Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

ARBROATH
the S side. A tower, 24 feet square and 70 high, stood
at the NW corner ; was used for some time as the
regality prison ; was afterwards, in its ground - fiat,
converted into a butcher's shop ; and is still entire.
Another tower, somewhat smaller, stood at the SW
angle ; had raised upon it a slated spire ; served for
many years as a steeple to the parish church ; but,
becoming ruinous, was taken down in 1830, to give
place to the church's present steeple. A stately porch,
in the N wall, formed the main entrance ; seems to
have been furnished with a portcullis, which now forms
the armorial bearings of the town ; and was demolished
as insecure about 1825. Another entrance, called the
Darngate, far inferior in architectural structiu-e to the
main entrance, stood at the SE corner. The church
stood in the northern part of the enclosure ; measured
276 feet from E to W ; seems to have been 67 feet high
from the pavement to the roof ; and had two western
towers, and a great central tower. The nave, of nine
bays, was 148, and the three-bayed choir 76;];, feet long ;
the central aisle was 35, and each of the side aisles 16J,
feet wide ; whilst the transept was 132 feet long and
45J wide. The whole structure is now in a state of
chaotic ruin, and mingles with fragments of the cloisters
and other attached buildings in prostrate confusion ;
yet, by attentive observation, can still be traced as to
its cruciform outline, and considerably re-constructed,
in imagination, as to its several parts and its main
details. The great western doorway is still entire, and
forms a grand object. A rose window, seemingly of
great size and much beauty, surmounted the great wes-
tern doorway, and has left some vestiges. Another of
smaller size is yet seen on the upper part of the wall
of the S transept. The S wall and part of the E end
are still standing ; and they retain some windows, or
portions of windows, and some other features, which
distinctly show the characteristic architecture. The
pillars which supported the roof are all demolished, but
can still be easily traced in their sub-basements or
foundations ; and those at the intersection of the nave
or transept have been so much larger than the others as
evidently to have been piers supporting the central
tower. The architecture was partly Norman, but mainly
Early English ; and it exhibits these styles in a closeness
of blending, and in a gentleness of transition to be seen
elsewhere in only a very few buildings. The great
western door is Norman, in rather peculiar mouldings,
but evidently of the later or latest Norman type ; and
the gallery above the interior of that doorway has
the Early English arch resting on the Norman pillar
and capital. The building material, however, was a
dark-red sandstone so very friable that the mouldings
and tracery, excepting only at a few places, are very
much obliterated. Large masses of the pile, too, have
fallen at comparatively recent periods — one of them
immediately before Pennant visited the ruins in 1772.
Operations were undertaken by the Exchequer to pre-
vent further dilapidation ; but these, though well meant
and in some sense highly serviceable, have introduced
flat new surfaces of masonry, utterly discordant with
the rugged contiguous ruins. A building, said to have
been the chapter-house, adjoins the S transept on the
E ; consists of two vaulted apartments, the one above
the other ; and is in a state of good repair. The cloisters
appear to have stood in front of that building and of the
S transept, but have been utterly destroyed. The ab-
bot's house stood at a short distance from the S wall of
the nave ; and a portion of it is still inhabited as a
private mansion. The tomb of King AVilliam the Lyon,
who was buried before the high altar 9 Dec. 1214, was
discovered in 1816 during the Exchequer's operations ;
it consists of hewn freestone. There are also several in-
teresting monuments, among them the effigies of three of
the thirty -two abbots of Arbroath. One of these is in blue
sandstone ; another has pouch and girdle of madrepore.
Many tombs or gravestones of a very remote antiquity are
in the graveyard near the church ; but they want distinc-
tive character, and are remarkable mainly for having the
primitive form of the cross among their sculptures.
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ARBROATH
Arbroath has a head post office, with money order, sav-
ings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments ; 3 hotels;
offices of the Bank of Scotland, the British Linen Co., the
Clydesdale, Commercial, and Royal banks ; a local sav-
ings' bank (1815) ; 39 insurance offices ; a plate-glass
insurance association ; a Montrose and Arbroath freight
association ; three vice-consulships, of respectively the
North German Confederation, Sweden and Norway, and
Belgium ; a custom-house ; and a Liberal Saturday paper,
the Arbroath Guide (1842). Saturday is market-day, and
hiring fairs are held on the last Saturday of January,
26 May, 18 July, and 22 Nov., provided these days are
Saturdays, otherwise on the Saturday following. The
manufacture of brown linens was introduced in the early
part of last century ; took a great start, about the year
1738, from a local weaver's discovery of the mode of
making osnaburgs, and by a few local capitalists then
engaging in the manufacture ; and made such progress
that, in the year 1792, so many as 1,055,303 yards of
osnaburgs and brown linen, valued at £39,660, were
stamped in the town. The making of sailcloth, in the
same year, employed nearly 500 weavers, and was almost
as productive in point of value as the other manufac-
ture. The making of linen thread was introduced about
1740, prospered for nearly half a century, and then
dwindled rapidly to extinction. The spinning of flax by
steam power was introduced in 1S06, came to a crucial
trial in the Inch mill about 1808, and then took root as
a permanent employment. A grand rush of increased
business in the various departments of the linen trade
occurred between 1820 and 1S26, but was greatly im-
pelled by over-speculation ; and, in the latter part of
1825, and the early part of 1826, it received a tremen-
dous cheek in a most disastrous crisis. The linen manu-
facture seemed, at the instant, to be overwhelmed ; and
it went on for a time with faltering progress and ex-
treme caution ; yet it eventually resumed its previous
breadth, and became as vigorous as ever. The spinning
mills were 16 in 1832, 19 in 1842, when the quantity of
flax spun was about 7000 tons, the value of the yarn
about £300,000, the number of linen weavers 732 (about
a third of them women), and the number of canvas
weavers 450 (about a fifth of them women). In 1851 the
nominal horse-power of the engines was 530, the number
of spindles 30,342, of power-looms 806, and of persons
employed 4620. The mills in 1867 were 18, but aggre-
gately had larger space and did more work than the same
number in 1842, their nominal horse-power being 892,
and the number of spindles 36,732, of power-looms S30,
and of persons employed 4941. In 1S75 there were 34
spinning mills and factories, all driven by steam, with
40,000 spindles, and fully 1100 power-looms, which, to-
gether, turned out weekly about 450,000 yards of cloth.
There are also bleaehfields, calendering establishments,
tanneries, engineering works, asphalt and tar factories,
chemical works, and a shipbuilding yard, in which 3
sailing vessels of aggregately 400 tons were built during
1875-S0 ; fishing employs 154 boats of 953 tons, and
about 2S0 men and boys.
The Abbot's Harbour (1394), a wooden pier projecting
from Danger Point, ' was not much liked by mariners ; '
accordingly, the Old Harbour was formed (1725-42)
to the westward, at a cost of over £6000. Its W
pier was rebuilt (1789), a lighthouse erected (1798),
and a patent slip laid down (1827) ; but it admitted
vessels of only 100 tons at low tide, of only 200 at
spring tide. Between 1841 and 1846, then, £58,000
was expended on the improvement of the Old and
the construction of the New Harbour ; this, with a break-
water, admits at spring tides ships of 400 tons ; had
conveyed to it the property and shore dues of the Old
Harbour on payment of £10,000 to the community; and
is administered by a body of 23 trustees, comprising the
provost, 10 parliamentary burgh electors, 4 county re-
presentatives, &c. Lastly, between 1871 and 1877, at a
cost of more than £29,000, including £20,000 from
Government, the Old Harbour has been converted into a
wet dock, the New Harbour and the entrance from the
Bar have been deepened, and a new patent slip has been