Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

TUMMEL BRIDGE
pretty — strongly pleasing but soon exhausted. A con-
siderable space below this, and towards Pitlochry, makes
a remote approach to the character of the upper glen,
and exhibits continuous alternations of picture and
romance.
But the grand attraction of the Tummel is its cele-
brated fall, near the foot of the upper glen. Though
by no means so high as the Falls of Foyers and of Bruar,
it is almost as grand, on account of the greater volume
of its water ; but its beauties are not likely to be en-
tranced by the salmon ladder proposed in the summer
of 18S4. In the face of a tremendous rock NW of the
fall is a cave, to which thero is only one and a very
difficult passage. A party of the Macgregors are said
to have been surprised in this cave during the period of
their proscription, and some of them slain on the spot,
while a remnant climbed a tree which grew on the face
of the rock, and were precipitated to the bottom by
their pursuers cutting away the tree from its root. —
Ord. Sur., sh. 55, 1869.
Tummel Bridge, a place in the NW of Dull parish,
Perthshire, on the S bank of the Tummel, 7 miles E of
Kinloch-Eannoch, 14 W by N of Pitlochry, 8 N by W
of Coshieville, and 5 SE of Trinafour. It has a post
office under Pitlochry, an inn, a Free church, a public
school, and a fair on the Monday before the last Tuesday
of October.
Tundergarth, a parish of Annandale, Dumfriesshire,
containing Bankshill village, 4 miles E of the post-
town, Lockerbie. A long narrow strip of country, de-
scending south-westward from the watershed with Esk-
dale to within 2f miles of the river Annan, it is bounded
NW by Dryfesdale and Hutton, NE by Westerkirk and
Langholm, SE by Middlebie and Hoddoni, and SW by
St Mungo. Its utmost length, from NE to SW, is 9j
miles ; its breadth varies between 5f furlongs and 3|
miles ; and its area is 164 square miles or 10,513f acres,
of which 32 are water. From a point | mile below its
source (780 feet above sea-level), the Water of Milk
runs 12| miles south-westward along all the Hutton
and Dryfesdale and most of the St Mungo boundary,
receiving by the way a dozen indigenous rivulets with
an average length of about 1-| mile. The general sur-
face of the parish is, in consequence, a declination to the
Milk ; but it is singularly broken into steep-sided vales
and glens, and abounds in picturesque scenes. In the
extreme SW it sinks to 295 feet above sea-level ; and
thence it rises north-eastward to S69 feet at a *northern
spur of Beunswaek Hill, 859 at *Risp Fell, 1045 at
*Grauge Fell, 992 at Blackston Hill, 1460 at *Hen
Hill, and 1089 at Friar Edge, where asterisks mark
those summits that culminate on or near to the south-
eastern and north-eastern boundaries. Greenstone,
clay slate, mica slate, and greywacke are the predomi-
nant rocks ; and antimony has been found in small
quantities. The soil of the lower grounds is partly thin
and stony, but mostly fertile ; of the higher grounds,
is of cold character, resting on a retentive sub-soil.
Not much more than one-fourth of the entire area is in
tillage ; about 150 acres are under wood ; and the rest
of the land is either pastoral or waste. Antiquities are
remains of a Caledonian stone circle, the ' Seven
Brethren,' on Whiteholm farm ; a reach of the Boman
road from Brunswark to Upper Nithsdale ; small en-
trenched camps of the kind provincially called birrens
on a number of elevated spots ; and the site of an
ancient baronial fortalice called Tundergarth Castle.
Some visitors admire Linhead Linn more than Haw-
thornden. Five proprietors hold each an annual value
of £500 and upwards, 4 of between £100 and £500.
Tundergarth is in the presbytery of Lochmaben and the
synod of Dumfries ; the living is worth £214. The
parish church, 1^ mile SW of Bankshill, was built
in 1771, and is sufficiently commodious. The public
school, with accommodation for 93 children, had (1884)
an average attendance of 73, and a grant of £76, 18s.
Valuation (1860) £4893, (1885) £8433, 4s. 7d. Pop.
(1801) 485, (1831) 530, (1861) 570, (1871) 510, (1881)
466.— Ord. Sur., sh. 10, 1864.
TURRIFF
Turing's Tower. See Foveean.
Turin Hill. See Rescobie.
Turk. See Glenfinglas.
Turnberry Castle, a fragmentary ruin on the coast of
Eirkoswald parish, Ayrshire, 6£ miles N of Girvan.
When or by whom it was built is quite uncertain, but
it seems to have been a stronghold of the old Celtic
Lords of Galloway, and afterwards of the Earls of
Caeeick— a title bestowed in 1186 by William the
Lyon on Duncan, the grandson of Fergus of Galloway.
Duncan's grand-daughter, Margaret, by her romantic
second marriage with Robert de Brus in 1271, conveyed
to him both the castle and earldom ; and Turnberry
disputes with Lochmaben the honour of being the
birthplace of Robert Bruce (1274-1329), the greatest of
Scotland's kings. On 20 Sept. 1286 it was the meeting-
place of the great Scottish barons who supported the
title of Bruce the ' Competitor ' to the Crown ; and in
the spring of 1307 it was recaptured from the English
by King Robert Bruce. So at least says the tradition
which Scott has so finely versified in Canto Fifth of his
Lord of the Isles ; but, according to Dr Hill Burton,
Bruce ' found the castle so well garrisoned by Percy
that attack was useless. Fortune favoured his adventure,
however, in another shape, for in a night attack on
Percy's army, close at hand, he caused havoc and panic,
and, what was of some moment, gained a valuable
booty.' The ruin has suffered so severely from the
action of sea and weather, and the ruthless hand of
man, as to have little more remaining than its lower
vaults and cellars ; but from indications which are
furnished by these, by some vestiges of a drawbridge,
and by the extent of rock which seems to have been
included in the site, the castle appears to have been a
fortress of great size and strength. It occupies a small
low promontory, so as to be washed on three sides by
the sea ; and, on the land side, it overlooks a rich plain
of upwards of 600 acres. Its site commands a full pro-
spect of all the lower Firth of Clyde. A lighthouse,
built on part of the castle's site in 1874, rises to a
height of 60 feet, and exhibits a light flashing once
every 12 seconds, and visible at a distance of 15 nautical
miles.— Ord. Sur., sh. 13, 1870.
Turner Hall, an old mansion in Ellon parish, Aber-
deenshire, 3 miles N by W of Ellon village.
Turret Burn. See Glentureet.
Turriff, a town and a parish of NW Aberdeenshire.
The town stands, 166 feet above sea-level, near the right
bank of Idoch Water or the Burn of Turriff, and f mile
ESE of Eastside Bridge across the river Deveron, a three-
arch sandstone structure, erected in 1826 at a cost of
more than £2500. It has a station on the Turriff and
Macduff branch (1857-60) of the Great North of Scotland
railway, llf miles S by E of Macduff, 18 N of Inveram-
say Junction, and 38A NNW of Aberdeen. With a
central square, from which a number of streets diverge,
the town is mainly built of red Delgaty sandstone, some-
what dingy in hue ; but the general aspect is neat and
clean, the shops are good, and Turriff on the whole is
one of the most flourishing smaller towns in the N of
Aberdeenshire. It has a post office, with money order,
savings' bank, insurance, and railway telegraph depart-
ments, branches of the Commercial, North of Scotland,
Union, and Town and County Banks, a local savings''
bank (1817), 8 insurance agencies, 2 hotels, a gas com-
pany (1839), a slaughter-house (1876), agricultural and
horticultural societies, a Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciation, with a reading-room, etc. The new North of
Scotland Bank, erected in 1875, is the most striking
edifice, Scottish Baronial in style, with a square clock-
tower, 63 feet high. The ancient market-cross, 20 feet
high, was repaired in 1841, and re-erected in 1865.
The old parish church ' is supposed to have been built
by Malcolm Ceannmor ' (1058-93); but its dedication
to St Comgan or St Congan inclines one to refer its
foundation to the latter half of the 7th century. Marjory,
Countess of Buchan, gave it in 1214 to Arbroath Abbey;
and in 1272 Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, attached
it to an almshouse or hospital for thirteen poor husband-
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