Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland .. - National Library of Scotland

—NIDDEY CASTLEcircumstances to scatter, the gay and amiable family ofwhich I wfis virtually a member ; and I have sinceseldom revisited the generally silent walls. But thedays of NiJdrie are among the last I can forget.'HughMiller, too, worked as a niasou for ten months here in1823, and lodged in a one-roomed cottage near thevillage of Niddry Mill. In ily Schools and Schoolmastershe describes his rambles in the Niddrie woods, his introductionto the Carboniferous System, the lately manumittedcollier slaves, his comrades' debauchery, and theirunsuccessful strike. Near the W end of the house stoodSt Mary's chapel, founded by Robert Wauchope in 1387,and demolished by a mob from Edinburgh in 1688.This Robert was probably the first of the Wauehopes ofNiddrie-Marischall, illustrious members of which familywere Gilbert, who sat in the Reformation parliament of1560, and John, a distinguished Covenanter, who wasknighted hyCharles I. in 1633. WiUiam John Wauchope,Esc[. (1841-S2), the late proprietor, held 670 acres inthe shire, valued at £2894 per annum. A fire inNiddrie colliery cost seven lives, 24 May 1884. Ord.Sur., sh. 32, 1857.Niddry Castle, a ruined baronial fortalice in Kirklistonparish, Linlithgowshire, near the Union Canal andthe Edinburgh and Glasgow line of the North BritishraUway, 1 mile SSE of Winchburgh. A strong squaretower, roofless, but otherwise fairly entire, it was hitherthat Lord Seton conducted Queen Mary on the nightof her escape from Lochleven Castle, 2 May 1568. FromNiddry she sent a messenger to ask assistance of theCourt of England, and ue.xt day she rode on to Hamilton.Niddry now is the property of the Earl of Hope-TorN, and gives him the title of Baron Niddry. Ord.Sur., sh. 32, 1857.Nigg (Gael, 'a nook'), a parish in the extreme NEof Kincardineshire. It is bounded N by the Dee and byAberdeen Bay, E by the North Sea, on the S and W byBanchory-Devenick parish, and NW by the Dee whichseparates it from Aberdeenshire. The boundaries arethus natuial on all sides except the S and W. Thegreatest length, from the Dee at Torry Point on the Nto the point where the boundary reaches the sea on theS, is 4 miles ; the greatest breadth, from the Dee at PolldownMills on the W to the sea-coast on the E, is 21miles ;and the area is 4606'584 acres, including 132-434From the N and NWof foreshore and 42-2S3 of water.the ground slopes upwards to a height of 267 feet onthe road W of Loirston Loch, and 275 on the road E ofit. Along the coast on the E there are cliffs of from60 to SO feet high. The portions to the NNW andalong the E are cultivated, but throughout the Sthere is a barren ridge covered with stony moss andheath. About half the parish is arable or under wood,and the soil of the cultivated portions varies from goodblack loam to clay, the former beingthe more plentiful.The underlying rock is mostly granite. The drainageis effected by a number of small rills flowing either tothe Dee or to the sea. In the SW of the parish isLou'ston Loch (2 by 1 furl.), covering about 20 acres.The northern portion of the parish is formed by thepromontory of Girdleness with portions of the works ofAberdeen Harbour, Girdleness Lighthouse, and TorryPoint battery. The two former are noticed in connectionwith Aberdeen and Girdleness. The latter was erectedin 1831-33 to protect the mouth of the Dee. To the N ofGirdleness Lighthouse is Greyhope Bay, which was, in1813, the scene of the wreck of the whaler Oscar. To theS of the lighthouse is Nigg Bay, | mile wide across themouth and | mile deep. It has also the names ofFiacre, Fittack, or Sandy Bay. Further S the coast isrocky and irregular, with long narrow creeks ; and atseveral places there are caves, though none of them areof any great size. To the W of the Bay of Nigg is theold church of St Fittack, with a belfry bearing date1704. The main building is older, but only the ruinedand roofless walls now remain. Some distance S of thechurch, a springy dedicated to St Fittack was long heldin high veneration, and was the scene of superstitiousobservances which, in the early part of the 17th century,ITIGGseem to have caused much tribulation of spirit to thekirk-session of Aberdeen. Frequent ordin.ances forbidthe inhabitants to resort to it, and in 1630 Margrat'Davidson, spous to Andro Adam, wes adjudget in aneunlaw of fyve poundis to be payed to the collector fordirecting hir nowriss with hir bairne to Sanct Fiackreswell, and weshing the bairne tharin for recovirie of hirhealth ; and the said Margrat and her nowriss wereordanit to acknowledge thair offence before the sessionfor thair fault, and for leaveing ane offering in the well.The said day it wes ordanit be the halll session in anevoce That quhatsumever inhabitar within this burghbeis fund going to St Fiackres well in ane superstitiousmaner for seiking health to thameselffis or bairnes,shall be censured in penaltie and repentance in suchdegree as fornicatouris ar efter tryall and conviction.'All penalties seem, however, to have been ineffectual, forpilgrimages were made to it by the Aberdeen citizensdown to the beginning of the present century.'In themonth of May,' says the then minister of the parish,writing in the Old Statistical Account in 1793, 'manyof the lower ranks from around the adjacent city cometo drink of a well in the bay of Nigg, called the Downywell; and, proceeding a little farther, go over a narrowpass, The Brig of ae Hair, to Downy -hill ; ' the latterbeing an eminence rising to a height of 214 feet abovesea-level and about 4 il6 S of Nigg Bay. Of StFiacre—the Celtic form of whose name was Ma Futac,whence the ordinary form St Fittack—but little isknown. The ordinary accounts make him the son ofEugenius IV., king of Scotland, and place him in thefirst half of the 7th century. Adopting a religious life,he went to France and had a hermitage at Breuil in Brie.The French word fiacre, meaning a hackney-coach, is saidto be taken from his name, either because such vehicleswere first introduced for the convenience of pilgrimsgoing from Paris to visit his shrine, or, according toanother account, because the first person to hire outcoaches was one Nicolas Sauvage, whose house in theFaie Saint-Martin, in Paris, was marked by an image ofSt Fiacre. Mention of the church of Nigg occurs onwardsfrom the time of William the Lyon, who grantedit to the Abbey of Arbroath.Alexander II. followed upthe grant by another of the whole lands of Nigg, andwith the Abbey of Arbroath they remained till theReformation, when the superiority passed to the Panmurefamily, with whom it remained till 1786, whenpart of it passed to the town of Aberdeen and Meuziesof Pitfoddles. Names connected with the ecclesiasticalpossession of the parish still remain at Abbot's Walls,near the centre of the W side of the parish, and atSpital Burn. The former used to be known as Abbot'sHall, and near it was one of the residences of the Abbotof Arbroath. The Old Statistical Account mentions theruins of it as having been recently removed. The burnprobably takes its name from having had near it ahospital or hospice for pilgrims and travellers. Thevillages in the parish are ToiTy, Cove, Burnbank, andCharlestown. At Torry there was formerly a chapeldedicated to St Fotinus, and in 1495 James IV., onaccount of the great revei-ence he had ' beato martiriSancto Thome ac Sancto Fotino patrono ville de Torry,'erected the village into a free burgh of barony, a privilegewhich has, however, been allowed to lapse, and asthe place seems now destined to become msrely a suburbof Aberdeen, it will probably never be revived. Theinhabitants of Torry are mostly fishermen, and in 1882they possessed 28 first-class, 48 second-class, and 5 thirdclassboats, with 160 resident fisher men and boys.There is a Free church, and access is had to Aberdeenby a handsome granite bridge over the Dee, erected in1876-77. There is a branch post ofBce under Aberdeen,and not far off is a large brickwork. Cove, which isseparately noticed, had, in 1882, 13 first-class, 12 secondclass,and 5 third-class boats, and 98 resident fisher menand boys.Burnbank is on the coast about a mile N ofCove. In 1882 it had 6 first-class, 4 second-class, and1 third-class boat, and 24 resident fisher men and boys.Charlestown is inland, 1 mUe WSW of Cove. 'The116