Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 3

ELIBANE
property, in 1815, was £73,288 ; in 1845, £98,115 ; in
1875, £208,167; in 1882, £228,073. Elgin and Nairn
Bhires return a member to parliament ; and the Elgin-
shire (y.nstituency, in 1882, was 1746. Pop. (1801)
27,760, (1821) 31,398, (1841) 35,012, (1861) 43,322,
(1871) 43,128, (1881) 43,788, of whom 20,725 were
males, and 23,063 females. Houses (1881) 8611 in-
habited, 391 vacant, 71 building.
The registration county gives off part of Cromdale
parish to Inverness-shire, and parts of Inveraven and
Keith to Banffshire ; takes in part of Dyke and Moy
from Nairnshire, and parts of Bellie, Boharm, and
Rothes from Banffshire. It comprehends nineteen en-
tire quoad civilia parishes, and had in 1871 a population
of 44,549, and in 1881 a population of 45, 108 All the
parishes are assessed for the poor. Fourteen of them,
mth one in Banffshire, form the Morayshire Combina-
tion, which has a poorhouse at Bishopmill. One is in
the Nairn Combination. The number of registered
poor, for the year ending 14 May 1881, was 1230 ; of
dependants on these, 641 ; of casual poor, 283 ; of de-
pendants on these, 221. The receipts for the poor were
£12,736, Os. 8Jd., aud the expenditure was £12,602,
19s. 9d. The percentage of illegitimate births was 13 '6
in 1871, 17-1 in 1878, 13 in 1879, and 16-8 in 1880.
The county comprises the si.xteen entire parishes of
Alves, St Andrews-Lhanbryd, Birnie, Drainie, Duffus,
Elgin, Speymouth, Spynie, and Urquhart, constituting
the presbytery of Elgin ; DaUas, Edenkillie, Forres,
Kinloss, and Rafford, in the presbytery of Forres ;
Knoekando, in the presbytery of Aberlour ; and Crom-
dale, in the presbytery of Abernethy. It shares with
Banffshire the parishes of Bellie and Keith, in the pres-
bytery of Strathbogie and Boharm ; Inveraven and
Rothes, in the presbytery of Aberlour ; and with Nairn-
sliu'e the parish of Dyke, in the presbytery of Forres.
There are quoad sacra parishes at Burghead and Lossie-
mouth, and mission churches at Advie and Knoekando.
The whole are within the jurisdiction of the synod of
Moray. In the year ending 30 Sept. 1880, the county
had 62 schools (51 of them public), with accommodation
for 10,202 scholars, 7466 on the registers, and 5800 in
average attendance. The certificated, assistant, and
pupU teachers numbered respectively 91, 5, and 74.
The territory now forming Elginshire belonged to the
ancient Caledonian Vacomagi, and was included in the
Roman division or so-caUed province of Vespasiana. It
formed part of the kingdom of Pictavia, and underwent
many changes in connection with descents and settle-
ments of the Scandinavians. In the Jliddle Ages it
formed the middle part of the great province of Moray
[see Moeat], although it early became a separate part
of that province. It seems to have been disjoined from
Inverness as early as 1263, for in that year Gilbert de
Rule is mentioned in the Eegistnun Moraviense as
sheriff of Elgin. The sheriff of Inverness still, how-
ever, at times exercised a jurisdiction within the county
of Elgin ; aud the proper erection of the county and
sheriffdom was not till the time of James II. , the earlier
sheriffs having probably had much narrower limits to
their power. The principal antiquities are the so-called
Roman well and bulls at Burghead, standing stones at
Urquhart and elsewhere, cup-marked stones near Burg-
head and near Alves, the cathedral, etc., at Elgin,
Spjmie palace, Birnie church, the abbey of Kinloss, the
priory of Pluscarden, the Michael kirk at Gordonstown,
the old porch of Duffus church, Sueno's Stone at Forres,
remains of Caledonian encampments on the Culbin
Sands, a sculptured cave near Hopeman, castles at
Elgin, Forres, Lochindorb, Rothes, and Duffus, and the
towers at Coxtou and Blervie. See Shaw's Eistory
of the Province of Moray (Edinb. 1775; 2d ed., Elgin,
1827 ; 3d ed., Glasgow, 1882) ; A Walk Round Moray-
shire (Banff, 1877) ; Watson's Morayshire Described (El-
gin, 1868) ; Leslie and Grant's Survey of the Province of
Moray (1798).
Elibank, an estate, with a mansion and a ruined castle,
in Yarrow parish, Selkirkshire. The mansion, Elibank
Cottage, stands on the right bank of the river Tweed, 5J !
ELIE
mUes E of Innerleithen. In 1595 the estate was granted
to the eminent lawyer. Sir Gideon Murray, a cadet of
the Darnhall or Blackbarony line ; and by him, doubt-
less, Elibank Tower was either wholly built or extended
from the condition of an old Border peel. ' Now a
shattered ruin, ' says Dr Chambers, ' occupying a com-
manding situation on the S bank of the Tweed, Elibank
stiU shows signs of having been a residence of a very
imposing character, defensible according to the usages
of the period at which it was inhabited. ' Sir Gideon's
daughter, Agnes, was the ' Muckle-mou'ed Meg ' of
Border story, who really, in 1611, did wed young Wil-
liam Scott of Harden, though the story otherwise
seems to have no foundation ; and Sir Gideon's son,
Patrick, was in 1643 raised to the peerage as Lord
Elibank. Two younger sons of the fourth Lord Elibank,
Alexander and James, are notable — the first as a violent
Jacobite, and the second for his five months' defence of
Fort St Philip, Minorca (1781-82), with less than 1000
men against 40,000 French and Spaniards. The Darn-
hall, Ballencrieff, and Elibank estates were all united
in the person of Alexander Murray (1747-1820), who
succeeded as seventh Lord in 1785 ; and Elibank 'Tower
has since been left to sink to decay. The present Lord
Elibank holds 1168 acres in Selkirkshu-e, valued at £361
per annum. — Ord. Sur., sh. 25, 1865. See Darnhall,
and pp. 345-354 of Dr William Chambers' History of
Peeblesshire (Edinb. 1864).
Elie or Ely, a small police burgh and a parish on the
SE coast of Fife. The town stands close to the shore at
the head of a bay of its own name, and has a station on
the East of Fife section of the North British, 4| miles
WSW of Anstruther, 14 ENE of Thornton Junction,
and 34 NE of Edinburgh. In bygone times a place of
some importance, it retains a few antique mansions in
a street near the beach, but mainly consists of modem
well-built houses. It has for a long time been a place
of considerable resort for summer sea-bathing, but
carries on little trade, although it possesses an excellent
natural harbour, much improved by quays and a pier,
and affording safe and accessible shelter during gales
from the W or SW. The bay is 7 furlongs wide across
the entrance, and thence measures 3J to its inmost re-
cess ; it is flanked on the E by EUe Ness, and by Chapel
Ness on the W. Wadehaven, a little to the E of the
harbour, has a depth of from 20 to 22 feet of water at
ordinary tides, and is said to have been named after
General Wade, who recommended it to Government as a
suitable harbour for ships of the royal navy. Imme-
diately to the W is the small old burgh of Earlsferrt,
on whose capital links an elegant golf club-house was
lately erected ; and Elie itself has a post office, with
money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments,
a branch of the National Bank, 2 hotels, gas-works,
water-works (conjointly with Earlsferry and St Mon-
ance), a subscription library of 4000 volumes, the parish
church (1726 ; 610 sittings), with a spire, a Free church,
and a public school. Having in 1865 adopted the
General Police and Improvement Act, it is governed by
a chief magistrate, 2 junior magistrates, and 3 other
police commissioners, with a town-clerk and a treasurer.
Burgh assessable rental (1882) £3804. Pop, (1861) 706,
(1871) 626, (1881) 625, of whom 79 were in Kiloonquhar
parish.
The parish down to about 1639 formed part of Kil-
conquhar, by a strip of which — 5 furlongs broad at the
narrowest — it now is divided into two unequal portions.
The larger cf these, containing the town, is bounded W
and N by KUconquhar, NE by St Monance, and SE and
S by the Firth of Forth, which here has a minimum
^vidth of 8:^ mUes. The smaller or westerly portion is
bounded NE and SE by KUconquhar, and W by New-
burn. It has an utmost length and breadth of 9 and
7i furlongs, as the main body has of 2 J and IJ miles ;
and the area of the whole is 2241 J acres, of which 650 j
belong to the westerly section, and 210J are foreshore.
The surface is generally flat, and rises nowhere into a
hill. KUconquhar Loch (4x3 furl.) touches the
northern boundary of the main body ; and Cocklemill
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