Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

AUCHTERARDER
sphere and jurisdiction. And the same party declared
in the General Assembly of 1838 (being a majority)
that the supremacy and sole headship of the Lord Jesus
Christ they would assert, and at all hazards defend.
When the judgment had been confirmed on appeal by
the House of Lords, May 1S39, the General Assembly
by a large majority passed a resolution pledging the
Church implicitly to obey the civil courts in all matters
of civil interest, but firmly refusing their control in
things spiritual. ... A second case arose out of
the patron and the presentee raising an action for
damages against the presbytery, which the Court of
Session decided they were entitled to. In the first case
it had been decided by the Supreme Civil Court, simply
that the presbytery had acted illegally in setting the
presentee aside by the Veto Act ; and from the injurious
effects of this new interpretation (as the non-intrusion
party considered it) of the law of patronage, the Church
might have been protected by a legislative change in
that law. When the negotiations for relief in that way
failed, the party desiring it passed in the Assembly of
1842 their " Claim, Declaration, and Protest." . . .
Matters were supposed to be made worse than ever by the
decision of the House of Lords (Aug. 1842), confirm-
ing on appeal that of the Court of Session in the second
Auchterarder case ' (article ' Free Church ' in the Globe
Encyclopedia, 1881).
Chiefly consisting of one main street, extending north-
eastward for over a mile along the great highroad from
Stirling to Perth, Auchterarder wears a modern and pros-
perous aspect. It has a post office, with money order,
savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments,
branches of the Bank of Scotland and the Union Bank,
a printing office, gas-works, 5 inns, a coffee house (1SS0)
with reading and recreation rooms, a library (the Smeaton),
a Freemasons' lodge, and 1 mile SSW, a new combination
poorhouse for Auchterarder and 15 neighbouring parishes.
The principal public buildings are the town -hall and the
Aytoun public hall. The former stands near the middle
of the town, and, founded in 1872, cost £1600, and has
accommodation for 600 persons. The latter, not far from
the Cross, and fronting an elegant fountain, was erected
(1870-72) as a memorial to the late Captain Aytoun of
Glendevon, in recognition of services rendered to the
town. A Gothic edifice with a handsome tower to the
W, it contains a hall of 60 by 40 feet, front rooms of the
same dimensions, and smaller apartments ; and cost, with
the fountain, more than £2000. Places of worship are
the parish church (1784-1811 ; 930 sittings) ; the Free
church (1843-45) with a tower 80 feet high, and with
a stained-glass window (1879) representing the 'Good
Shepherd;' 2 U.P. churches, Worth and South ; and a
Konian Catholic chapel (1879). A sheriff small debt
court sits on the last Monday of January, April, July,
and October, and has jurisdiction over the parishes
of Auchterarder, Dunning, Glendevon, Blackford, and
Trinity Gask ; Saturday is market-day ; and cattle fairs
are held on the first Wednesday of February, May,
and December, the last Wednesday of March, and the
Wednesday before October Falkirk Tryst, the greatest
being the December fair. The manufacture of tartan
and galas, introduced many years ago, is a thriving
industry ; and in or near the town there are now 6
woollen mills, besides 2 dyeworks, a brewery, a malt
kiln, 3 flour mills, an agricultural implement factory,
and a saw mill. Pop. (1791) 594, (1831) 1981, (1861)
2844, (1871) 2599, (1881)2854.
The parish contains also the villages of Aberuthven,
2J miles NE of the town, and Boreland Park, J mile W
by S ; and it comprises the ancient parish of Aberuthven,
annexed some time before the Revolution. Bounded
NW and N by Trinity Gask, E by Dunning, S by Glen-
devon, and W by Blackford, it has an extreme length
from N to S of 6g miles, a width from E to W of from
2J to 3J miles, and an area of 11,227J acres, of which
12J lie detached, and 46J are water. The Earn roughly
traces the northern boundary, and from it the surface
rises southward to the green, pastoral Ochils, attaining
67 feet at the NE angle of the parish, 200 near Coul, 500
ATJCHTERDERRAN
just to the SE of the town, 400 by the poorhouse, 1250
in Craig Rossie and Beld Hill, 1000 near Upper Cloan,
1096 in Black Mallet, 1306 in Muekle Law, 1559 in Corb
Law, 1582 in Sim's Hill, 1594 in Steele's Enowe, and
1552 in Carlownie Hill, these 4 last culminating on the
south-eastern or the southern border. Ruthven Water,
rising in the SE of Blackford parish on the western slope
of the Seat (1408 feet), flows first north-north-westward
through Glen Eagles to Tullibardine Castle, thence north-
north-eastward past Kincardine Castle, and so on through
Auchterarder parish to its confluence with the Earn, 1J
mile N of Aberuthven, after a course of some 9^ miles.
At 3 furlongs SW of Auchterarder station, or just beyond
the confines of the parish, its narrow dell is spanned by
a splendid eight-arched railway viaduct, 498 feet long
and 98 high; and, 1£ mile NNE of this, its principal
affluent, the Pairney Burn, winding of miles north-north-
westward from Corb Law, and itself receiving the Coul
Burn (2 miles long) from Sim's Hill, is crossed by another
viaduct of 2 successive arches, the upper one carrying the
railway over, and the lower the Dunning road. Trap
rocks form the main mass of the hills, and intersect the
low country with dykes ; while sandstone of various
kinds, some of them quarried for building purposes,
abounds through the centre and the N, where limestone
also is found. Coal has been sought without success ;
but agate, chalcedony, jasper, and other precious minerals
are fairly plentiful among the skirts of the hills. The
soil is various — clayey loam in the N, sandy in the E,
and a rich black loam near the town ; nearly one-half of
the entire area is pasture or waste, and plantations cover
some 300 acres. On the summit and western slope of
Beld Hill are traces of ancient encampments, outposts
probably of the Roman station at Ardoch ; and other an-
tiquities are the ruins of Malcolm's castle, of Aberuthven
church, and of the old parish church of Auchterarder,
which, standing f mile N of the town, was dedicated to
St Mungo or Kentigern, and was either of Norman or
First Pointed origin. Auchterarder House in Elizabethan,
and Colearn in Scottish Baronial style, are both of modern
erection-; and 6 proprietors hold each an annual value of
£500 and upwards, 14 of between £100 and £500, 13 of
from £50 to £100, and 54 of from £20 to £50. Auchter-
arder is the seat of a presbytery in the synod of Perth
and Stirling ; its minister's income is £376. Under
the school-board there are the 3 public schools of Auch-
terarder (an Elizabethan structure, erected in 1875 at a
cost of £2000), Townhead, and Aberuthven, and a charity
school, founded by John Sheddan, Esq., of Lochie, in
1811, to furnish free education to 12 poor children, and
endowed with land of £1000 value. With respective
accommodation for 250, 154, 100, and 203 children, these
had (1879) an average attendance of 122, 129, 66, and
107, and grants of £108, 12s., £107, 3s., £62, 3s., and
£78, 2s. Valuation (1S81) £19,451, 10s. 4d. Pop. (1755)
1194, (1801) 2042, (1831) 31S2, (1S61)4208, (1871)3795,
(1SS1) 3648.— Orel. Sur., shs. 39, 47, 1869.
The presbytery of Auchterarder comprehends Ardoch,
Auchterarder, Blackford, Comrie, Crieff, Crieff West
church {quoad sacra), Dunning, Foulis-Wester, Gask,
Glendevon, Madderty, Monzievaird and Strowan, Mut-
hill, and Trinity Gask. Pop. (1871) 20,457, of whom
4611 were communicants of the Church of Scotland in
1878, the sums raised by the above 15 congregations in
that year amounting to £4611. The Free Church, too,
has a presbytery of Auchterarder, whose churches at
Aberuthven, Auchterarder, Blackford, Braco, Comrie,
Crieff, Dunning, Madderty, Monzie, and Muthill had
2783 communicants in 1S80.
Auchterderran, a hamlet and a parish of SW Fife. The
hamlet stands f mile N by W of Cardenden station,
and 2| NE of Lochgellt, a town with a head post office
and another station, lying within the western border of
this parish. The latter is bounded N by Kinross-shire
and Kinglassie, E by Kinglassie and Dysart, SE by
Kirkcaldy and Abbotshall, S by Auchtertool, SW by
Beath, and W by Ballingray. With a very irregular
outline, rudely resembling a cross, it has a length from
E to W of from 2J to 6-J miles, a width from N to S of
87