Aberlour (Charlestown of Aberlour)
Moray

A village in central Moray, Aberlour is situated 15 miles (24 km) south of Elgin on the right bank of the River Spey where it is joined by the Burn of Aberlour or Lour Burn. Also known more fully as Charlestown of Aberlour, it is named after Charles Grant of Wester Elchies who in 1812 laid out the village in its present plan comprising a mile-long High Street with a square to the west. The new village replaced the earlier community of Skirdustan of which the ruined St Drostan's Kirk is all that remains.

Buildings of note include the remains of the Aberlour Orphanage founded in 1875 by Canon Jupp and the Fleming Institute which was designed by William Reid and gifted to the burgh by James Fleming, a local banker. Also of interest are two bridges: an old pack-horse bridge crossing the Burn of Aberlour and, crossing the Spey, a more modern steel suspension footbridge built by James Abernethy in 1902. To the northeast of the village stands Aberlour House built in 1838 to a design by William Robertson for Alexander Grant, a local farmer's son who made his fortune in the West Indies and returned to Scotland to buy the ancestral home of the Gordon's of Aberlour.

To the south, Ben Rinnes rises to a height of 840m (2755 feet). Aberlour, which has tourist facilities, is noted for its fishing on the Spey, its shortbread and the whisky produced at nearby Glenallachie Distillery within whose grounds is a well dedicated to St Drostan.

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