250 Book Final 2

The design of the coat of arms represents
three key periods in the history of
Aberchirder and Marnoch – two croziers
for St Marnan, founder of the parish in the
7 th Century; a boar’s head for Alexander
Gordon; and the cross pattee from the
burgh seal.
Foggieloan 250
This book has been published to commemorate the 250 th anniversary
of the foundation of the planned village originally named Foggieloan
and later renamed Aberchirder.
Published by Aberchirder & District Community Association 2014
Text C Bob Peden
No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without the prior permission of the
copyright holders
Produced by Peters Design & Print, 16 High Street, Turriff
ISBN 978-0-9553271-1-7
A Brief History Of The
Planned Village Of Aberchirder
1764 - 2014
Bob Peden

83 Main Street Bowling Club, Main Street
The Point, South Street, looking west
First council houses, 167-77 North Street
Cleanhill Wood looking west
New Inn, Main Street
Original style houses, 15-16 South Street
Hector’s park, South Street
1908 Police station, Main Street Causewayend development
Southview Terrace, east end
View from top of Main Street
The Aul’ Jail, Main Street
Commercial Hotel, South Street
Original style house, Huntly Road
The Point, South Street, looking east

Foundation & Growth
Chapter 1 : 1764-1814
Part of Roy’s Military Map c.1750 showing House of Auchintoul and the
fermtoun of Foggy Loan © The British Library Board, Maps C.9.b.29 (Plate
139) - Left
In 1646 King Charles I granted the lands and barony of Auchintoul to
George Gordon, eldest son of George Gordon IV of Coclarachie, near
Drumblade. This was during the Scottish Civil War, in which the Gordons
were on the Royalist side against the Covenanters, so the title may have
been a reward for loyalty. The estate, with Auchintoul House situated at
the southern end, had a western boundary running parallel to, and roughly
a kilometre west of, the Auchintoul Burn from Whitemuir to Finnygaud;
the northern boundary followed the Burn of Finnygaud to Littlefield, then
the Burn of Backieley east to the Auchintoul Moss; on the east it ran west
of Corskie to the Arkland Burn; and then followed the Arkland Burn which
curves round to join the Auchintoul Burn at Mill of Auchintoul.
The older part of Auchintoul House dating from the 16 th or early 17th
century, had a west wing with immensely thick and strong walls. In 1711-12
George’s grandson Alexander Gordon of Auchintoul – who is celebrated
for having been a general in the Russian army - added the eastern wing of
the house, creating a plain rectangular mansion.
It was the general’s grandnephew, also Alexander Gordon of Auchintoul,
who in March 1764 placed an advertisement in the Aberdeen Journal offering
feus in a planned village which would be built on the site of the fermtoun
of Foggyloan, at the southern end of the Moss of Auchintoul.

Planned villages had been founded in most parts of Scotland from the mid-
19 th century onwards, the greatest number being in the North-east, where
existing villages were few and far between. Aberchirder is an example of
one where the intention was to provide employment in linen
manufacturing and lotted lands where the workers could supplement their
living.
Local Government
Two months later Gordon purchased from John Abernethie the fermtoun
and lands of Corskie which adjoined the Auchintoul estate.
However the Gordon connection with Aberchirder was not to last much
longer, as Alexander died childless in 1768 and the Auchintoul lands passed
to his sister Catharine, who died unmarried in 1798.
The estate was inherited by her cousin Frederica Gordon, widow of a
German, Quieten de Rosenwald. However the weather during her first
winter in Scotland was so bad that she decided to return to Germany, but
unfortunately perished when the ship foundered in a storm. In 1799 the
estate was bought by John Morison, of the Bognie Morisons, who had been
one of many successful Scottish Baltic merchants at Riga, and now became
John Morison of Auchintoul. He was described as a man of great energy
and enterprise and it seems likely that it was he who began the real
development of Aberchirder.
When Aberchirder was founded there was very little local government in
the modern sense of the term. Under a Scottish Parliament Act of 1667
shires – later more commonly called counties – each appointed
Commissioners of Supply who collected a property tax which went to the
Crown. From 1686 the Commissioners were responsible for maintenance
and repair of roads and bridges. At this time too, parishes – the smallest
units of Church of Scotland administration, locally Marnoch – were made
responsible for taking care of the poor and destitute. Most people’s daily
lives were governed by local landowners who provided work and housing
on fairly precarious terms.
Housing
Foggieloan was slow to develop, as evidenced by the fact that in the OSA
description of the Parish of Marnoch, written by the minister in 1790, the
only mention of the planned village is that “at the charity school in
Foggieloan [there are] from 40 to 60 [scholars]”. And although Catharine
Gordon had plans for expansion drawn up just before her death, a map of
1799 shows a grid pattern village with very few buildings, mainly round the
Square. The single or one-and-a-half storey thatched, stone-built houses
fronted onto the streets and, at the back, had long feu gardens which
provided the inhabitants with much of their food.

families who remained in the many neighbouring fermtouns - largely on
their own production of food and clothing.
However it is known that the new laird, John Morison, set up a linen
factory facing the street on a double feu in North Street next to Factory
Wood (which lay east of what is now McRobert Park), probably soon
after 1800. Linen manufacture was an obvious occupation for a new
settlement, as spinning in homes and handloom weaving in workshops had
long been a major industry all over eastern Scotland.
Transport & Communication
Aberchirder from the Plan for Lands of Finnygaud etc & Town of Aberchirder 1799
(Montcoffer Papers), by kind permission of the Special Collection Centre,
Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen.
There was a fairly complete Main Street, with buildings on feus running
north to Back Street (now North Street) and south to the Long Lane (now
Southview Terrace). A few houses had been built on feus on the north side
of Back Street, but there was no South Street, which only appeared when
the Banff to Huntly turnpike road was completed in 1808, passing along
the southern edge of the village – as the main road still does today - and the
South Street feus were soon built on.
Although sometimes referred to as “the squarest square in Scotland”, and described by
Town Clerk Frank Anderson in 1962 as “square to three-quarters of an inch”, the Square
today measures approx. 43 x 54 metres!
Two years after the foundation of Aberchirder, a revolution in road
transport in Scotland began when Parliament passed an Act allowing
groups of landowners and industrialists to build good quality turnpike
roads. The cost of construction and maintenance was met from tolls paid
by users and this allowed heavy loads of farm and factory raw materials
and produce, for the first time, to be transported over long distances.
It was not until 1808 that Aberchirder benefited from a turnpike road built
between Banff and Huntly. The surveyor, Thomas Shier, decided that on
grounds of cost the road should not follow the old track from Blacklaw via
Backieley to Marnoch but instead run along the southern edge of
Aberchirder. This created South Street – still effectively a bypass of the
town over two centuries later.
Residents sometimes refer jokingly to South Street as “Foggie Harbour”. This originates
in the view from the Turriff and Netherdale roads on a frosty morning when mist hangs
over the low ground around the Arkland Burn, giving the impression of water, with
buildings in the background.
Commerce
There is no record of which, if any, trades or services went on in the early
days when the small population would most likely have relied – as did the
Utilities
The “plentiful supply of water” mentioned in Alexander Gordon’s 1764
advertisement consisted of wells dug to provide spring water and today
you can still see three public ones which until the 20 th Century had
bleaching greens where women could do their washing.

These were the Little Haven below South Street, Back Spoot at the top of
School Lane and the Bruckle Well near the west end of North Street.
Gordon’s advertisement had been more accurate with its promise of peat
from Auchintoul Moss, reached by a path leading out of the village along
what is now Moss Road.
Religion
Before Foggieloan came into being the centre of the Parish of Marnoch – in
as far there was a centre - was the area at its southernmost edge around the
church and school beside the River Deveron, 3 km southwest of
Auchintoul House and 2 km or so west of Kinnairdy Castle, historic home
of the Thanes of Aberkerder, from whom John Morison got the name he
conferred on the planned village.
The earliest record of a Marnoch parish school is dated 1636, when Robert
Emlach was the schoolmaster, and a new school and schoolhouse were
built not far from the church around 1710. Children started at the parish
school aged six or seven and younger pupils would work alongside older
ones.
In 1790 the parish minister recorded that at the parochial school at
Marnoch there were between twelve and thirty scholars. By that time
there was also a charity school in Foggieloan with from forty to sixty
pupils, possibly Jeannie Russell’s based in what is now the ruinous
“Schoolmaster’s house” which still stands on the Long Lane (Southview
Terrace) at the Temperance Lane.
The parish church of that time was situated in the churchyard – where its
gable can still be seen – but had become ruinous and was replaced by a
new one on Cairnhill in 1792. Going to church involved the villagers in a 4
km walk each way so some preferred to be served in the village by visiting
preachers of the Secession Church.
The parish also had a sizeable population of Episcopalians – including the
Gordons of Auchintoul - and Roman Catholics who, because of their
support for the Jacobite cause in the 1715 and 1745 rebellions, were barred
by law from having church buildings. In her time as heritor Catharine
Gordon provided a room in Auchintoul House where a priest ministered to
Roman Catholics and, after the ban on buildings was repealed in 1792, had
a chapel built in what is now Rennie’s Lane in Foggieloan.
Education
The “Schoolmaster’s House”, Southview Terrace
The Reformed Scottish Church set up in 1560 believed that people should
communicate directly with God, so it wanted to make sure everyone could
read the Bible. The leader of Scotland’s Reformation, John Knox, wanted a
primary school built in every parish as well as burgh grammar schools,
high schools and universities.

Chapter 2 : 1815-1864
The half-century after 1815 was to see Foggieloan finally begin to grow in
terms of population and properties so that by 1864 it was a self-sufficient
community serving the surrounding parish. It also came to national
prominence as the location for a major religious upheaval in 1843.
Local Government
In this period Aberchirder, like most small communities, continued to have
very little in the way of local government. The Banffshire Commissioners of
Supply - who included William Aitken Esq of Auchintoul - set up a county
police force in 1840 in response to increasing problems caused by vagrants
from neighbouring counties where police forces had been established. The
Aberchirder police station (with built-in jail) at the top of Main Street had
one police officer and two constables, overseen by Banff. And in 1845 the
Marnoch Parochial Board, with members elected by local people, was set
up to be in charge of poor relief with powers to raise taxes to give paupers
outdoor relief, as money or goods. The various Churches provided a basic
primary education.
Housing
In 1823 a map was published showing the layout of the village, now
referred to as Aberchirder rather than Foggieloan. It is possible that John
Morison, the laird, felt this historic name with its connection with the
Thanes of Aberkerdour would lend his village some cachet and help it (and
rents) to grow more quickly.
The map showed many more buildings than that of a quarter-century
earlier, including houses built in the gardens of houses which fronted on to
the street. Examples can still be seen today at 13 South Street and in
Huntly Road behind 38 Main Street. Originally the houses were thatched,
with small windows and typically had a latch door-handle.
Old door with latch at 13 South Street
By 1864 the number of occupied feus had doubled, and buildings trebled,
still almost all within the Back Street - Middle St - Front Street grid as
originally laid out.
In that year the Huntly Express commented:
“The village of Aberchirder …did not make very rapid progress for a long time. In 1804…it
contained 365 inhabitants, one for each day of the year, and only one slated house – that
on the Square, now occupied as a hotel…
The population of the village [was estimated in 1842] at 800. Aberchirder is now a
compact and pretty neatly-built village, the three principal streets – with numerous lanes
and minor thoroughfares – leading to a fine, capacious Square. The village now contains
about 1400 inhabitants, and slated houses are now the rule and not the exception.”

Commerce
As envisaged by Alexander Gordon, a small factory had been built by John
Morison in North Street. The aim was to provide work for redundant
farmworkers, making linen using flax from Auchintoul Moss and
elsewhere. Linen thread spun in people’s houses was woven in the factory
into fine linen tablecloths and a heavy cloth called wincey. However in the
years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 the handmade
linen industry was soon to prove unsustainable in face of competition from
large scale manufacturing of linen – and the cheaper textile, cotton –which
was already developing in the Central Belt. By 1830 John Morison, by now
an MP, was badly in debt and had to give up Auchintoul to four Aberdeen
lawyers who by 1836 had sold the estate to William Aitken of Aberdeen for
£55,000. Before 1843 the disused factory was put to use first as an outpost
of Marnoch Church and thereafter as the girls’ section of the Free Church
School.
The earliest directory for Aberchirder appeared in the Post Office & Bon-
Accord Directory published in 1847. It shows that Aberchirder had now
developed into a thriving settlement with a wide range of shops and
services. Of sixty-four business premises listed thirty-five were shops or
workshops, whose occupiers included nine grocers/merchants, seven
shoemakers, five tailors and two watchmakers.
It is worth noting in passing that, in those days of limited travel, the
businesses and services in Aberchirder were supplemented by ones in
other parts of the parish, including shops at Auchingoul and Elrick, as well
as an inn at Turtory and several smiddies.
Transport & Communication
In the first half of the 19 th Century most people spent their whole lives in
their own locality apart from moving around to find work. However the
turnpike linking Aberchirder with Banff and Huntly attracted transport
for freight – both farm produce and manufactured goods - and passengers,
as well as post coaches carrying mail. At the same time the inns in the
village had rooms offering accommodation to travellers, probably business
people for the most part.
The 1847 directory listing for Aberchirder includes two carriers – one from
Banff, one from Aberdeen – and four local carriers. The village boasted no
fewer than seven inns, one of which, McRobert’s at 16 South Street, had
stabling facilities for the post coach and stagecoach services. Also on South
Street was a post office, under the control of Banff, employing a postmaster
and postman.
Road traffic increased after the Great North of Scotland Railway reached
Huntly in 1854, with the ‘Banks of Deveron’ stagecoach running once daily
in each direction between Banff and Huntly. And by the end of
Aberchirder’s first centenary opportunities to travel and send goods by rail
had expanded further, as lines linking with the main Great North of
Scotland Railway line to Aberdeen had opened from Turriff in 1857 and
from Banff (with a station at Cornhill) in 1859.

Utilities
Water was a precious commodity, as houses had no running water, and the
only major sources were still the three wells.
Houses had no gas or electricity and paraffin or candles were used for light,
with peat and wood fires for cooking. However New Marnoch Church had
a gas house producing acetylene for lighting from 1844.
Religion
The second half-century saw several developments in religion in the Parish
of Marnoch, including one that propelled it into the national headlines.
Despite the ban on public worship by Episcopalians having been repealed
in 1792, it was not until 1824 that John Morison of Auchintoul provided
local adherents with St Marnan’s Church, at the top of Main Street, under
the charge of Forgue.
The Bronchal (Bruckle) Well
The well shown on earlier maps as ‘Bruckle’ (an obscure name, as it means
brittle or easily broken) appears on the 1866 Ordnance Survey map as
Bronchal. This is typical of place-name errors probably caused by map
makers from other parts of Britain misunderstanding the local accent.
The arrangements for dealing with sewage were that every house had an
‘ashpit’ or midden, where all household waste (including the solid contents
of the privies located in the back garden!), was dumped. The town carter
occasionally emptied these and took the waste to sell to farmers, who
prized it as fertiliser. Meanwhile liquid from privies drained away into
open drains and cesspools.
In 1839 the United Secession Church, which had broken away from the
Church of Scotland, built a church in Aberchirder at the corner of North
Street and Cornhill Road. In 1847 this became the United Presbyterian
Church.
A major event occurred on a snowy day in January 1841 when members of
the Presbytery of Strathbogie arrived at Marnoch Church to induct as
minister John Edwards, originally the landowners’ candidate, to find the
congregation’s candidate, David Henry, preaching to over 1000 people at
neighbouring Cairnhill Farm. After riotous scenes inside the church most
of the congregation walked out. Just two years later, having raised over
£3000 from a countrywide appeal, they had a new church and manse at the
east end of Main Street with Rev David Henry as minister. This local
dispute led directly to the national Disruption of 1843 when the
Evangelicals left the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and set
up the Free Church, of which New Marnoch Church became a member.

the later amalgamation of schools this building was to become the Town
Hall, to which the Memorial Hall would be added in 1926.)
Meanwhile the Established Church had set up a school in the village, held
in various buildings including an upstairs room in the Temperance Hotel
and premises in Main Street now part of the Fife Arms Hotel. However it is
recorded that around thirty children of Auld Kirk parents continued to
walk together to the school at Marnoch.
New Marnoch Church, Main Street
In January 1862 the Church of Scotland finally opened a purpose-built
school for its pupils in what became School Lane. The school, built for 160
pupils, cost £660 and was open from end to end with four long rows of five
double desks, and the teacher’s desk in the middle of the room. This was
the foundation of later, expanded, premises which today can be seen as
Bremner’s of Foggie.
Education
Although the Scottish Parliament had in 1696 passed an Act requiring a
school to be built in every parish, it was the Church of Scotland that
appointed the dominies [teachers] and supervised the education they
provided.
The village had by now at least two dames’ schools where ladies provided a
basic education in their houses, one of them being Jeannie Russell’s noted
in Chapter 1. There was also another dames’ school, known as Annie
Brockie’s, at what is now Dundee Farm in Netherdale.
Things changed radically with the setting up of the Free Church. A year
after the opening of New Marnoch Church Rev David Henry set up a
school with separate boys’ and girls’ departments in North Street in the
premises formerly used as the linen factory. This was the origin of the
insult “creeshie wivers” (greasy weavers) shouted at the pupils by the
Established Church (Marnoch) ones. As the number of Free Church pupils
rose to around 200, more spacious accommodation was needed and in 1855
a new building was erected on the same double feu in North Street. (After
Health
In the first half of the 19 th Century provision of medical care was very
different from today and most people in country areas would consult either
a surgeon or a druggist, both of whom were licensed after serving an
apprenticeship. Surgeons could perform operations, set broken bones, and
treat accident cases and skin disorders. Druggists mixed and sold drugs
but could also provide medical advice and prescribe medication. Many
surgeons also qualified as druggists in order to make a living. All treatment
had to be paid for and while the better-off could afford the fees charged by
surgeons others had to depend for diagnosis and treatment on druggists.
The 1847 Post Office and Bon-Accord Directory lists W Adamson, surgeon, as
living at Hazlebrae, Bridge of Marnoch, as well as two druggists in Main
Street: William Allan and John Alexander, who were also respectively a
grocer and the agent for the North of Scotland Bank.
There were no hospitals outside cities and large towns – Aberdeen and
Elgin in the Northeast – while organised training of nurses began only in
1860 and of midwives in 1915.

Welfare
By the end of this period people on low incomes had access to a number of
ways of putting aside small amounts of money for a rainy day and avoiding
the shame of depending on poor relief. The first local savings bank was
founded in Dumfries-shire by Rev Henry Duncan, and it was another
minister, Rev David Henry who in 1846 founded the Marnoch Savings
Bank along with Free Church School teacher Robert Nicol, who went on
to manage it for 32 years. The nationwide Post Office Savings Bank,
established in 1861, operated in every post office in the country, including
Aberchirder’s. Another approach was taken by the Rochdale Pioneers who,
in 1844 opened the first cooperative shop which, as well as selling pure
food at fair prices and honest weights and measures, paid a dividend on
purchases. Cooperative societies spread rapidly from the 1850s onwards
but a store did not open in Aberchirder until 1941!
The custom of having an annual summer holiday for shopkeepers and
workers began in 1851 and four years later when the railway had reached
Huntly, over 200 people from the village and district took advantage of
cheap excursion fares. Roused at 1 am by horn and bagpipes they set off for
Huntly at 3 am. Half the party, including forty-seven scholars with their
teachers went to Oyne then climbed Benachie for a picnic, while seventy
went to Aberdeen. This would have been the furthest most of these people
had travelled in their lives.
Sport & Leisure
In this period there was little in the way of organised sport or leisure, but
by the 1860s two events gave the population a break from the daily routine.
Marnan Fair, named after St Marnan, is said to have been held “in the olden
days” on the banks of the Deveron at Marnoch, predating the foundation of
Foggieloan. Certainly it was mentioned in the 1840s as “an annual market
on the second Tuesday of March, for horses and cattle, called Marnoch
Fair” and was one of Aberchirder’s best known and longest established
events. Dealers came from all over Scotland to buy and sell horses at the
Market Park (now McRobert Park).

Chapter 3 : 1865 – 1914
In the period 1865-1914 Aberchirder continued to develop in terms of
economic activity, services, education and democracy, while the
population reached its all-time peak of almost 1400 in the 1881 Census,
although by the outbreak of World War One the population had declined
to below 1000.
Local Government
Much of the change in Aberchirder was due to developments in local
government, from having virtually none to being a police burgh complete
with Provost and councillors in charge of many aspects of local life.
In the last quarter of the 19 th Century all of Britain saw the rise of
“municipal socialism”, whereby local authorities provided public services.
In rural Scotland in 1889, when county councils took on many of the
powers and duties of existing bodies, some larger rural communities
became police burghs. In Aberchirder, after a campaign led by William
Auchinachie, a poll produced a majority of votes in favour of having a
police burgh. A new governing body, known as Police Commissioners, was
duly elected in the following year with professionals and businessmen
providing eight of the nine members, who unanimously chose William
Auchinachie to be Chief Magistrate.
The Police Commissioners took on a wide range of powers including
paving, cleansing and lighting streets, distributing water and preventing
infectious diseases and in 1892 a fire engine was purchased. In the same
year the commissioners were retitled councillors, with the chief magistrate
– William Auchinachie – now having the title of Provost.
Before Aberchirder became a burgh, law and order was the responsibility
of Banffshire, which supplied a police constable. An old resident recalled
that in the 1880s:
Mr Alexander, banker and chemist, was the only Justice of the Peace and offenders were
brought to his shop. Mr Alexander and the policeman retired to the back shop where local
offenders were admonished and tramps sent out of the village while any serious cases
were sent to the Sheriff Court in Banff.
When the Town Council was created it included bailies who sat in a new
Burgh Police Court. Typical business for the bailies would be:
“James M, pedlar, and Peter H, basket maker, were each fined 5s for having been drunk
and fighting.” (1894)
In 1903 the Town Council took on new powers relating to planning
permission and building warrants. It was also now responsible for
footpaths and embarked on a campaign to get all existing and new owners
to provide a concrete pavement in front of their properties.
Not all services were under the control of the Town Council. From 1872
elected School Boards ran the schools (apart from the Episcopal School),
from 1889 main roads in the burgh (South Street and North Street) were
the responsibility of Banffshire County Council, and an elected Parish
Council was in charge of poor relief from 1894.
When William Auchinachie died aged 67 in 1907 it took a lengthy obituary in the
Banffshire Journal – for which he was local correspondent for almost twenty-five years -
to do justice to his contribution to the development of Aberchirder. From 1875, when he
took over the general merchant’s business founded by his father in 1838, apart from his
contributions mentioned elsewhere in this chapter, he held office - in many cases for a
quarter of a century or more - on bodies including the School Board, Parish Council,
Aberchirder Hall Company, Horticultural Society and Aberchirder Total Abstinence
Society. At Banff County Council level he was a Justice of the Peace, member of the
Licensing Board and representative of the Burgh of Aberchirder. And it was he who in
1897 presented the fountain to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. All this
while running a busy and successful business in the Square!

China souvenir bowl from Aberchirder
Burghs had to have a Common Seal
and the Town Council settled on a
design – with no significance for
Aberchirder! – featuring a blue cross
pattee. Crested china souvenirs of
British towns were very popular in
Edwardian times and in the absence
of a proper coat of arms the burgh
seal – not always in its official
colours - was used to decorate a
wide range of Aberchirder objects.
Commerce
In this period the range and number of businesses and services remained at
roughly the levels of the previous fifty years. Of thirty-four shops and
workshops, twelve were grocers, drapers and general merchants, while
there was enough business to support five tailors and four shoemakers.
As in the case of houses, the mid-1890s and 1900s saw new or improved
premises being built for a number of shopkeepers in Main Street and the
Square, including those on architecturally interesting corner sites. William
Auchinachie’s range of shops on the south side of the Square were
modernised and extended to include hardware, grocery and drapery
departments as well as tailoring and dressmaking workrooms which
together employed around twenty people. Other improvements included
enlarged premises for Mrs Barbara Geddes at the Post Office and changes
at the New Inn.
Housing
By 1865 there had been a slight expansion of the town eastward along
North Street and Main Street, with 438 houses built on 120 feus, and this
continued in the years before World War One, by which time 134 feus
were occupied by 610 buildings. Thus by 1914 North Street had houses as
far east as today’s Wellfield Lane, while the feus between Main Street and
South Street were built up all the way to their junctions with North Street.
On the south side of South Street, three houses had been built outside the
Burgh boundary opposite Rose Innes Hospital – Kinnairdy Lodge,
Gowanlea and Laurelbank.
The Banffshire Journal for 29 December 1908 remarked that in “Aberchirder
in 1908 the principal improvement has been the extensive addition to the
business premises of Mr William Auchinachie, a feature that considerably
improves the appearance of the Square.”
The period also saw an important improvement in the original housing
stock either side of 1900, when people with money either built new
properties or improved existing ones. Evidence of this could be seen –
particularly in Main Street and the Square - in the date stones, slated roofs,
heightening and added storeys.
An early initiative by the Police Commissioners in 1892 was to give houses
numbers, and to have these and street name signs put up.

Transport & Communication
Apart from mainstream crafts, one
interesting product made in a
workshop in North Street beside
School Lane was coffee mills, one of
which was eventually bought by an
Aberchirder resident while living in
Brazil!
On the fringes of the town quarrying was an important activity, with
Causewayend Quarry providing stone used to build local houses as well as
for road metal, and Knockorth Quarry providing high quality granite
which by end of the 19 th century was being made into lintels for the
building trade and taken on horse drawn carts to Banff and further afield in
Buchan.
There was also a lot of casual work done, especially by women, in the early
1900s. One important job was mossing, or peat digging, and on many days
“upwards of sixty of the womenfolk set out for a day’s darg [hard labour]
at the Moss of Crombie and the Moss of Auchintoul. They had to eke out
their meagre incomes somehow, for at that time the average weekly wage
of a working man was just on the £1 mark” (reckoned to be the breadline
for a moderate sized working-class family). Older children were also
important wage earners, especially as farm labour at sowing, harvesting
and potato-lifting, and most pupils left school as soon as they were legally
allowed, boys to take jobs with tradesmen and girls as domestic servants.
By 1864 Aberchirder was within ten miles of railway stations at Cornhill,
Turriff, Banff and Macduff as well as the main Aberdeen-Inverness line at
Huntly. Competition from the railways led to the turnpike trusts being
abolished and in 1889 roads came under County Councils – in the case of
Aberchirder, Banffshire.
In the second half of the 19 th Century all road transport was horse drawn.
Wealthier people had their own carriages while others could travel on
stagecoaches. The coach from Banff to Huntly carried the mails and its first
stop was at Babbie McRobert’s Inn at 16 South Street, where the horses
were changed. Towards the end of the century, coach services from
Aberchirder to Huntly, Turriff and Cornhill were provided by William
McMillan who ran his operation from 128 Main Street.
In 1905 the Great North of Scotland Railway bought out William
McMillan’s horse-drawn omnibus service and started a motor bus service
between Aberchirder and Huntly. A garage was built in Main Street – on
the site of today’s MacLennan’s garage - and the first bus ran in May 1905.
Solid tyres and the untarred roads made for uncomfortable journeys and
the buses soon became known locally as Foggie Dirders (boneshakers). In
the years before World War One McMillan continued to run horse-drawn
passenger services to Turriff and Cornhill, while on the Banff-Aberchirder
route Andrew Kindness of Banff ran a mail coach and Joseph Morrison a
carter service..
In the first decade of the 20 th Century steam traction engines were quite
common. Used to drive threshing mills, they also travelled from farm to
farm pulling heavy loads such as grain and stones. The Town
Council minutes of the time frequently refer to the damage these heavy
vehicles did to the streets and lanes:
County Road Board to be told of “the disgraceful condition of North Street and several of
the Lanes in the Burgh. There is a great deal of Traction Engine Traffic on North Street
and frequently of late it has been ploughed up and ditches formed in it to such an extent as
to make ordinary traffic almost impossible”

William McKay's steam engine was based at what is now McLaren's
Garage in School Lane. McKay also owned the first motor car in
Aberchirder, with Banffshire registration SE6. A survey in 1908 showed
there were three cars and five traction engines in the Burgh.
Aberchirder’s first post office was situated at 24 South Street. By 1878 the
office had moved to its present location, 55 Main Street, at that time the
druggist’s shop of George Geddes – who was also postmaster - offering
postal and telegraph services. Geddes was succeeded as postmaster in 1890
by his widow Barbara, who in turn was succeeded by her son Charles in
1905. Although the telephone developed as a competitor to the telegraph in
the 1880s, Aberchirder remained without a telephone service.
Utilities
By 1881 with Aberchirder’s population at a record level the public wells
and private supplies could no longer cope. After pressure from local people
the Banffshire Commissioners of Supply agreed to set up a committee of
local shopkeepers and tradesmen, led by Rev. James Boyes of St Marnan’s
Church, to find a new source, and one was found on Cranna Hill. Water
would be piped to a reservoir at what is now the top of Old Road, from
where pipes would carry water to all parts of the village. In June 1883 when
the water supply was officially turned on, a half-holiday was held, and a
procession of over 1000 people led by 400 scholars (many waving flags
with temperance inscriptions!) marched from Main Street up to the
reservoir for the opening ceremony. Some houses were now connected to
the new pipes, while others relied on street pumps which were erected.
However it was not long before it became evident that Cranna Hill could
not provide a reliable supply, particularly in summer, when the mains
supply was shut off and the old wells had to be resorted to. In the 1890s the
Town Council was already looking for further sources of water. Frequent
mention of leaks in mains pipes and connections to properties suggest
poor workmanship originally and lack of maintenance thereafter.
Although there had been an extension of the fairly basic drainage system in
1883, sewage was a constant concern for the Council. The town carter still
emptied the ashpits and dumped the contents in Causewayend Quarry.
When Aberchirder became a police burgh, the Council undertook a
programme of building sewers along the main streets, including in 1894 a
large one on North Street to divert the sewage that was formerly
discharged into a burn that runs through the gardens at Auchintoul House!
Geddes Post Office (second door on right), Main Street
In the years 1900 to 1914 postcards were a very popular means of
communication and Aberchirder had several publishers. William
Auchinachie Jr, was a keen photographer and sold postcards using his own
photographs of local views. Other local publishers were Alexander
Gardiner and Peter Grieve, while the widow of George Geddes of the Post
Office in Main St had cards published bearing his name.
By the turn of the century only a select few houses had installed WCs
which, in view of the chronic water shortage, were not regarded favourably
by the Council! These were connected to sewers which carried the waste
to outfalls in South Street, from where open ditches ran to Arkland Burn.
The Rectory at the top of Main Street was too high to get pressure, so the Boyes family
got water got from a street pump or well. Legend has it that when they had a new WC
installed around 1900 the cistern had to be filled by hand and only the head of the
household was allowed to use the WC while the rest (all ladies) had to use the outside
privy!

Cesspools still existed in some gardens, causing a health hazard, and it is
recorded that in 1900 the Town Council had to pay medical expenses for a
young boy who had fallen into one!
Although New Marnoch Church had been lit by acetylene gas since 1844,
all other properties in the village continued to rely on paraffin and it was
not until 1914 that a few shops had acetylene lamps installed. Meanwhile
street lamps first erected in 1877 on shops and inns on and near the Square
and operated by a committee of townspeople, were handed over to the
Town Council. The lamps – by 1914 twelve in all - continued to have
paraffin lanterns which the Burgh Workman lit every evening in winter.
The main source of heating for houses came from a plentiful supply of peat
collected by mossers on Auchintoul Moss, although by the late 19 th
Century coal could be bought from merchants based at local railway
stations including Cornhill and Banff.
Provost Auchinachie was also prominent in the temperance movement,
being Secretary of the Aberchirder Total Abstinence Society for fifty years,
while the celebrated teacher Jessie Smith was President of the Band of
Hope. This was one of many temperance societies set up during the 19 th
Century to save people from alcohol abuse. Aimed at children, it combined
education with entertainment by organising outings, concerts and lantern
lectures, and believed in rewards such as medals, certificates and books.
Most years a pre-summer holiday treat for Aberchirder children was an
afternoon off school for the Band of Hope picnic, held from the 1870s
onwards at Mill of Auchintoul courtesy of Mr Webster and occasionally at
Auchintoul House. In addition a Sunday School picnic was held around the
same time by the United Presbyterian Church which, along with the Free
Church, strongly supported the temperance movement.
Education
Religion
In the 1860s Aberchirder was well supplied with churches and other places
of worship. In addition to New Marnoch, there was the Episcopal Church
(a sole charge since 1867 and rebuilt 1874-76) and the United Presbyterian
Church (built 1839, largely rebuilt 1889), while there were chapels for
Roman Catholics in Rennie’s Lane and for Baptists in Main Street next to
the present-day Post Office.
By the end of this period there had been several changes. In 1899 the
Established Church, which had held services in the Public School for their
village members, opened a Church Hall in Main Street.
Then in 1900 the Free Church and United Presbyterian Church merged to
form the United Free Church and seven years later the church in North
Street became the West Hall for the now united congregation.
At the start of the 20 th Century another religious group, the Church of
Christ, operated in the village. It held services in a Meeting Room at 11 the
Square above the tailor’s workshop whose proprietor, William
Auchinachie, was a leading member of the sect.
Aberchirder School Board – set up under the Education (Scotland) Act
1872 - combined the General Assembly and Free Church Schools to form
Aberchirder Public School. By 1877, and now with two wings added, it had
a roll of around 200 taught by four teachers and two pupil teachers (older
pupils who acted as assistants).
In 1883 the school age was raised from 13 to 14 and four years later a
Leaving Certificate was introduced for pupils to progress to further or
higher education. In 1890 fees were abolished, but children of poor families
still left as early as possible to supplement family income.
The next major development came when the school was enlarged and
improved at a cost of over £2000 (over £200000 at present values) in what
amounted practically to the reconstruction of the whole premises as well
as an extension of the schoolhouse. Reopened in November 1901, it formed
the stone-built part of today’s Old School.

From 1903 pupils in Primary 5 could sit a Qualifying Exam which opened
the way to the Leaving Certificate. David Stewart, Head Teacher from
1894 till 1921, now encouraged pupils to stay on for secondary courses and
was rewarded in 1909 when the school was upgraded to a Higher Grade
one. This change was reflected in rooms being equipped for Science,
Cookery and Woodwork.
St Marnan’s School, Main Street
Aberchirder Public School in the 1900s
An Episcopal School begun originally by Rev Dean Smith, Rector of St
Margaret’s Forgue had become defunct by 1867 when Rev George Boyes
became Rector of St Marnan’s. He restarted the school, initially in the
upper storey of the Temperance Hotel which had been used by the other
Churches. In 1877 Mr Boyes’ efforts led to a school building being opened
beside the church. This was enlarged in Mr Boyes’ time and again in 1907.
St Marnan’s School was under the control of the Episcopal Church, not the
School Board.
The legendary Jessie Smith, sole teacher at St Marnan’s School from 1882, was sent to
teach in Foggie because (aged 21!) she was regarded by the training college as being good
at controlling difficult boys, of which the school had quite a few! In 1895 she transferred
to the Public School, where she taught for another 30 years.
The life of a school pupil at this time was quite different from nowadays.
There was only one long holiday in late summer which the School Board
hoped would coincide with the harvest when a large number of the pupils
would be involved. The “New Year holiday” consisted of a week which did
not include Christmas Day, which was not much celebrated at this time.
Other one or two-day holidays appeared during the year for events like
harvest thanksgiving, fast days and twice-yearly term and market days
when farm workers changed jobs by attending feeing markets.
Absences were a constant worry for the head teacher, who had to keep a
record of the weekly attendance and account for any poor figures caused
by severe weather, disease, off working and so on.

Health
The first medical practitioner mentioned for Aberchirder was Dr Charles
Smith who practised at Kinnairdy from 1844. Forty-three years later he
took on as a partner Dr Alfred Bell Whitton, who succeded him in the
practice. Dr Smith moved to a new home, Kinnairdy Lodge, in South Street
in 1900. When Aberchirder became a Police Burgh in 1889, Dr Whitton
was one of the first Commissioners until, four years, later he was
appointed Burgh Medical Officer of Health. In 1907 he became Provost, a
position he held even when away on service in the First World War.
Meanwhile in 1898 Dr Robert Moir set up a practice in a renovated house
at 78 Main Street, where he was to practice for the next twenty-seven
years.
In 1877 Aberchirder had two druggists - Alexander Allan at 68 Main Street
and George Geddes at 55 Main Street. By 1892 or earlier Geddes was the
sole pharmacist in town, also acting as postmaster. He was succeeded in
1898 by his widow Barbara and in 1907 their son Charles took over the
business, which he would run for the next twenty-eight years.
The Rose Innes Cottage Hospital was built thanks to a £5000 endowment
by Elizabeth Rose Innes of Auldtown of Netherdale. The foundation stone
was laid in May 1891, when a half-holiday was declared and flags flown.
The hospital, consisting of four small wards, an operating theatre and a
gifted x-ray unit, was completed, furnished and opened by 1895. It had its
own horse-drawn ambulance and horse-drawn hearse, and was used to
isolate infectious cases during epidemics of diseases such as scarlet fever
and diphtheria which were not uncommon at that time.
Burgh slaughterhouse (by the 1950s, Kean’s Dairy), School Lane
Two years later all twenty-one dairies (with thirty-seven cows) in the
burgh had to be registered and a Public Analyst was appointed to check for
adulteration of milk and butter as well as loose goods sold by grocers. And
in 1914 the Council ordered that all rubbish was to be dumped in disused
parts of Causewayend Quarry.
Public health became much better organised, thanks to the work of the
Burgh Medical Officer Health and Sanitary Inspector. In 1895 the Council
built a burgh slaughterhouse which butchers were forced to use rather
than their own premises. The location, at the top of School Lane, was at
that time well away from houses.

Welfare
Friendly societies grew up all over Britain in the late 19 th Century as a
means of protecting workers and their families from old age and illness in
the days before the welfare state was introduced at the beginning of the
20 th Century. One of the largest friendly societies was the Oddfellows, who
had adopted many of the secret codes and symbols of the Freemasons. In
Aberchirder the St Marnan’s Lodge 1083 provided its members with
sickness and funeral benefits as well as paying doctor’s fees. Office-bearers
included several of the Burgh’s influential people including Provost
Auchinachie, banker Bailie Leask and solicitor William Grant. In 1904 the
Lodge acquired the former Roman Catholic Chapel in what is now
Rennie’s Lane. This was used as a hall before World War One by the
Voluntary Company Gordon Highlanders.
To add to the existing savings banks, in 1894 the Marnoch Deposit and
Friendly Society was formed, an example of a community savings
organisation from the days before mass bank accounts. Members deposited
a small sum weekly throughout the year, with a payout in November.
The major change in poor relief in this period came in 1894 when parochial
boards were replaced by elected parish councils. The Marnoch Parish
Council had five representatives of the burgh and eight from the landward
area. Henry Wilson as Inspector of the Poor was responsible for deciding
which of a wide range of unfortunates – old, chronically or temporarily ill,
“congenital idiots” and so on - should receive how much money for how
long, and who should be lodged in a poorhouse. Marnoch originally rented
two beds in the Buchan Combination Poor House (later Maud Hospital),
but then rebuilt a derelict house in North Street to have its own poor
house.
Figures from the Parish Council records for the late 1890s give some idea of
the scale of its operations:
1897 Contract for supply of 38 tons of best Wallsend coals – William
Robertson, Banff at 20s2d per ton.
1898 Contract for supply of pauper coffins – Alex McHardy,
Aberchirder at 11s each.
1900 Roll of paupers - 77, of whom Ordinary Poor 58, Orphan Poor 2,
Lunatics boarded out 6, Lunatics in asylum 11.
The poor – whether registered or not – also benefitted from a number of
bequests administered by the churches, and private individuals provided
occasional seasonal treats, as reported in the Banffshire Journal in 1905:
“The inmates of the Parish Council’s Lodging House for aged and infirm paupers, at
present full, had an excellent dinner supplied to them on Christmas Day, at the cost of
Rev Dr Allan, and an equally good dinner on New Year’s Day by the kindness of Dr
Whitton. Mr George, Superior of Aberchirder, has had his usual distribution of packets
of tea among about 60 poor people in the place…Others have been remembering the poor
as well.”
Sport & Leisure
The Market Ground had been laid out on the edge of Auchintoul Moss east
of Cornhill Road. From the 1840s onwards it hosted the Marnan Fair,
which attracted as many as 200 – 300 horses in the years before the First
World War. By the end of the 19 th Century the Market Ground was leased
by the Town Council and was becoming an important amenity for sport
and leisure activities.

The years from 1890 onwards saw a growth in popularity locally of a
number of sports, both team and individual, and Aberchirder was no
exception. St Marnan’s Football Club, established in the summer of 1893,
played at the Market Park, which also hosted occasional cricket matches.
A Curling & Skating Club operated on a pond created in 1894 on land
bought from the Duke of Fife at the Moss of Skeibhill, on the south side of
the Arkland Burn. By 1890 modern bicycles with pneumatic tyres had been
developed and a cycling craze swept Britain. Aberchirder had a Cycling
Club by as early as 1894.
And in 1906 Aberchirder Bowling Club opened its green and clubhouse
with adjacent tennis courts and croquet lawn (later to become a putting
green).
St Marnan’s Cycling Club cup
Aberchirder folk of all ages could enjoy a range of leisure pursuits. Indoors
the Dramatic and Musical Societies put on productions in the West Hall,
and various organisations held musical evenings (often for fundraising) in
venues such as the Town Hall. Visiting showmen put on lantern slide
shows. Outdoors, at the Market Park, there were quite frequent visits by a
number of circus and travelling variety companies. Each August the
Aberchirder Horticultural Society (instituted 1875) held its Flower Show
in the Public School buildings till 1898, when it was first held in a marquee
at the Market Park. The Marnoch & Cornhill Agricultural Society, formed
in the early 1890s, also held its shows at the Park.
By the early years of the 20 th Century a spring public holiday had been
added to the summer one on the calendar, with excursions by bus and rail
becoming popular.
In the second half of the 19 th Century most children left school around age
12, so continuing education was a popular leisure pursuit. Large towns and
cities built public libraries, while smaller ones often had a reading room
where the public could read newspapers and magazines. As early as 1856
Aberchirder had a small library with over 800 books charging members 1s a
year. Most towns had a mutual improvement society, whose working-class
members would meet to share literature and ideas. The Aberchirder society
was founded in 1859 and held weekly meetings where local and visiting
speakers gave lectures on a wide range of topics, and ran well attended
classes in the 3 Rs and agriculture.
By the 1870s Aberchirder was a well-established village and it was felt that
it should have a town hall. An Aberchirder Hall Company, formed in 1877
with thirteen directors, bought the by then redundant Free Church School
properties. The former factory buildings were renovated and let as houses
which would provide the Company with revenue, while the interior of the
main school building was completely renovated to provide a room for
about 300 people. At the official opening in September 1877, when the
shareholders treated the public to tea, speeches and musical
entertainment, the new facility was described as “quite a credit to our good
village”.
Nevertheless in the years before World War One the Town Council
approached the Hall Company directors suggesting an extension was
necessary.

Events
In the final 25 years of this period Aberchirder saw more celebrations,
mostly of royal events, than ever before or since. These of course provided a
welcome break from the daily grind and the whole population either
participated or spectated. In all cases a public holiday or half-holiday was
declared and Aberchirder, covered in flags, enjoyed processions of
hundreds of children, tradesmen and bands, picnics for children and
adults, fireworks and bonfires.
The prewar series began with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.
On the evening before the main celebrations on Wednesday 22 June gifts
were given to the poor and a bonfire lit on the Hill of Elrick. It was
reported that people who later climbed Cranna Hill could see over 30
bonfires alight all over the surrounding district. Next day about 350
schoolchildren led by Aberchirder Brass Band paraded through the streets
and finished up at Auchintoul House for tea at the Home Farm, where
there was also a public picnic and dance attended by over 450. Two
months after the celebrations the organising committee put their
remaining funds towards a public clock which was placed on John S
Stewart’s bakery building on the north side of the Square.
Celebrations for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 included the
inauguration of the Jubilee Fountain presented by Provost Auchinachie
and featured a quarter mile long parade of trades, in carts, and
schoolchildren.
Diamond Jubilee celebrations 1897
During the Boer War the celebrations for the capture of Pretoria in 1900
had a military air and also involved Mrs Pinder’s Circus which happened to
be in town.
The coronation of Edward VII, originally planned for June 1902, was
postponed because of his illness, resulting in a two-part celebration, with a
children’s picnic and gifts of 2s to the poor of the parish going ahead and
the remainder of the programme held over to Coronation Day six weeks
later.
The last great celebration was for the coronation of George V in 1911. The
events followed the usual pattern, with a remarkable trades display in the
procession, followed by a picnic in the Market Park when 650 coronation
mugs were given to children from the whole district except for those in
Culvie, which had organised its own picnic.
Oddly in 1914 there seem to have been no plans to celebrate the 150 th
anniversary of the foundation of Aberchirder – but in any case the
outbreak of World War One in August would have seen it cancelled as
were major local events including the Flower Show, Aberchirder &
Cornhill Agricultural Show and the Oddfellows’ picnic.

Chapter 4 : 1915-1964
The worst day of World War One for Aberchirder was in March 1915
when, during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, twenty-seven men of the
burgh, serving in the 6 th Gordons, were killed within the space of twentyfour
hours. As the Banffshire Journal noted in 1964:
“It fell to Provost Charles Geddes, who was postmaster, to go round and deliver
personally telegrams to homes in the town, each little orange envelope containing sad, sad
tidings”.
War Memorial, New Marnoch Church
By the end of the war the
Parish of Marnoch had paid
its price in human lives and
their names are listed on one
or more of the memorials at
New Marnoch Church, in
Old Marnoch Church and
outside Culvie School, while
six others listed are listed in
Turriff And Twelve Miles
Around.
Local Government
Changes to local government in 1929 led to the abolition of the Banffshire
Commissioners of Supply, and the Marnoch Parish Council. Aberchirder
Town Council now became responsible for housing, lighting and drainage
with Banff County Council administering police, education, public health
and public assistance (as the poor law now became).
Housing
As the First World War drew to a close the Government made a promise
to tackle the problem of slum housing which afflicted so many families,
and to provide “homes fit for heroes”. A series of Housing Acts was passed,
and by 1939 over 230 000 houses had been built by Scottish local
authorities. However the pace was slow in Aberchirder, with the Town
Council pleading that few slum house tenants - many described as being of
the “hawker class” who lived there in winter and went on the road in
summer - would be able to afford an economic rent and in fact the tenants
of the first block of six houses at 167-177 North Street (built 1919-1923)
were comfortably off people like schoolteacher Jessie Smith. Although
another block of four houses was built at 181-187 North Street in 1931 it
was not until the mid-1930s, when Government offered Councils grants for
slum clearance, that the Council made serious attempts to rehouse tenants
of derelict properties at the top of Main Street and in the middle section of
South Street. A total of twenty new, solid two storey stone built houses
were constructed and they still provide good housing today.
In Aberchirder as everywhere else, the next fifty years were to see a radical
change in many aspects of people’s lives.

South Street in the 1920s
In the twenty years
following the Second
World War the
Council pursued a
policy of issuing
closure orders on old
houses - mainly in
South Street and
North Street - no
longer fit for human
habitation.
Thus by 1964 Aberchirder had a stock of modern council houses which
was steadily increasing, but not fast enough to keep pace with demand
from people both local and living outwith the Burgh. The town’s supply of
water was already quite insufficient to provide for existing housing,
although fortunately a solution to this problem was about to be found - see
Utilities.
The survival of many original early 19 th Century houses today is partly due
the introduction by the Government in 1962 of improvement grants which
encouraged private owners to install modern kitchens and bathrooms and
often combining adjacent houses. Thus some parts of North Street, Main
Street and South Street still look superficially much as they would have 150
years ago.
Building land now became available on the north end of these feus, leading
to the creation of Southview Terrace on what had been the Long Lane, and
Moss Road. The Council also undertook building schemes on a greenfield
site at Wellfield Terrace with the 1948 Cruden prefab houses and standard
houses behind them at Smith Crescent. This was to be the start of a major
area of expansion from the 1960s onwards, moving the Burgh boundary
north and east. A second experiment with prefab housing took place at
Market Street/North Street, where six Dorran houses were completed in
1959.
It is interesting to note
that while the Cruden
houses, which had a
catalogue of faults from
the beginning, survive
today, the Dorrans were
condemned and
demolished by
Aberdeenshire Council in
December 2010.
Commerce
The depressions of the 1920s and 1930s hit the burgh hard as young people
left to seek employment elsewhere. Things improved somewhat after
World War Two and by 1964 the number of jobs in service and trade
businesses had held up quite well although, whereas previously most had
been one-man affairs, there were now two employers of significant
numbers – builder Leslie Anderson and haulage contractor Kenny
MacLennan.
On the other hand there had been a noticeable reduction in the number of
shops compared with fifty years earlier, with over half of them now grocers
or general merchants with only one tailor and no saddler or shoemaker.
Cruden houses, Wellfield Lane

Transport & Communication
At the beginning of this period streets were still unsurfaced and patched
from time to time by the burgh workman using hardcore made from stone
from Causewayend Quarry. Occasionally major repairs would be
undertaken using agricultural equipment:
Hector McLeod Hosie recalled watching, as a boy, a horse pulling a grubber - usually
used to dig up turnips - to get rid of the ruts in the roadway and then the surface being
flattened with a metal roller.
The first mention of tarmacadam being laid was in 1930, when Main Street
and the Square were surfaced, but many of the lanes remained untarred
until relatively recently. And the first electric street lights were switched
on in the Square and Main Street in December 1936.
In 1923 the London & North Eastern Railway took over the Great North of
Scotland Railway. In 1930 it sold off its bus services to Alexander’s
Bluebird, which operated locally out of McMillan’s former yard at 122
Main Street until moving its buses to Macduff around 1950. Bluebird had
competition from Alexander ‘Bussie’ Hay who had bought his first bus in
1926 and expanded his fleet until he could run services to Banff, Turriff,
Huntly and Keith. In the 1950s he sold out to William ‘Badger’ Webster
who in turn was succeeded in 1964 by Hans Hardie, who had run a taxi
company at the top of Main Street since 1938.
Throughout this period private cars remained the preserve of better-off
people, served by MacLennan’s garage in Main Street and McKay’s in
School Lane, As early as 1921 petrol pumps began to appear on pavements
outside some shops and hotels, and a few could still be seen in the early
1960s.
As far as freight was concerned, motor transport began to put horse-drawn
goods carriers out of business as early as the 1920s. Their place was taken
by delivery vans which served towns and people in the surrounding
countryside, while lorries did more long distance work.
After World War Two, motor transport was the norm although some local
businesses continued to use horse or hand carts. In the early 1950s Davie
MacLennan ran a carrier’s business and garage and his brother Kenny
developed their father’s saddler’s shop into a shop selling bikes, TVs, a taxi
service, petrol pumps, and a garage. Kenny then built up a fleet of lorries,
which carried agricultural supplies and livestock, and moved in 1960 to
new premises in North Street. This business was to develop into one with
articulated lorries which operated throughout Scotland and England.
Electric communication reached Aberchirder in 1919 when a “telephone
call office” opened in the Post Office, and by 1923 the GPO had permission
to erect poles in the Square and McCulloch’s Lane - but not in other lanes
because they were “too narrow for ordinary traffic already”. In 1927 teacher
Jessie Smith was given permission to install a wireless – which would have
been powered by heavy-duty batteries - in her North Street council house
as long as she fitted a lightning conductor! In 1938 a public telephone kiosk
was erected in the Square.
Utilities
Square in 1938 showing a range of transport
Throughout this period there was a perpetual struggle to get an adequate
supply of water, not helped by increasing loss caused by leaks in the old
1880s pipe system. As more properties were connected to the water mains
during the 1920s and 1930s, and a few street pumps remained in use as late
as the mid-1930s, the inadequate original North Cranna water scheme was
augmented by one at Castlebrae in the late 1930s.

After the Second World War there were several failed attempts to find
new sources at Blacklaw, but restrictions on use in dry periods lasted until
1959, when a severe shortage must have helped to concentrate minds.
Finally in 1962 some lateral thinking by Burgh Sanitary Inspector George
Eaton led to a scheme to extract water from the River Deveron near
Kinnairdy Castle and pump it to a reservoir to be built on the highest point
of Cleanhill (or to the existing reservoir at Corskie).
In the interwar years the Town Council was under pressure from the
Government to replace privies with WCs, which was impossible because
of regular summer water shortages. However householders were banned
from putting human waste in the ashpits which were cleaned out
quarterly, while the number of WCs gradually increased and some house
owners installed septic tanks. The year 1938 also saw the opening of a
public convenience in Market Street. Rubbish bins began to replace
ashpits, so that by the 1960s only bins were being collected by George
Donald, whose long service as town carter ended in 1965 when Banff
County Council took over refuse collection.
The Town Council first proposed the introduction of electricity in 1920.
However it was not until 1935 that discussions with the Grampian
Electrical Supply Company began and finally by 1937 all the main streets
and the Square were lit by electricity.
Aberchirder folk boasted proudly that they had electric street lighting before Banff,
Macduff or Turriff. Whereas the lights in those towns were switched on early in 1937, the
first ones in Aberchirder’s Main Street and Square were operational at Christmas 1936.
Meanwhile a start was made on installing electric lighting in council
houses, including new ones being built in South Street as well as existing
ones in North Street. After a lull during World War Two demand for
electricity for domestic lighting and cooking resumed, so that by 1964
several substations had to be provided to keep up the voltage throughout
the town.
Religion
A major event nationally came in 1929 when the Church of Scotland and
United Free Church agreed to unite, leaving the people of Aberchirder and
Marnoch with two churches, at Marnoch and in the town. These
maintained their separate congregations until 1953 when they united to
form the New Church of Marnoch with services continuing to be held in
both churches.
West Hall, Cornhill Road
Meanwhile the town
had the luxury of two
church halls which
were well used by
youth and other groups.
The West Hall in
Cornhill Road, used as a
drill hall by the Home
Guard during the
Second World War,
became a cinema
between 1947 and 1959.
The Temperance (Scotland) Act 1913 had given voters in small local areas
powers to hold a poll to decide whether alcoholic drinks should continue
to be sold. A poll was organised in Aberchirder in 1920 and surprisingly,
given how strong the temperance movement had been prewar, the result
on a 74% turnout was a 205 to 96 vote in favour of keeping Foggie “wet”.
During a vigorous campaign one speaker (a member of the licensed trade) argued that a
ban would be undemocratic, as residents of the rural parts of the Parish of Marnoch had
no pubs and depended on ones in Foggie – but they were not entitled to vote!

Education
From April 1919 Aberchirder Public School was run by Banffshire
Education Committee. The new authority was quick to improve
conditions, installing new toilets with WCs and replacing open grates
with central heating, while schools now had regular visits by the School
Medical Officer, nurse, dentist and oculist.
By the time John Gregor took over as Head Teacher in November 1921 the
school had a roll of around 250. Post-primary pupils were offered a much
broader range of subjects including Laundry and Needlework for girls,
encouraging increasing numbers to stay on beyond elementary education.
However once it was decided in 1932 to send pupils aiming for university
to Banff Academy the school was downgraded to the status of Junior
Secondary.
Inspectors were always keen to propose improvements to facilities. Their
proposal in 1937 that there should be a proper playing field was not
implemented, but session 1938-39 saw major improvements to the school
buildings, with a new wooden block with Science, Benchwork and
Cookery rooms, as well as better heating and lighting, enlargement of two
classrooms, new boys’ toilets and a more level, tarred boys’ playground.
Following the outbreak of World War Two in September 1939 pupils
enjoyed the excitements of evacuees from Edinburgh (briefly), aboveground
air raid shelters (one in the boys’ playground, one in the girls’) and
gas masks. Pupils helped the war effort in various ways, including bringing
to school sphagnum moss they had collected on Auchintoul Moss to be
used for medical dressings.
The late 1940s and 1950s were a period of continuous change under George
Ross, appointed Head Teacher in 1949. In terms of health there was now
medical screening for BCG, and immunisation against polio and
diphtheria, while November 1951 saw school meals served for the first time.
Pupils about to leave school had interviews and careers talks which used
radio, films and filmstrips. And in December 1960 a TV was installed in the
school hall where, the following April, the whole school watched Gagarin‘s
return to Moscow following his space flight.
James Shand, appointed Head Teacher at the start of session 1962-63, was
keen to introduce new ideas like a rural studies course, school clubs and
pupil visits and excursions, but was hampered by severe overcrowding.
St Marnan’s Episcopal School at the end of World War One had a healthy
roll of over 60. The numbers rose in winter and fell in summer as the
several children of the “hawker class” (also referred to in the school log as
“tinkers”!) spent the summer months on the road with their parents, which
was legal as long as they had built up 200 attendances over the winter.
Records suggest that the pupils had to put up with even less comfortable
conditions than their counterparts at the Junior Secondary School, as these
comments about the outside toilets in the 1930s and 1940s suggest:
“During the holidays new latrines [chemical toilets!] were built and these are a great
improvement on those formerly in use.”
“The lavatories have had boards put on the top of the doors so that the snow will in future
be kept from drifting into them”
Aberchirder Public School wooden extension

As early the 1930s the roll had fallen below 20 and the year 1949 found St
Marnan’s a one-teacher school with a roll of only 14 and a negative
inspector’s report. In April the education authority closed the school and
transferred the pupils and Head Teacher to the Junior Secondary School.
Health
The GP surgery at 78 Main Street continued to be used throughout this
period by just four doctors – Robert Moir, James Whyte, Ronald Cumming
and Archie McBain. Over the same period there were even fewer
pharmacists at 55 Main St – Charles S Geddes, who continued till his
death in 1934, his widow who filled in for a year, and John B Rattray who
then began a thirty-two-year spell.
During the First World War the Rose Innes trustees made the hospital
available for wounded soldiers, with civilian infectious cases having to go
to Campbell Hospital in Portsoy, but normal service resumed in 1919. The
hospital was run by a trust until 1938, and its isolation ward dealt with
regular outbreaks of infectious diseases such as measles and diphtheria
well into the 1930s. In 1948 the hospital came under the National Health
Service, which closed the maternity unit at the end of 1953, the last birth
being on Christmas Day. In 1959 the entire hospital was closed and in the
following year it opened as an old folks’ home, administered by Banff
County Council Social Work Department.
Although there were Freemasons active in Aberchirder previously, Lodge
Marnoch No. 1325 was founded only in 1925, since when it has worked for
the benefit of its members and the wider public.
Until its demise in 1975 the Town Council administered a number of
charitable funds which made Christmas payments to poor natives of the
town. These included the John Anderson Poor Fund (see box on next
page) and assets donated by the Ex-Service and Young Men’s Club when it
disbanded in 1961.
John Anderson, born locally in 1869, started work on a farm at age 9, but soon found
employment in the hotel business, mainly in Edinburgh. Always in touch with his
relations in Foggie, he made a significant donation to the building fund for the Memorial
Hall, which he opened in 1926. Around this time he moved to Blackpool where he used his
savings to buy the Claremont Hotel. In 1930 he was elected as a councillor and in
November 1947, aged 78, was installed as Mayor. Sadly he died just over a month later
and was buried in Marnoch Cemetery. His name lived on in the John Anderson Poor
Fund set up with a £2000 bequest in his will.
In 1930 parish councils were abolished and the Marnoch one handed over
its duties to Banff County Council, which worked through the Department
of Public Assistance until a national system of social security was
introduced in 1948.
Welfare
Private welfare continued to be necessary until the 1945 Labour
Government introduced the welfare state, but even thereafter a number of
local schemes continued to operate in Aberchirder. The St Marnan’s Lodge
of Oddfellows continued its welfare activities until after World War Two.
Its hall was used until 1934 by the Banffshire Territorial Force Association,
and thereafter by the Ex-Service Men’s Club which, after the war, became
the Ex-Service and Young Men’s Club. In 1950 the property was bought by
W J Rennie Snr who in 1961 converted it into a house attached to his shop
at 112 Main Street.
Sport & Leisure
Two longstanding agricultural events disappeared during this period. By
1923 numbers of horses at Marnan Fair had returned briefly to the prewar
level. Children in the 1920s still loved the Fair:
Hebbie Gray recalled how when he was a boy the local baker Gibb sold gingerbread
mannies and horses for about a fortnight before the fair, and the excitement he felt when
he was wakened on the morning of the Fair by the ‘clip-clop’ of horses’ hooves going up the
street.

However the event declined rapidly thereafter and was last held in 1939.
And in 1955 Marnoch & Cornhill Agricultural Society decided to disband
after concluding that there was no longer a hope of running an agricultural
show in the district. Its trophies and funds were divided between the
Cornhill and Aberchirder flower shows.
Efforts to provide Aberchirder and district with a better hall were resumed
at the end of World War One when, at a public meeting on 23 December
1918, a committee was formed to erect one as a memorial to the servicemen
of the parish who had died, with funds to be raised by public subscription.
As a further source of funds the committee installed in the Town Hall a
picture house which initially attracted large attendances to see silent films
accompanied by local musicians every Wednesday and Saturday, but
within two years it ceased due to lack of public support.
The plan produced in 1921 by Turriff architect W L Duncan involved
adding the new hall onto the front of the existing Town Hall. It would use
stones from the old dwelling-houses on the site, with a granite frontage to
the street formed by the south gable. Hard economic times and
competition from the many local organisations led to a rapid tailing off of
donations. Two revised plans –with cheaper specifications – and four years
later building finally began. Aberchirder man George Youngson was
mason, and Robert Anderson laid out the ground, but otherwise all
contractors were from outwith the town. A bazaar three weeks before the
opening raised a final £667.16s7d (£35000 at today’s values).
The original intention had been to open the Memorial Hall in 1925, which
appeared on the date-stone above the front door. However delays meant it
was not until Sunday 24 October of the following year that it was opened.
With 600 seats plus all passageways filled, a dedication service was led by
the three clergymen of the parish – Rev Neil Wilson, Rev Godfrey
McFadyen and Rev James Boyes - and a large choir and orchestra provided
music. The hall was then officially opened by Mr John Anderson.
Memorial Hall 1926
The new hall was an instant success, with local organisations holding
dances and other events almost weekly:
The ex-Service men of the town and district held a very successful dance in the Memorial
Hall on Friday. [12 November] About seventy-five couples were present. Excellent music
was supplied by Grant’s jazz band.
In the early 1950s the Hall Committee was very active in raising funds to
extend and improve the building, with sales of work adding over £800 each
(£24000 in today’s money!). And evidence of a healthy demand for the
amenity can be seen in newspaper reports such as this one from 1955:
“On the bench of Aberchirder Police Court, Provost A R Smith sentenced three Buckie
men to £5 or 60 days for breach of the peace, following a dance. He sent out a warning to
others coming in busloads from outlying areas to local dances and causing annoyance,
that he would treat further occurrences with even stronger measures.”

An important outdoor leisure amenity was created in 1930, when the Town
Council bought a large area of woodland at Cleanhill from the Wilsons of
Home Farm of Auchintoul, on condition that a volunteer Amenities
Committee was set up to run the area. During World War Two the RAF
Observer Corps, Home Guard and ARP used a concrete lookout post on
Cleanhill which still exists. After the war John Riddell was appointed
warden in charge of maintenance work.
In the same decade the McRobert Bequest fund was set up by William
McRobert, coach builder, saddler, and in later years, farmer. Half was
intended to provide bursaries for Aberchirder Secondary School and
University and half for a children’s playground in the burgh and on the
death of his widow in 1936 the money for the latter was given to the Town
Council. In 1939 it bought the Market Park (with plantation) and an
“angular field about ¾ acre to the east of the Bowling Green” on payment
of £206.1s3d. The onset of the Second World War led to the Council
ploughing up both areas of ground and planting oats, grass and potatoes to
help the war effort.
It was not until 1944 that the Council could resume its plans for playing
fields. Although neither part of what was by then called the McRobert
Park was properly drained – thereby leaving both with a long-standing
problem of waterlogging – they were grassed and ready for use by 1946. St
Marnan’s FC now had a permanent football pitch at the west end of the
former Market Park while in 1947 the Town Council created a “Playfield”
in the Main Street field by installing a maypole at the east end, large and
small swings on the north side, with large swings and a seesaw at the Main
Street side.
Swing park, Main Street, 1950s
In the 1920s and 1930s, before electricity reached Aberchirder, people –
most living in houses lit by dim paraffin lamps – continued to depend for
indoor entertainment largely on public performances by local groups or
visiting companies. The Memorial Hall, opened in 1926, quickly became a
popular venue for dances organised by local organisations, with catering
by the town’s hotels and music by Grant’s and Beattie’s bands.
Following the arrival of electricity in 1936 people could begin to install
wireless radios and gramophones – and, by the late 1950s, televisions - so
that they could provide their own home entertainment.
Events
Communities all over Britain organised events to celebrate the signing of
the Armistice in November 1918. Bizarrely Aberchirder was not one of
them because, as Bailie McKenzie explained, no official telegram had been

eceived from the Government announcing the acceptance of the armistice
terms by the enemy and so no celebration had been held in the town!
When the Treaty of Versailles was finally signed in June 1919 the
Government made arrangements to celebrate “Peace Day”. In Aberchirder a
fancy dress cycle parade preceded a picnic in the Market Park, with games,
tea and a 3d piece for the children and dancing for the adults. In the
evening a crowd of about 2000 enjoyed a fireworks display and music in
the Square. The organising committee announced a profit of £35, some of
which was spent on a gift of 1 lb of tea for sixty-three deserving poor, with
the remainder being handed over to the Marnoch Memorial Hall Fund.
Events for the coronation of King George VI in May 1937 included the
usual outdoor activities but also two hours of films and the King’s Speech
on radio in the Memorial Hall.
V E Day (8 May 1945) saw services of thanksgiving at New Marnoch and
Marnoch churches and school classes dispersed for two days’ holiday. On
the Wednesday a public service was held in the Memorial Hall, and flags
and bunting in abundance were displayed throughout the burgh. An
evening concert in the Memorial Hall raised £108 for the Hall’s building
fund. In August a Victory Picnic was held to celebrate V J Day.
The Town Council’s plans in 1964 to celebrate Aberchirder’s 200 th
anniversary were upset, as a typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen less than a
month before caused a public health emergency in the Northeast of
Scotland. Foggie became virtually isolated once it became known a local
country woman had been one of the first to contract the disease (while in
Woodend Hospital, Aberdeen!).
In the event, only the first two days’
events went ahead. On Sunday 14
June Provost John Taylor was
presented with the newly acquired
provost’s chain of office before the
Council attended morning service in
New Marnoch Church, where the
Provost unveiled a memorial tablet in
the vestibule dedicated to
commemorate the 25th and 50 th
anniversaries of the Second and First
World Wars.
Bingo Bremner’s float celebrating the conquest of Everest
Wind and rain led to most
of the planned outdoor
events for the coronation of
Queen Elizabeth II on 2
June 1953 being cancelled
and games, presentation of
souvenir pencils, mugs and
chocolate, and teas were
held in the Memorial Hall
rather than at McRobert
Park.
The following day the council formally handed over a new chute at the
McRobert Playing Field and six seats were accepted on behalf of the OAP
Association by ex-Provost A R Smith.
Obviously the celebrations had been affected partly by the typhoid
emergency. Nevertheless Town Clerk Frank Anderson, who had put in a
power of work organising them, was less than happy with the
townspeople’s response:
“I am sorry to say the response has definitely been disappointing. In the old days now, folk
would have turned out in droves and turned the place upside down to make this a great
occasion. There has been more interest shown by people outside the town than by the local
people put together.”