Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

AIRDRIE
Church, contains 1200 sittings; under it is Uawyaras
mission station. Flowerhill Church was erected for a
quondam Reformed Presbyterian congregation, which
joined the Establishment in 1873. Completed in 1875
at a cost of £6000, it is a Romanesque structure, seating
900, and adorned with a bell-tower over 100 feet high.
An organ was introduced into the church in 1886.
Other places of worship are four Free churches (West,
Broomknoll, High, and Graham Street), two U. P.
churches, one Baptist church, one Reformed Presby-
terian, one Wesleyan, one Congregationalist, one Evan-
gelical Union, and one Roman Catholic — St Margaret's
(1839), with 1010 sittings. The Academy was built
in 1849 at a cost of £2500, defrayed by Mr Alexander
of Airdrie House, who further endowed it with £80 a-
year ; and two fine new board schools, the Albert and
the Victoria, were opened in 1876. There are bur-
saries for children of the town attending these schools
(chiefly the Academy), of an aggregate yearly value of
£100 ; and they are eligible for one or more of five col-
lege bursaries, of £22 for five sessions. There are in all
five schools — four of them public (Academy, Albert,
Chapelside, and Victoria), and one Roman Catholic.
These five had a total accommodation for 3128 children,
an average attendance of 2962, and grants amounting
to £2977, 10s. Id.
The manufacturing prosperity, after growing for 50
years with the growth of a New- World rather than of
an Old-World town, was checked for a season, again
to show symptoms of renewed vigour. There are some
50 collieries and ironstone mines at work in New Monk-
land parish, while the Calderbank Steel and Coal Com-
pany has several furnaces in operation at Calderbank and
Chapelhall; and in and without the town there are
brass and iron foundries, engineering shops, oil and
fireclay works, brickfields, quarries, paper-mills, silk
and calico printing works, and cotton, wincey, hosiery,
flannel, and tweed factories. Steps have lately been
taken towards providing an increase in the water supply,
by Airdrie_ and Coatbridge conjointly, an Act of Parlia-
ment having been secured for the purpose. Value of
real property, (1861) £30,284, (1872) £30,926, (1881)
£33,027, (1891) £48,275. Pop. (1831) 6594, (1861)
12,918, (1871) 31,488, (1881) 13,363, (1891) 19,135.—
Ord. Sur., sh. 13, 1867.
Airdrie, an estate with a mansion in Crail parish,
Fife. The estate belonged, in the reign of David II., to
the family of Dundemore ; in the 15th century, to the
Lumsdens; in the reign of James VI., to Sir John
Preston, president of the Court of Session ; afterwards,
to General Anstruther ; and latterly, to Methven
Erskine, Esq., who became Earl of Kellie, and died here
in 1830. The mansion is embosomed in wood, crowns
a swelling ground at the distance of 2J miles from the
coast, and includes an ancient tower which commands a
magnificent view from Edinburgh to the ocean and from
St Abb's Head to the Bell Rock lighthouse.
Airdrie Hill, a property in New Monkland parish,
Lanarkshire, 1^ mile NE of Airdrie. It is rich in iron ore,
and has a band of ironstone from 2 to 4 feet thick, about
3 fathoms below the blackband. Here is a new school
under conjointly the New Monkland and the Clarkston
school-boards. Opened in 1876, it had (1891) accommo-
dation for 290 children, an average attendance of 130,
and a grant of £114, 17s.
Airds, an estate in Appin, Argyllshire, with the seat
of Rt. Macfie, Esq., 3 furlongs SE of Port-Appin village.
The estate lies opposite the upper end of Lismore island,
occupying a peninsula between Lochs Linnhe and Creran ;
and comprises 6700 acres valued at £2027 per annum.
Dr Macculloch, speaking of the peninsula, says :— ' I
do not know a place where all the elements, often incon-
gruous ones, of mountains, lakes, wood, rocks, castles,
sea, shipping, and cultivation are so strangely inter-
mixed, where they are so wildly picturesque, and where
they produce a greater variety of the most singular and
unexpected scenes.'
Airds, a bay in Muckairn parish, Argyllshire, on the
6 side of Loch Etive.
AIRLIE
Airdsmoss or Airsmoss, a morass in the E of Ayr-
shire, between the Water of Ayr and Lugar Water. It
begins about 1J mile ENE of Auchinleck village, ex-
tends about 6 miles north-eastward, has a mean breadth
of about 1J mile, and is approached over most of its
SE side, and crossed over a small part of its further end,
by the railway from Auchinleck to Muirkirk. It was
the scene, on 20 July 1680, of a sharp skirmish between
63 of the Covenanters and a party of dragoons, fatal to
Richard Cameron ; and it contains, at a spot where the
deadliest of the strife occurred, a monument popularly
called Cameron's Stone. The present monument is neat
and modern ; but the original one was a large fiat stone,
laid down about 50 years after the event, and marked
with the names of the Covenanters who fell in the skir-
mish, and with the figures of an open Bible and a hand
grasping a sword. The skirmish of Airdsmoss is the sub-
ject of the well-known effusion, beginning —
1 In a dream of the night I was wafted away,
To the moorland of mist where the martyrs lay ;
Where Cameron's sword and his Bible are seen,
Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green.'
Aires or Ox Rocks, rocky islets of Eirkcolm parish,
Wigtownshire, \ mile from the W coast, and nearly 1
mile SW of Corsewall lighthouse.
Airgoid, one of the summits of the Bengloe mountain
range in Blair Athole parish, Perthshire.
Airhouse, an estate of the Earl of Lauderdale in Chan
nelkirk parish, Berwickshire, 5f miles NNW of Lauder
Near it is Airhouse Law (1096 feet), one of the Lammer-
rnuir Hills.
Airi-Innis, a lake, about 2 miles long and $ mile
broad, in Morvern parish, Argyllshire.
Airleywight, the seat of Thos. Wylie, Esq. , on rising
ground, in Auchtergaven parish, Perthshire, 3i miles
NNW of Dunkeld station.
Airlie, a parish of W Forfarshire, whose Kirkton, to-
wards the NW, is h\ miles WSW of the post-town Kirrie-
muir, and 4J miles NNW of Eassie station, this being 8
miles WSW of Forfar, and 24f NE of Perth. At it is
the parish church (rebuilt 1783 ; 411 sittings) ; a Free
church standing 1\ miles to the SE, and the village of
Craigton \\ mile ESE.
Bounded NW by Lintrathen, N by Kingoldrum, NE
by Kirriemuir, SE by Glamis, S by Eassie and Meigle
(Perthshire), and W by Ruthven and Alyth (Perthshire),
the parish has an extreme length from ENE to WSW of
6J miles, an extreme width from NNW to SSE of 3$
miles, and a land area of 8923 acres. Melgam Water
winds 1J mile along the Lintrathen border, and by
Airlie Castle falls into the Isla, which here runs \\ mile
southward on the Alyth boundary through the pictur-
esque Den of Airlie, a rocky gorge with precipitous copse-
clad braes, and after a digression into Ruthven, either
bounds or traverses, for 1 mile more, the SW angle of
the parish ; whilst Dean Water, its affluent, meanders
7| miles along all the southern border. The lower half
of the parish, belonging to Strathmore, sinks to 120,
and nowhere exceeds 246, feet above sea-level ; but the
northern half is hillier, rising to 421 feet near Grange of
Airlie, 511 near Airlie Castle, 556 near Muirhouses, and
472 at the NE angle. The rocks, except for a trap dyke
crossing the Isla, are all Devonian, but throughout two-
thirds of the area are overspread by sand or gravel ; the
soils range from deep alluvial loam along the Dean to
thin poor earth upon the highest grounds. The Romans'
presence here is attested by traces of their Strathmore
road near Reedie in the NE, and in the SW by a camp
near Cardean ; but Airlie's memories cluster most thickly
round the old castle of Airlie's lords. It stood on the
rocky promontory washed by the Melgam and Isla, If
mile WNW of the Kirkton ; and naturally strong, had
been so fortified by art as to be deemed impregnable.
But in July 1640, the Earl of Argyll, raising 4000 Cove-
nanting clansmen, under a ruthless writ of fire and sword
issued by the Committee of Estates, swept all the moun-
tain district between his own territory and the eastern
coast, and came down on the Braes of Angus to attack
the hated Ogilvies in their strongholds. The Earl of
37