Gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

ARBROATH.
49
been since given up. The exports are brown and
bleached sail-cloths, and linen of various fabrics,
for which three vessels of ICO tons each trade
regularly to London, exclusive of three smaller
craft in the Glasgow, and two in the Newcastle
trade. Arbroath derives great celebrity from
the peculiar kind and quantity of paving stones
which it exports. These stones are quarried
from the estates of the Honourable Mr. Maule
of Panmure, and W. F. Carnegie, Esq. of Spy-
nie and Boysick. They are procured in thin
slabs or liths of a considerable size, and being
roughly hewn into oblong squares, are in that
state exported to Edinburgh and other places.
At present, from 400,000 to 500,000 superfi-
cial feet of these stones are exported annually,
and the trade is increasing. Large shipments
in barley and potatoes are regularly made dur-
ing the winter months. Not less than from
five to six thousand bolls of the latter were in
the season 1829-30 sent to Newcastle alone.
Of fish and pork there are nearly BOO barrels
exported annually. The revenue of Arbroath
amounts to about L.3000 annually, of which
nearly one half is drawn from shore dues. Of
the eleven or twelve thousand inhabitants of
the joint parishes of Arbroath and St. Vige-
ans, it is computed that about a half are em-
ployed in weaving, spinning, flax-dressing, and
bleaching. A great proportion of the spin-
ners are children from seven to fourteen years
of age ; and a considerable number of the
weavers, spinners, and bleachers are women.
As a royal burgh, Arbroath is governed by a
provost, two bailies, a treasurer, and fifteen
councillors, and it has seven incorporated
trades. In conjunction with Aberdeen, Mon-
trose, Inverbervie, and Brechin, it sends a
member to parliament. Three fairs are held
annually, and there is a general market on Sa-
turday. Arbroath has a native joint-stock
banking company, which was established in
1S25, and has paid good annual dividends.
There are, besides, branches of the Royal
Bank of Scotland, and of the British Linen
Company's Bank. The town and suburbs have
eleven houses used solely as places of public
worship. Until lately, Arbroath had a spire or
turret, which was part of the remaining ruins of
the monastic buildings, and rose from the south-
west corner of the enclosed grounds of the
Abbey near the modern kirk. This spire has
been removed, and a new steeple, from a plan by
Mr. John Henderson of Edinburgh, is about
to be erected, close to the end of the church.
It is to be an exceedingly elegant erection, in
the Gothic style, rising 150 feet in height, and
from its tasteful construction, will do great
credit to the artist who designed it. The
other places of public worship are three meet-
ing-houses of presbyterian dissenters, and cha-
pels belonging to Independents, Glassites, Me-
thodists, &c. including an Episcopal chapel,
which is a handsome modern structure. Be-
sides these there are a number of nondescript
sects which meet in schoolrooms, and who ge-
nerally have mechanics as their preachers; A
printer, a millwright, and a trades-officer re-
spectively command in this way large audiences
The fast days of the kirk are generally the second
Thursdays of April and August. The town
has few beneficiary institutions, and these are un-
worthy of particular notice. — Population of
the burgh and parish in 1821, 5817; popula-
tion of the parish of St. Vigeans, 5583 ; total
11400.
ARBUTHNOT, (anciently written Aber-
buthenotli), a parish in Kincardineshire, of an
oblong triangular form, bounded on the west
by Fordoun or the great hollow of the Mearns,
the rivers Bervie and Forthy forming this line
of division, and on the north-east side by Glen-
bervieand Kinneff, in length six miles. The
ground is hilly, and in one of the valleys in
which the Bervie river runs stand the man-
sions of Arbuthnot and Allardyce, with the
church situated between them. The cele-
brated Dr. Arbuthnot, physician to Queen
Anne, and one of the triumvirate with Pope
and Swift, derived his birth and early educa-
tion from this parish. Arbuthnot gives the
title of viscount to an ancient family of the same
name, which became distinguished in the
twelfth century. Sir Robert Arbuthnot, for
loyalty to Charles I., was created a baron and
viscount by that monarch, in 1644 — Popula-
tion in 1821, 928.
ARCHAIG, or ARKEG, (LOCH) a
lake of fresh water, sixteen miles long and only
one broad, in the parish of Kilmallie, Inver-
ness-shire, discharging itself into the north side
of Loch Lochy.
ARD, (LOCH) a lake in the valley of
Aberfoyle, between two and three miles in
length, and about one in breadth j the waters
of which, after falling at the eastern extremi-
ty over a rock, and forming a cataract of thirty
feet in height, form the river Forth.