Panbride, a hamlet and a coast parish of SE Forfarshire. The hamlet lies 1¼ mile NNE of the post-town, Carnoustie.
The parish, containing also Muirdrum village and the Newton of Panbride suburb of Carnoustie, with the fishing villages of West Haven and East Haven, is bounded N by Carmyllie, NE by Arbirlot and St Vigeans (detached), SE by the German Ocean, SW by Barry, and W by Monikie. Its utmost length, from NW to SE, is 45/8 miles; its breadth varies between 9 furlongs and 2¾ miles; and its area is 5506 acres, of which 2982/5 are foreshore and 9 water. Monikie Burn, coming in from Monikie parish, runs 4½ miles south-eastward across the interior to the sea between East and West Haven. Its dell, called Battie's Den, is mostly flanked by steep or mural rocky banks, 20 to 50 feet high, and is spanned, at a romantic spot, by a bridge taking over the road from Dundee to Arbroath. Another rivulet, also coming in from Monikie, and traversing a similar dell, runs 2¼ miles east-south-eastward across the northern interior, next 13/8 mile south-south-eastward along the north-eastern boundary, and next 1½ mile through the interior, till it falls into Monikie Burn at a point ¼ mile NE of the parish church. The coast, closely followed for 2¼ miles by the Dundee and Arbroath Joint railway, is low but very rocky, with a pebbly beach, and shows a series of ancient sea-margins some way from the present shore line. The interior presents for the most part a flat appearance, but is diversified by the dells of the rivulets, and rises gently to 300 feet at Pitlivie and 487 at the northern boundary. The predominant rocks are Devonian. Sandstone of excellent quality for masonry is quarried; sandstone, of the slaty kind which yields the Arbroath paving-stone, is comparatively plentiful; and limestone exists, but not abundantly nor of good quality. The soil on the seaboard is sandy; in the central district is clay or loam; and towards the W and N is moorish. Rather more than three-fourths of all the land is arable, and some 600 acres are under wood. The barony of Panbride belonged for several ages to the ancestors of the historian Hector Boece (1465-1536), who himself, however, appears to have been a native of Dundee; whilst the barony of Panmure passed by marriage about 1224 to Sir Peter de Maule, ancestor of the Earl of Dalhousie. Panmure House, noticed separately, is the principal residence; and the Earl is sole proprietor. Panbride is in the presbytery of Arbroath and the synod of Angus and Mearns; the living is worth £335. The parish church, at Panbride hamlet, is a cruciform Gothic edifice of 1851, containing 600 sittings. At the E gable of it is the burial vault of the Earls of Panmure, erected by George, third Earl, in 1681. A Free church was built in 1856; and two public schools, Muirdrum and Panbride, with respective accommodation for 54 and 196 children, had (1883) an average attendance of 53 and 137, and grants of £38, 8s. and £129. Valuation (1857) £7698, (1884) £11,711, 13s., plus £1337 for railway. Pop. (1801) 1588, (1831) 1268, (1861) 1299, (1871) 1331, (1881) 1395, of whom 593 were in Newton of Panbride.—Ord. Sur., sh. 49, 1865.
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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
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