The second-largest settlement in the Carse of Gowrie, Errol lies on the Firth of Tay, 10 miles (16 km) east of Perth and the same distance west of Dundee. The parish of Errol was the traditional fiefdom of the earls of Errol and the Kirkton of Errol achieved burgh status in 1648. It retains an unusual winding main street and several buildings with clay wall construction. Described as the Cathedral of the Carse, the square-towered parish church of Errol, built by James Gillespie Graham in 1831-33, dominates the skyline. It was here, in 1553, that the first recorded baptism in Scotland took place on the 27th December 1553, when the name of Christane Hay was placed in the Old Parochial Registers which had been introduced the previous year. The kirkyard of the old parish church remains and nearby is one of the early Free Church Disruption kirks of 1843. A fountain and market cross can be found in the square at the centre of the village and many of the 19th-century buildings are constructed using local bricks made from estuarine clays laid down in the carse after the last Ice Age. The Errol Brick Company continues the 200-year tradition of brick making at Inchcoonans to the northwest of Errol. Inchcoonans is also the site for the manufacture of potato crisps using local-sourced potatoes. Lying to the northeast of the village, Errol Airfield was a former wartime airbase that is now occupied by an industrial estate. Based here was the Tayreed Company which once exploited nearby reed beds on the Tay estuary to provide thatch for roofing. These reed beds were planted in the 1780s by an enlightened landowner in an attempt to prevent erosion of the river bank. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds now continues to manage and harvest the reeds. Errol Station to the north of Errol, which operated between 1847 and 1985, reopened in 1990 as a railway heritage centre and is now a craft shop.
