Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

AUCHMILLAN
post office, with money order, savings' bank, and tele-
graph departments, under Aberdeen, two inns, and the
Newhills Free church.
Auchmillan, a village in Mauchline parish, Ayrshire,
2 miles NE of Mauchline town.
Auchmithie, a fishing village in St Vigeans parish,
Forfarshire, on a rocky bank rising about 150 feet from
the beach, 3J miles NNE of Arbroath. It holds of the
Earl of Northesk, is irregularly built, but contains
several good houses, and has a sort of harbour at the
foot of an opening in the rocky bank, a post office under
Arbroath, an inn, and an Established mission church
(1829-34 ; minister's salary, £80). Water and drainage
works were formed in 1880. Auchmithie is the 'Mussel-
crag ' of Scott's Antiquary ; its fishermen contend with
great difficulties, having after every voyage to draw
their boats inward from the beach, to prevent their
destruction by the violence of the waves. Pop. (1871)
412.
Auchmore. See Achmoee.
Auchmull. See At/chmill.
Auchmure, a tract, including Auchmure Braes, Auch-
mure Bridge, East Auchmure, West Auchmure, and
South Auchmure, at the eastern verge of Kinross-shire,
on or near the river Leven, 1\ miles W by S of Leslie.
Auchmuty, a village conjoint with Balbirnie Mills
in Markinch parish, Fife, on the river Leven, \\ mile
W of Markinch town. Pop. , with Balbirnie Mills (1871)
403.
Auchnacarry. See Achnacaeey.
Auchnacraig. See Achnaceaig.
Auchnaeree, an estate, with a mansion, in Fearn parish,
Forfarshire.
Auehnagatt, a hamlet in Old Deer parish, Aberdeen-
shire, on the Aberdeen and Fraserburgh railway, 7J
miles NNW of Ellon. It has a post office with tele-
graph department under Ellon, and a railway station.
Auehnahow, a small strath in the W side of Kildonan
parish, Sutherland, descending to Helmsdale Water.
Auchnamara, a burn in North Knapdale parish,
Argyllshire.
Auchnasheen, a hamlet of SW Ross-shire on the
Dingwall and Skye railway, 27f miles WSW of Ding-
wall. It has a post office under Dingwall, and a railway
station.
Auchnashellach, a station in the SW of Ross-shire,
on the Dingwall and Skye railway, in the upper part
of Strathcarron, 12 miles NE of Strome Ferry.
Auchness, a burn in Dallas parish, Elginshire, run-
ning to the Lossie.
Auchrannie. See Acheansie.
Auchriddie, a hamlet in the N of Aberdeenshire. Its
post-town is New Deer under Aberdeen.
Auchry, an estate, with an old mansion (Jn. F. Lums-
den, Esq.), in Monquhitter parish, Aberdeenshire, 5 J
miles ENE of Turriff.
Auchter, a rivulet in the NE centre of Lanarkshire.
It rises near Bontyhilloek in Carluke parish ; runs some
distance along the boundary between Carluke and Cam-
busnethan ; and pursues a serpentine course through the
centre of Cambusnethan to the South Calder at Bridgend.
Auchterarder (Gael, uachdar-ard-thir, 'upper high
land '), a town and a parish in the southern side of
Strathearn district, SE Perthshire. The town is seated
on the brow of a low hill, 3 J furlongs from the left bank
of Ruthven Water, which is spanned by a bridge (rebuilt
in 1880) that leads to a station on the Scottish Central
section of the Caledonian, this station being 1 mile SE
of Auchterarder, 13| miles SW of Perth, 19J NE of
Stirling, 49 J NE of Glasgow, and 56 NW of Edinburgh.
A castle, small but very strong, remains of which stand
J mile NW of the parish church, is said to have been
built as a hunting-seat by Malcolm Ceannmor (1058-93),
who is further believed to have given to the town the
western commonage of 228 acres ; but the earliest cer-
tain mention of Auchterarder occurs in the charter granted
to Inchaffkay by its founder, Gilbert, Earl of Strathearn
(1200), wherein he endowed that Austin canonry with
the church of St Mechesseoc of Auchterarder. On the
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AUCHTERARDER
same abbey in 1227 Alexander II. conferred the teinds
of his rents of Auchterarder, which, as the head burgh of
Strathearn — perhaps a royal burgh — had a common seal,
and returned a member to parliament. It figures in
two ordinances of Edward I. of England ; and Robert
Bruce in 1328 bestowed its lands on one of his great
barons, but confirmed the liberties of the burgh and its
burgesses as they had been in the reign of Alexander III.
We know not when or how those liberties were lost,
but in 1581 an Act described ' Vchtirardour ' as ' pure
and oppressit be brokin men and lymmeris,' whilst
ordaining that a yearly fair for the encouragement
of trade be held there, in all time coming, on the
25 Nov. (old style). According to the New Statis-
tical, Auchterarder was one of the Scottish towns
ironically compared by George Buchanan with the fine
English cities. Some English nobleman vaunting the
latter to King James, the Scot replied that he knew a
town in Scotland with 50 drawbridges ; the explanation
being that at ' a country village between Stirling and
Perth, called Auchterardoch, there is a large strand
running through the middle of the town, and almost at
every door there is a long stock or stone laid over this
strand, whereupon they pass to their opposite neigh-
bours, and when a flood comes they lift their wooden
bridges in case they should be taken away, and these they
call drawbridges.' On 28 Jan. 1716, when the royalist
troops under the Duke of Argyll were advancing upon
Perth, the Earl of Mar burned the whole of Auchterarder
except one house ; and on the 30th, when Argyll arrived,
he could find no accommodation, but spent the night
upon the snow, 'without any other covering than the fine
canopy of heaven. ' Newte, who visited this place in
1782, says that it ' seems to have lain under the curse
of God ever since it was burnt. The dark heath of the
moors of Orchill and Tullibardine, a Gothic castle be-
longing to the Duke of Athole, — the naked summits of
the distant Grampians — and the frequent visitations of
the presbytery, who are eternally recommending fast-
days, and destroyiug the peace of society by prying into
little slips of life, together with the desolation of the
place, render Auchterarder a melancholy scene, where-
ever you turn your eyes, except towards Perth and the
lower Strathearn, of which it has a partial prospect.'
Fifty years later it rose to fame by becoming the scene
of the first, and not the least, of those struggles in the
Established Church that ended in the Disruption, thus : — ■
' The Evangelical party in the Church had always held
it as a principle that the Church could not, without
sin, act under any system of patronage that was subver-
sive of the congregational call ; and that party, having
now become the majority, passed in 1S34 the Veto Act,
according to which no minister was to be intruded on a
parish contrary to the will of the people. In the
autumn of the same year Mr Young was presented by
the patron to Auchterarder. But as a majority of the
parishioners were opposed to his settlement, the non-
intrusion party declared the presentation to be null and
void. Thereon both patron and presentee appealed to
the Court of Session, which decreed (1837) that the
presbytery proceed to ordain Mr Young. The Court
disclaimed any desire or any right to interfere with the
Church, or to review or interfere with the decisions of
her courts, when acting within her own recognised con-
stitution : only it claimed, as representing the law, a
third party, neither Church nor State, the right to decide
firstly, the legal point, that, in terms of the compact
between the Church and the State, the former had no
right to alter the constitution on whose basis she was
established, and therefore that passing the Veto Act
was ultra vires of the Church ; and, secondly, the civil
case between parties within the Church, in which one
party complained of being injuriously affected by the
illegal proceedings of another. As soon as this decision
was given, the non-intrusion party declared that the
Church of Scotland was the creature of the State, or
was Erastian in constitution, inasmuch as she recognised
the right of the State to interfere, and of the civil
courts to judge, in matters falling within her proper