Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

BANCLEEOCHE
ladius or Paldy, to have brought that saint's relics
hither about 430 from either Ireland or Galloway, and
himself to have been buried at Liconium, the old name
probably of Banchory-Ternan ; he thus was the only
apostle of the southern Picts, really belonging to the
5th century (Celt. Scot., ii. 26-32). The first post-Ee-
formation minister, James Eeid, was father of Thomas
Eeid, the Latinist, and Alexander, an eminent physician ;
and Dr George Campbell, minister 1747-57, composed
here part of his Philosophy of Rhetoric. Banchory-Ter-
nan is in the presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil and
synod of Aberdeen ; its minister's income is £362.
Five schools — Central, Crathes, Inchmarlo, Tilquhillie,
and Eaemoir — with total accommodation for 556 children,
had (1879) an average attendance of 406, and grants
amounting to £359, 14s. 6d., the corresponding figures
for the Central school alone being 250, 256, and £250,
9s. 6d. Valuation (1881) £19,65S, 17s. lid., including
£4133 for railway. Pop. (1801) 1322, (1821) 1729, (1841)
2240, (1861) 2947, (1871)2875, (1881) 3065.— Orel. Sur.,
shs. 66, 76, 1871-74.
Bancleroche or Kirkton, an estate, with a mansion, in
Campsie parish, Stirlingshire. The mansion stands in
the mouth of Kirkton Glen.
Bancrosh. See Balnacross.
Bandirran, an estate, with amansion, in Kettins parish,
Forfarshire (detached), 7 miles NE of Perth.
Bandirran, South, a detached section (7 J x 3^ furl.)
of Caputh parish, Perthshire, to the S of Bandirran
House.
Bandrum, an estate, with a mansion, in Saline parish,
Fife, 5 miles NW of Dunfermline.
Baneton or Baintown, a village in Kennoway parish,
Fife, f mile NNE of Kennoway village.
Banff (pron. Bamf ; anc. Bomiffe, Bainife, and Bainffe,
from Boin or Boync thanedom), a royal burgh and sea-
port, the capital of Banffshire, in a parish of its own
name, and a parliamentary burgh, comprising the sepa-
rate police-burgh of Macduff, in Gamrie parish. By
road it is 1 J mile WSW of Macduff, 45J miles NNW of
Aberdeen, and 22 "VV of Fraserburgh ; and from two
stations, Banff Bridge and Banff Harbour, on the Turriff
and Banffshire sections (1857-59) of the Great North of
Scotland railway, it is 29A miles N by W of Inveramsay
Junction, 50 NNW of Aberdeen, 16J NE of Grange
Junction, 20J NE of Keith, 4S| E by N of Elgin, 75|
ENE of Inverness, 185| N by E of Edinburgh, and
2024 NNE of Glasgow. With the Moray Firth to the
N, Banff Bay and the Deveron to the E, to the S Duff
House and its finely- wooded park, Banff was parted till
lately into the larger low town and the sea-town, one
built on a gentle declivity towards the river, and the
other crowning an elevated plateau, that breaks off sud-
denly within a few yards of the beach. But by the
feuing of the space between — the site of the ancient
castle — the two have been brought into connection ; and
at present there is a southward extension of villas along
the Sandyhill Eoad ; whilst the whole is characterised
by a neatness and liveliness that yearly attract an in-
creasing number of summer visitors. An ancient place,
Banff has retained few relics of antiquity, the House of
Airlie and the Ogilvies' stately ' Palace ' both having
disappeared, the latter destroyed by General Munro in
Aug. 1640 ; of the Castle, as old at least as 1364,
nothing is left but a scrap of the outer wall and moat,
the portion in which Archbishop Sharp was born (4 May
1618) having been demolished early in this century.
The present castle was built by James, sixth Earl of
Findlater and third of Seafield (1714-70), as a jointure
residence, and is a plain modern building, inferior in
interest to the Laird of Auchmedden's town house at
the head of the Strait Path. The old kirk is repre-
sented by only one vaulted aisle, the burying-placo of
the Ogilvies, Lords Banff (1642-1803) ; and a Carmelite
priory, founded before 1324, an Observant priory, a
house of the Knights Templars, a bedehouse for eight
old women, and four pre-Eeformation chapels — all have
left hardly a vestige.
To come to the modern town, Banff has a post office,
Seal of Banff.
BANFF
with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and tele-
graph departments, branches of the Union, Commercial,
National, North of Scotland, and Aberdeen Town and
County banks, a Central Savings' Bank, 24 insurance
agencies, 4 hotels, a gas-light company (1831), a water
company, a spacious market-place (laid out in 1830),
4 masonic lodges, a bath-house, etc. , and publishes the
Tuesday Liberal Banffshire Journal (1845). The Town-
House (1796) is a plain three-storied edifice, forming
two sides of a square, with an earlier fluted spire, 100
feet high at the outer angle ; the County Buildings,
also Grecian in style, were erected in 1S71 at a cost of
£7214 — one-half thereof defrayed by Government, — and
contain a court room, 38 feet
long, 28A wide, and 26J high.
A County Prison (1796) was dis-
continued in 1878 ; the County
Lunatic Asylum (1865) is a
Tudor structure, built at a cost
of £12,000 for 90 inmates, near
Ladysbridge station, 1\ miles
WSW of the town. Chalmers'
Hospital (1862), a striking Eliza-
bethan pile, like Donaldson's Hos-
pital at Edinburgh, cost £6000 of
the £70,000 bequeathed by Alex.
Chalmers, Esq. of Clunie for ' the support, maintenance,
care, and relief of 50 destitute sick paupers, lunatics, and
infirm persons of both sexes, being natives of Banffshire,'
this being one out of several mortifications — Cassie's
(£10,000), Smith's (£10,000), Wilson's (£5500), etc.
Other noteworthy structures are the seven-arched bridge
(1779), leading across the Deveron to Macduff, with a
free water-way of 142 yards ; the Young Men's Christian
Association Hall (1866 ; 650 seats) ; St Andrew's masonic
lodge, Venetian in style ; the Fife Arms Hotel ; the
public schools (183S ; cost, £4500), a Grecian building,
with eastern facade 154 feet long ; Pirie's Institution
(1804) ; and the Biggar Memorial Drinking Fountain
(187S), designed by J. Ehind after St Giles's spire,
Edinburgh. The library of the Literary Society, in the
Town-House, is extensive and well-selected ; and the
Museum of the Scientific Institution, in the vestibule
of the public schools, has been greatly improved under
the euratorship of Thomas Edward, the ' Scotch
Naturalist ' of Smiles's charming work (Lond. 1876).
Places of worship are the very plain parish church
(1790 ; 1500 sittings), with a spire added about 1848 ;
a Grecian domed Free church (1844 ; enlarged in 1876
by 108 sittings at a cost of £1200) ; a new Gothic U.P.
church (1880 ; 275 sittings ; cost, £1800) ; an Inde-
pendent chapel (1834 ; 400 sittings) ; a new Gothic
Wesleyan chapel (1878 ; 259 sittings ; cost, £1400),
with a spire ; St Andrew's Episcopal church (1833 ;
356 sittings), a Debased Gothic building, adorned in
1875-81 with three beautiful stained-glass windows ;
the new Gothic Eoman Catholic church of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel (1870 ; 250 sittings) ; and, in the Town-
House, a Plymouth Brethren's chapel. The two board
schools, public and Episcopalian, with respective accom-
modation for 803 and 90 children, had (1879) an average
attendance of 433 and 59, and grants of £403, 7s. 6d.
and £46, 16s. 6d.
The port of Banff includes the creeks or sub-ports of
Macduff, Fraserburgh, Gardenstown, Portsoy, Port-Gor-
don, and Garmouth ; and Banff itself makes but a small
figure in the aggregate business of the seven. Its har-
bour, formed at the Deveron's mouth in 1775, is greatly
inferior to that of Macduff, in spite of a pier and break-
water constructed by Telford in 1816 at a cost of £20,000.
Often impeded by shifting shoals, it should at ordinary
high water admit vessels drawing 12, at spring-tides 15,
feet. On 31 Dec. 1880 there were registered as belonging
to the port 130 sailing vessels of 21,538 tons, against a
tonnage of 1943 in 1797, 4301 in 1836, 744S in 1845,
13,009 in 1853, 12,891 in 1863, and 17,033 in 1873.
This shows development ; but hardly so the following
table, which gives the tonnage of vessels that entered and
cleared from and to foreign and colonial ports and coast-
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