Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

BEEAKACHY
miles in length by from 3 to 15 in breadth ; and is inter-
rupted only by the occurrence of three or four properties
on one side of a valley or glen, the other side of which
belongs to the Breadalbane estate. The Earl of Bread-
albane, in 1793-94, raised two fencible regiments com-
prising 2300 men, of whom 1600 were obtained from the
estate of Breadalbane alone. A presbytery of the Free
church bears the name of Breadalbane ; is in the synod
of Perth and Stirling ; and has churches at Aberfeldy,
Ardeonaig, Fortingal,Glenlyon, Eenmore, Killin, Lawers,
Logierait, Strathfillan, and Tummel-Bridge, and a mis-
sion station at Amulree, which together had 2228 mem-
bers in 1SS0.
Breakachy, a burn in Laggan parish, Inverness-shire.
It is a trivial runnel in dry weather, but becomes a
voluminous and destructive torrent after a few hours
of heavy rain.
Breakish, a hamlet in Strath parish, Isle of Skye,
Inverness-shire. A public school at it, with accommo-
dation for 82 children, had (1879) an average attendance
of 56, and a grant of £42, lis.
Breasclet, a village in Uig parish, Lewis, Outer He-
brides, Ross-shire. Pop. (1871) 331.
Brechin, a royal and parliamentary burgh and a parish
of E Forfarshire. The town stands on the left or northern
bank of the South Esk, here spanned by an ancient two-
arched bridge, and by road is 8J miles WNW of Mon-
trose and 12| NE of Forfar, whilst, as terminus of a
branch of the Caledonian, it is 4 miles W by N of Bridge
of Dun Junction, 9| WNW of Montrose, 45| SSW of
Aberdeen, 19* WE of Forfar, 51f NE of Perth, 102|
NNE of Edinburgh, and 111 NE of Glasgow. 'As an
old Episcopal seat, Brechin' (to quote from Dr Guthrie's
Memoir), ' is entitled by courtesy to the designation of
a " city," but, apart from its memorials of the past, the
interior aspect of the place has little to distinguish it
from any other Scotch burgh of its size. With Brechin,
as with more important places, it is distance that lends
enchantment to the view. Seen from the neighbouring
heights, owing to its remarkable situation, it is pictur-
esquely distinctive, almost unique. | A very steep,* wind-
ing street, a mile in length, conducts the visitor from
the higher portion of the town to the river South Esk ;
and when he has crossed the bridge, and ascended some
way the opposite bank, let him turn round, and he can
scarce fail to be struck by the scene before him. The
town seems to hang upon the sunny slope of a fertile
wooded valley ; the river, widening above the bridge into
a broad expanse of deep still water, reflects in its upper
reaches the ancient trees which fringe the precipitous
rock on which Brechin Castle stands, fit home for a
feudal baron ; while immediately to the right of the
castle, and ona still higher elevation, rise the grey spires
of the Cathedral and the adjoining Round Tower. The
middle distance is occupied by the town itself, descend-
ing, roof below roof, to the green meadow which borders
the stream ; and, for background, some 10 miles to the
N, rises the long blue range of the Grampians. '
Brechin appears first early in the reign of Kenneth
Mac Malcolm (971-95), who 'gave the great city to the
Lord,' founding a church here dedicated to the Holy
Trinity — a monastery seemingly after the Irish model,
combined with a Culdee college. We hear of it next
in two charters of David I. to the church of Deer, the
first one witnessed in 1132 by Leot, abbot, and the
second in 1153 by Samson, bishop, of Brechin, so that
between these dates — most probably about 1150 — the
abbot appears to have become the bishop, the abbacy
passing to lay hereditary abbots, and the Culdees being
first conjoined with, next (1218) distinguished from, and
lastly (1248) entirely superseded by, the chapter. —
Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. ii. (1877), pp. 332, 400.
The annals of the see are uneventful ; in those of the
town one striking episode is the three weeks' defence of
the castle against Edward I. in 1303 by Sir Thomas
Maule, whose death from a missile was followed by the
* The rise from the south-eastern to the northern outskirts of
the town, a distance of 2J miles, is 222 feet, viz., from @i to 316
feet above sea-level.
BRECHIN
garrison's surrender. In the ' Battle of Brechin ' (18
May 1452), fought near the Hare Cairn in Logiepert
parish, 2| miles NNE of the town, the Earl of Huntly
defeated Crawford's rebellion against James II. ; at the
town itself, on 5 July 1572, Sir Adam Gordon of
Auchindoun, Queen Mary's partisan, surprised a party
of her son's adherents. The bishop, in 1637, resolved
to read Laud's Service book, so ' one Sunday,' by
Baillie's account, ' when other feeble cowards couched,
he went to the pulpit with his pistols, his servants, and,
as the report goes, his wife with weapons. He closed
the doors and read his service. But when he was done,
he could scarce get to his house — all flocked about him ;
and had he not fled, he might have been killed. Since,
he durst never try that play over again. ' In 1 645 the
place was plundered by Montrose, who burned about sixty
houses; in 1715, James VIII. was proclaimed at it by
James, fourth Earl of Panmure and Baron Maule of
Brechin and Navar. The forfeited Panmure estates, in-
cluding Brechin Castle, were bought back in 1764 by
Wm. Maule, Earl of Panmure and Forth ; and on his
death in 1782 they passed to his nephew, Geo. Ramsay,
eighth Earl of Dalhodsie, whose great-grandson, Jn. Wm.
Ramsay (b. 1847), succeeded as thirteenth Earl in 1880.
The list of its worthies is long for Brechin's size, in-
cluding — Thos. Dempster (1579-1625), Latinist and his-
torian; doubtfully, Gawin Douglas (1474-1522), the poet-
bishop of Dunkeld ; Jn. Gillies, LL.D. (1747-1836),
historian of Ancient Greece ; Thos. Guthrie, D.D. (1803-
73), philanthropist and preacher ; Wm. Guthrie (1701-
70), compiler of histories ; David Low (1768-1855),
Bishop of Ross, and last of the Jacobite clergy ; Wm.
Maitland (1693-1757), historian of London and Edin-
burgh ; Prof. Jn. Pringle Nichol (1804-59), astronomer ;
Geo. Rose (1744-1818), statesman; Colvin Smith, R. S. A.
(1795-1875), portrait painter ; Jas. Tytler (1747-1803),
hack-writer and editor of the Encyc. Britannica ; his
brother, Hy. Wm. Tytler, M.D. (1752-1808), translator
of Callimachus ; and David Watson (1710-56), translator
of Horace. At Brechin, too, died Wm. Guthrie (1620-
65), Covenanting confessor, and author of the Trial of a
Saving Interest in Christ, who lies within the old Cathe-
dral church ; and the Rev. Geo. Gilfillan (1813-78), author
and lecturer. Two of its ministers were Jn. Willison
(1680-1750), author of Sacramental Meditations, and Jas.
Fordyce (1720-96), poet and author of Sermons to Young
Women; among its bishops was Alexander Penrose
Forbes (1817-75).
Brechin's chief relics of antiquity are its Round Tower
and Cathedral. The latter, founded about 1150, and
added to at various periods, was once a plain cruciform
structure, comprising an aisleless choir (84J feet long),
pure early First Pointed in style, N and S transepts, and
an aisled, five-bayed nave (114 x 58 feet), in late First
Pointed mixed with Second Pointed, thereto belonging
the NW tower and the large four-light window — almost
Flamboyant in character — over the W arched doorway.
The 'improvements ' of 1806-8 reduced the choir to 30§
feet, demolished the transepts, and rebuilt the aisles,
roofing them flush with the nave, so that little is left
now of the original building but the octagonal and
clustered piers, the W front, corbie-gabled, and the
broad, square, five-storied tower, which, with a NE
belfry-turret, and a low, octagonal, dormer-windowed
spire, has a total height of 128 feet, and was built by
Bishop Patrick (1351-73). Attached to the SW angle of
the Cathedral stands the Round Tower, like but superior
to that of Abernethy. From a round, square-edged
plinth, it rises to a height of 86|, or, including the
later conical stone roof, lOlf, feet ; and it is perfectly
circular throughout, tapering regularly from an internal
diameter of 7| feet at the base to one of 6| feet at
the top, whilst the wall's thickness also diminishes from
i\ to 2f feet. It is built, in sixty irregular courses, of
blocks of reddish-grey sandstone, dressed to the curve,
but squared at neither top nor bottom ; within, string-
courses divide it into seven stories, the topmost lighted
by four largish apertures facing the cardinal points. A
western doorway, 6§ feet from the ground, has inclined
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