Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

THURSO
transacted there. The superior and magistrates
of Wick having, however, raised an action to show
that their rights were being usurped, obtained a decree
of the Court of Session in their favour in 1S28, and
the legal business was then removed to Wick. The old
part of the town occupies a triangular piece of ground
between the bay and the river, and is irregularly built ;
but the newer part to the SW is regularly laid out,
though it has not yet developed into the large place it
was designed to be. Near the centre of the town is
Macdonald Square, in which is a small public garden,
originally the private property of the Sinclair family, but
presented to the town by Sir John Sinclair in 1876. In
the centre is a statue of Sir John Sinclair of Old Statistical
Account celebrity, originally erected at Thurso Castle in
1835, but removed to its present position in 1856. The
ground was formerly somewhat bare and neglected, but
it was laid out and ornamented in 1882-83 at an expense
of £213 raised by public subscription. A promenade
■was formed at the links in 1882. It is over 300 yards
long, and the expense of construction was defrayed by
the public. The sands to the N of the town form
excellent bathing ground. The principal street is
Princes Street, formerly High Street, the name having
been changed after the visit paid to the town by the
Prince and Princess of Wales in October 1876, when His
Eoyal Highness opened an Art and Industrial Exhibi-
tion in the Town Hall. The Town Hall, a good Gothic
building in Princes Street, contains a courtroom, a
public library, and a museum on the ground floor, and
on the upper floor a public hall 56 feet 6 inches long, 40
feet wide, and 80 high. It was erected in 1870 at a cost
of £2500, obtained partly by public subscription and
partly from the proceeds of a bequest of £1000 made by
Mr Alexander Henderson several years before. The
centre window over the doorway is of stained glass, and
shows St Peter — the patron saint of the town — and the
arms of Mr Henderson and of Sinclair of Ulbster. The
museum contains part of the collections made by the
late Robert Dick. The library is carried on under the
Public Libraries Act, which was adopted in 1872. The
parish church, erected in 1832, after designs by Burns,
at a cost of £6000, is a good building, with a tower 140
feet high and a clock, the latter the gift of Mr Henry
Miller, London. There are 1540 sittings. Near the
river are the roofless walls of the old church of St Peter,
believed to date from the 14th century, and surrounded
by the old burying-ground. There are two Free churches,
the First and the West, of which the latter is a handsome
building of 1860 with a good spire. The Congregational
church, erected in 1875-76 at a cost of £1100, replaced
an old church dating from 1799. There is also an
Original Secession church. There is a public school,
an institution in Sinclair Street endowed by Mr Alex-
ander Miller for the education of boys, a benevolent
institution for girls in Olrig Street, and a Free Church
school. The Dunbar Hospital originated in a bequest
by Mr Alexander Dunbar, Scrabster, who died in 1859.
The foundation stone of the building was laid by the
Duke of Edinburgh in 1882. There is regular railway
communication with the south, and the mail steamer
sails between Orkney and Scrabster daily. There is a
small harbour at the mouth of the river, ranking as a
creek under Wick, but it is neither convenient nor safe.
The principal exports are grain and paving-stone. The
harbour or rather roadstead and pier at Scrabster are
separately noticed. The only industry of any importance
is in connection with the trade in Caithness flags, the
sawing, dressing, and polishing of which is carried on
by four companies ; and there is good fishing in Dunnet
Bay. Thurso has a head post office, with money order,
savings' bank, insurance, annuity, and telegraph depart-
ments ; branch offices of the Bank of Scotland, British
Linen Company, Commercial, National, and Town and
County Banks ; a branch of the National Security Sav-
ings' Bank ; agencies of 27 insurance companies ; a
newspaper, the Independent Caithness Courier (1866),
published every Friday ; a rifle hall, with a public
reading-room ; and several good hotels. Gas is supplied
TIBBERMORE
by a private company, and new gasworks were erected ia
1880. There is a weekly market on Friday, and there
are fairs on the second Tuesday of July (Petermass),
and the Fridays in August and September after Dunnet.
Sheriff small debt courts are held ten times a year, i.e.,
once every five weeks, on Thursdays ; and justice of
peace small debt courts are held every second Wednes-
day. Pop. of town (1841) 2510, (1861) 3426, (1871)
3622, (1881) 4026, of whom 1827 were males and 2199
females. Houses (1881) 995 occupied, 34 unoccupied,
and 16 being built.
Thurston, a plain two-story mansion in Innerwick,
parish, Haddingtonshire, near the right bank of the
Dry Burn, 5 miles SE of Dunbar.
Tibbermore, a parish of Perthshire, containing Al-
mondbank station, Hijntingtower and Ruthvenfield
village, and a small portion of the parliamentary burgh,
of Perth. It is bounded N by Methven and Redgorton,
E by Scone and Perth, S by Aberdalgie and Forteviot,
and W by Findo-Gask. Its utmost length, from ENE
to WSW, is %\ miles ; its breadth varies between 6J
furlongs and 2J miles ; and its area is 6170 acres, of which
30 are water. The Almond winds 2| miles east-north-
eastward along all the Redgorton border, till it falls into
the Tat, which itself flows \ mile south-eastward along
all the boundary with Scone. Beside the Almond the
surface declines to less than 50 feet above sea-level ; and
thence it rises to 223 feet near Hillyland, 257 near Hill
of Ruthven, and 467 near the Forteviot border. Thus,
without being hilly, the parish is considerably diversi-
fied. In the western district it descends in a gentle
slope to the N, and terminates in a narrow tract of level
ground ; and in the eastern district it in general lies
somewhat high above the Almond, and then, going
down in a steep descent, forms a delightful plain along
the margin of the stream. The district is in general
fertile ; and to a large extent, especially on the E and
S, is beautified with wood. The arable grounds, com-
prising nine-tenths of the entire area, have a various
soil — a sandy loam along the Almond, an argillaceous
earth toward Perth, and a reclaimed substratum of moss
in many parts of the W. Old Red Sandstane is the pre-
vailing rock, and has been largely quarried. At Letham,
2 miles WNW of Perth, a new mansion was built about
1880. The chief objects of antiquity and the chief manu-
factures have been noticed under Hctntingtoweb. Tib-
bennore or Tippermuir, though containing less of the
battlefield than Aberdalgie, has given name to the first
battle fought between the Marquis of Montrose and the
Covenanters (1 Sept. 1644) — a battle in which the latter
confronted 1700 Highlanders and Irishmen with 6000
foot and 600 horse, but were completely vanquished,
and suffered a loss of 2000 slain and 2000 captured.
Tibbennore was the residence of several of the bishops
of Dunkeld, particularly of Bishops Geoffrey and Sinclair,
who died in 1249 and 1337. Bishop Sinclair is noted in
history for an exploit against the English in the reign of
Robert Bruce. The earliest parish church of Tibbermore
was originally a chapel dedicated to St Serf or Servanus,
and situated on the N side of the Almond, within the
present boundaries of Redgorton. At Tullilum, in the
E end of Tibbermore, anciently stood a convent of Car-
melites ; and beside it Richard Inverkeithing, Bishop of
Dunkeld, built, in 1262, a chapel and a house. Here
the synods of Dunkeld diocese were held till 1460, when
they were removed by Bishop Thomas Lauder to his own
cathedral. Alexander Young was the last prior of the
convent ; and, on his embracing the Protestant religion
at the Reformation, he became minister of Tibbermore.
The name Tibbermore signifies 'a great well,' and
probably alludes to a perennial spring which issued
from behind the church, and was long known by
the name of the ' Lady Well,' but which, not long
before 1843, was destroyed by the draining of the
adjacent field. The father of Principal Tulloch was
minister from 1833 to 1844. The Earl of Kinnoull owns
about three-fifths of the parish, 5 lesser proprietors hold-
ing each an annual value of £500 and upwards, and 7 of
between £100 and £500. Giving off a small portion to
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