runs on
a rocky bed, along the bottom of a romantic glen, be-
neath bare hills first, and then between finely wooded
banks. Col. Robertson's etymology notwithstanding, it
has an impetuous current, makes several picturesque falls,
and is called by Skene the ' furious Aray. ' The finest
fall occurs about 3 miles from Inverary, and bears the
name of Lenach-Gluthin. The stream here rushes through
a rocky cleft, and leaps down a precipice 60 feet high
into a whirlpool below, thence shooting through a narrow
opening. Salmon and grilse often ascend to the pool,
leap from it into the vertical cataract, and reach the first
ledge of the precipice, only to be hurled back by the force
of the water. Another beautiful fall, Carlonan Linn,
occurs about mid-way between Lenach-Gluthin and In-
verary. The upper Aray is open to anglers from the
Argyll Arms, Inverary, and sport is very good, especially
in July and August.— Ord. Sur., shs. 45, 37, 1876.
Arbigland, a coast estate, with a handsome mansion
and finely planted grounds, in Kirkbean parish, Kirk-
cudbrightshire, 1J mile SE of Kirkbean village. Its
owner, Col. Blackett, holds 1453 acres in the shire,
valued at £3291 per annum. In a cottage here the
naval adventurer Paul Jones was born 6 July 1747, his
reputed father being gardener, and his mother cook, to
Mr William Craik, whose grandfather had bought the
estate from the Earl of Southesk in 1722.
Arbikie, a place in the south-western extremity of
Lunan parish, Forfarshire. A range of small tumuli
here, at equal distances from one another, over a length
of about 2400 feet, is supposed to mark the site of some
ancient sanguinary battle.
Arbirlot (Gael. ' ford of the Elliot '), a village and a
coast parish of Forfarshire. The village, on the left bank
of Elliot Water, is 2f miles W by S of Arbroath, 2 miles
WNWof Elliot Junction; has a post office under Arbroath,
a cattle fair on the second Wednesday of November, a
parish library, the parish church (rebuilt 1832; 639 sit-
tings), and a Free church ; and is described as ' lying in
a secluded hollow beside the stream, where, with the
cottages nestling in their greenery, the bridge, the mill,
and foaming water, the scene is more than ordinarily
picturesque.' The old manse here 'was replaced in 1835
by another (almost, if not altogether, the best manse
in Scotland) on the height across the stream — a spot
which Mr Guthrie selected as commanding a view of
the sea.'
The parish contains also the village of Bonnington, 2
56
ARBROATH
miles W by S. Bounded N by St Vigeans, NE by Ar-
broath, SE by the German Ocean, S by the Hatton sec-
tion of St Vigeans and by Panbride, SW by Panbride,
and NW by Carmyllie, it has a varying length from E
to W of 2| and 4| miles, an utmost width from N to S
of 3J miles, and a land area of 6747 acres. The coast,
1£ mile long, is fiat and sandy ; inland, the surface rises
gently west-north-westward to 258 feet near Pitcundrum,
262 near Bonnington, 338 near Wester Knox, 273 near
Easter Bonhard, 400 near Lynn, 295 on Kelly Moor, and
304 near Lochaber. The rocks, Devonian and eruptive,
contain rock-crystals; the soils of the arable lands (about
four-fifths of the entire area) are in some parts argillaceous,
in most parts a light rich loam incumbent on gravel, while
those of the higher grounds (about one-sixth) are wet and
moorish. The only distinctive features in the landscape
are found along the gentle valley of the Elliot. It here
has an east-south-eastward course of 3J miles, receives
from the W the Rottenraw Burn, and sweeps below the
village through a steep wooded dell past the old grey
tower of Kelly Castle, which, held by the Auchterlonies
from the 15th to the 17th century, came in 1679 to the
Earl of Panmure, an ancestor of the Dalhousie family.
See Brechin. George Gladstanes, afterwards Arch-
bishop of St Andrews, was minister of Arbirlot in 1597,
as also was the great Dr Guthrie from 1830 to 1837 ; and
in Arbirlot was born, in 1833, John Kirk, M.D. , suppres-
sor of the East African slave trade. The Earl of Dal-
housie is chief proprietor, 2 other landowners holding
each an annual value of between £100 and £500, and 4
of from £20 to £50. Arbirlot is in the presbytery of
Arbroath and synod of Angus and Mearns ; the living is
worth £245. Its public school, erected in 1876, with
accommodation for 129 children, had (1879) an average
attendance of 81, and a grant of £58, 12s. Valuation
(1881) £13,224, including £2329 for 1J mile of the Dun-
dee and Arbroath, and 3g miles of the Carmyllie, branch
of the Caledonian. Pop. (1801) 945, (1831) 1086, (1871)
919, (1881) 822.— Ord. Sur., shs. 49, 57, 1865-68. See
part iv. and chap. iii. of the Autobiography and Memoir
of Thomas Guthrie (Lond. 1874).
Arbory Hill, a conical hill in the SW angle of Laming-
ton parish, S Lanarkshire, on the right bank of the Clyde,
1 mile below the mouth of Glengonnar Water. It rises
to a height of 1406 feet above sea-level, and is crowned
by extensive rude relics of an ancient Caledonian work.
First are a wide fosse and a rampart ; next, about 18
feet farther up, are another fosse and a large earth-
work ; next, about 48 feet still farther up, is a circle of
stones upwards of 20 feet thick and about 4 high ; and,
finally, is an enclosed or summit space about 132 feet in
diameter.
Arbroath (anc. Aberbrothoek, Celt, 'ford of the Bro-
thock '), a royal, police, and parliamentary burgh, a sea-
port, and a seat of manufacture on the SE coast of For-
farshire, at the mouth of the Brothock Burn. It stands
at the junction of the Arbroath and Forfar railway, opened
in 1839, the Dundee and Arbroath Joint line, opened in
1840, and the Arbroath and Montrose railway, opened
in 1881 ; and by ran is 14J miles SE by E of Forfar, 15J
SSW of Montrose, 57^ SSW of Aberdeen, 16J ENE of
Dundee, 38J ENE of Perth, 59f NNE of Edinburgh (vid
Tayport), and 100| NE of Glasgow. Its site is chiefly a
little plain, engirt on the land sides by eminences of
from 100 to 200 feet, which command an extensive view
of the sea, of Forfarshire, and of the elevated parts of
Fife. The old royal burgh consisted chiefly of one main
street less than 1 mile in length, crossed by another
smaller street, and by a few still smaller lanes. But the
modern town has spread widely from Arbroath into St
Vigeans parish. Newgate, Seagate, Marketgate, New
Marketgate, Grimsby, Millgate, Lordburngate, Applegate,
Rotten Row, and Cobgate, mentioned in an official docu-
ment of 1445 as crofts orrural thoroughfares, are all now,
and have long been, edificed streets. Newgate is the only
one of them not built upon till recent times ; Grimsby
was feued in the latter part of last century ; and Rotten
Row and Cobgate are the parts of High Street respec-
tively above and below the present parish church. One