PRESBYTERY OF
GARIOCH, SYNOD OF ABERDEEN
THE REV. GEORGE PETER, A. M., MINISTER.
[Drawn up by the late incumbent, the Rev. Patrick
Mitchell, D. D.]
I.—Topography
and Natural History.
Extent.—
The measurement of the estate of Kemnay, according
to the last survey, is 3306 acres and a fraction;
that of Lord Kintore's property in the parish, 524
acres and a fraction; several hundred acres are
covered with thriving plantations. The whole parish
was the property of the Earl of Kintore, and of our
only residing land-holder, John Burnett, of Kemnay,
Esq., till of late when Lord Kintore was authorized
by law to sell part of his entailed Kemnay property
to Colonel Fraser of Castlefraser, for the
redemption of his land-tax. Kemnay is from 4 to 5
miles in length, but, being of an irregular figure,
it is not easy to ascertain its mean breadth, which
may be perhaps nearly three miles.
Boundaries.—-This
parish is fifteen miles west of Aberdeen, the county
town. It is bounded on the east, by Kintore; on the
south, by Skene; on the west, by Cluny; and on the
north, north-east, and north-west, by the river Don,
and by a tributary of the Don, named the burn of
Ton, which divide it from the parishes of Monymusk,
Chapel of Garioch, and Inverury.
Rivers.—The
Don and the burn of Ton. The former used to abound
throughout in excellent salmon. A very great
proportion is now intercepted by the stake-nets and
cruives at and near th mouth of the river.
Surface and
Soil.— The surface of this parish is rather flat
upon the whole. The greater part of the soil is a
light mould, lying on sand. We have alluvial lands
on the banks of the Don and the Ton, which are a
fine rich loam, deep, and free from stones; but they
are not of great extent. The soil of our rising
grounds is, for the most part, bedded on clay, and
is generally observed to improve in richness and
fertility as the plough ascends to the highest point
of elevation.
There was, in
Kemnay, a very considerable extent of peat-moss; but
by much the greater part of it has been consumed in
fuel, and converted by draining into corn-land.
II.— Civil
History.
Parochial Registers.— We
have seven volumes of parochial registers, five of
which are very thin, the oldest beginning with the
year 1660. They seem to have been regularly
kept, and the volumes themselves are in sufficient
preservation, and are all legible. The two first
contain a register of burials, which appears to have
been discontinued early in the last century.
Antiquities.—The
only remains of antiquity that are extant in this
parish are, 1. a long stone set on end, whose
height is 11˝ feet above ground, and its mean girth
about 9 feet, quite in the state in which it
was found in the earth; and,
2. that sort of repository for the remains of
the dead which is called a
cestvaen, about 5
feet in length and 2 feet
wide, fenced on the four sides below ground with
four stones, and covered with a broad piece of
granite (all the stones being undressed,) and
containing a broken urn of burn-ed clay and a few
human bones. It was accidentally uncovered by the
plough.
III.—Population.
All are of
the Established religion, excepting a few
Dissenters, chiefly Independents, to which
connection the principal landholder and his family
belong.
IV.—Industry.
Agriculture.— Scarcely
any farinaceous grain, besides oats and bigg, is
sown in the parish; very few pease, and very little
wheat. Every farmer and cottager has a certain
extent of his land, proportioned to his holding, in
turnips and potatoes, every year, which are
succeeded, next season, by bear or oats, with
rye-grass and clover. The most
common rotation is the Berwickshire, but it begins
to be thought too exhausting for our light soil; and
although some of the landholders of the county bind
their tenants to this rotation, others prefer a six
or a seven years' shift, the former including two,
and the latter three white crops. The general
duration of leases is nineteen years.
V.—Parochial
Economy.
Ecclesiastical State.—The parish church is not
exactly in the centre of the parish, but its site is
nearly as convenient for the parishioners as it
could be. It is not above three miles from the most
distant house in the parish, and the greater part of
the population is within a mile and a-half from it.
It was built, as appears from an inscription on the
belfry, in 1632. It was probably erected on the site
of one of the tituli,
which, in Roman Catholic times, depended on the
parsonage of Kinkell, to which the parish of Kemnay
belonged in the beginning of the fifteenth century.
It was repaired in 1794, but is, at present, in a
very insufficient state. Owing to the thickness of
the walls, and the smallness of all the windows save
two, it is not well lighted. It cannot be
sufficiently ventilated, for the floor is from three
to four feet below the level of the burying-ground,
which is highest at the front wall of the building.
It is consequently damp. It affords accommodation to
nearly 500 sitters. Almost all the farmers and
crofters have free sittings on the ground floor. The
seats on the site of the communion table, and those
of two galleries, belong to the kirk-session, as
administrators for the poor, out of whose funds they
were built, and for them the session draws annually,
at 6d. each, nearly L.4.
The present
manse was built in 1796, and succeeded a manse
which, in 1680, was built at the sole expense of the
then minister, and was, with great propriety,
denominated Castle Folly. Arrangements have been
concluded for repairing the present building and
erecting an addition. The glebe, including the
garden, the site of the manse and offices, and the
road by which it is approached from the public
highway, is nearly ten Scotch acres in extent, about
three acres of which, of the most worthless soil,
called grass land, the present incumbent reclaimed
from heath and marsh. The glebe is valued at L. 10
per annum.
The stipend
is L. 150, of which, L.33, 6s. 10d. is received from
the Exchequer. The communion element money amounts
to L.8, 6s. 8d.
Education.
—There is no seminary of learning in the parish but
the parochial school, with which Mr Stevenson, the
present enter prising schoolmaster, has conjoined an
academu for the education of boys of a higher class.
Of these he has now about thirty, from different
parts of the kingdom, under his charge; and,
including these, has about 160 scholars in the
course of the year. The salary amounts to L.25, 13s.
4d. The schoolmaster also enjoys the interest of 850
merks Scots, bequeathed, many years ago, by
different individuals for promoting education in the
parish, and under the administration of the
kirk-session, who lend it at interest along with the
fund of the poor. He also participates in the Dick
bequest. [For a more minute account of the Kemnay
Academy and its conductor, s Chambers's Edinburgh
Journal, No. 468.]
Library.—
We have for some years had a parish library,
consisting of works on divinity, civil and
ecclesiastical history, and travels.
Poor and
Parochial Funds.—The average number of our pari
poor is 26, chiefly widows and single women. We
divide among them what is under the administration
of the kirk-session, at four terms, giving sometimes
occasional aid in cases of distress. Some of them
receive nearly L. 3 a-year, some L. 2, others L. 1,
16s, and three or four L. 1, 4s., each, according to
their respective needs. Our funds consist of the
interest of legacies bequeathed at different times,
and by different benefactors, to the poor of the
parish, to the amount of L. 400; weekly collections
at church, which have greatly increased during the
last forty years, and, at an average, may be stated
at L. 25 a-year; an annual donation of L. 5 from the
Earl of Kintore, who possesses about a sixteenth
part of the valued rent of the parish; seat-rents,
which bring nearly L. 4 a-year; and L.20, when our
turn comes, from the charity of the late Mr Burnett
of Dens, a successful merchant in Aberdeen, who
bequeathed to the Synod a sum of money for the
relief of the poor and distressed over the whole of
their bounds, appointing the interest thereof to be
paid in rotation to the several kirk-sessions of the
synod, the lowest allowance to any kirk-session
being L. 20. In general, our poor have shown great
unwillingness to accept parochial relief. This
feeling is now, however, less prevalent than
formerly.
July
1842.