Parish of Kettins

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

This edition is copyright © The Editors of the Gazetteer for Scotland, 2002-2022.

It has taken much time and money to make the six-volumes of Groome's text freely accessible. Please help us continue and develop by making a donation. If only one out of every ten people who view this page gave £5 or $10, the project would be self-sustaining. Sadly less than one in thirty-thousand contribute, so please give what you can.

Use the tabs on the right of this page to see other parts of this entry Arrow

Links to the Historical Statistical Accounts of Scotland are also available:
(Click on the link to the right, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Browse scanned pages")

1791-99: Kettins
1834-45: Kettins

Kettins, a village and a parish on the SW border of Forfarshire. The village stands 1 3/8 mile ESE of Coupar-Angus, under which it has a post office. It consists of neatly kept cottages and gardens, with a central green.

The parish, containing also the hamlets of Ley of Hallyburton and Campmuir, is bounded NE by Newtyle, E by Lundie, and on all other sides by Perthshire, viz., SE by Longforgan, SW by Collace, and W and NW by Scone (detached), Cargill, and Coupar-Angus. Its utmost length, from NNE to SSW, is 5½ miles; its breadth varies between 1 ½ and 4 1/8 miles; and its area is 7815¾ acres, of which 26 are water and 335 2/3 belong to the detached or Bandirran section. The western division of the parish, forming part of Strathmore, declines to 170 feet above sea-level; and thence the surface rises south-eastward to the watershed of the Sidlaw Hills, attaining 1088 feet at Keillor Hill and 1141 at Gaskhill Wood. The upland district slopes gently to the plain, and is partly heathy, partly wooded, and partly pastoral; the lowland district, larger than the upland one, is nearly level, highly cultivated, and finely embellished. Trap rocks prevail in the hills, Old Red sandstone in the plain; and the latter has been quarried in several places, and makes a good building-stone. The soil on the higher grounds is light and thin; on the low grounds, is chiefly a silicious loam or a friable black mould, and highly fertile. About three-fourths of the entire area are in tillage, and woods and plantations cover some 1500 acres. 'Picts' Houses ' or subterranean caves have been discovered on the estates of Lintrose and Pitcur - at the latter in 1878; Pitcur Castle, a ruin, 1 ¾ mile SE of the village, was the ancient seat of the Haliburtons; a fortalice, called Dores Castle, and said by tradition to have been a residence of Macbeth, crowned a hill to the S of Pitcur; six pre-Reformation chapels stood at Peattie, South Corston, Pitcur, Muiryfaulds, Denhead, and the S side of Kettins village; and other antiquities are noticed under Campmuir and Baldowrie. Mansions, noticed separately, are Hallyburton, Lintrose, Baldowrie, and Bandirran; and the proprietors are R. S. Menzies, Esq., the Earl of Wharncliffe, and four others. Including quoad sacra the detached section of Scone, Kettins is in the presbytery of Meigle and synod of Angus and Mearns; the living is worth £306. The parish church, at the village, was built in 1768, and, as restored and enlarged in 1871, contains 500 sittings. The public school, with accommodation for 171 children, had (1882) an average attendance of 139, and a grant of £127, 11s. 6d. Valuation (1857) £9638, (1883) £12, 206, 15s. 11d., plus £734 for railway. Pop. of the civil parish (1801) 1207, (1831) 1193, (1861) 901, (1871) 775, (1881) 848; of the ecclesiastical parish (1881) 903.—Ord. Sur., sh. 48,1868.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

If you have found this information useful please consider making
a donation to help maintain and improve this resource. More info...

By using our site you agree to accept cookies, which help us serve you better