Overview of Strichen

A village in the Buchan district of Aberdeenshire, Strichen lies on the North Ugie Water, 9 miles (14 km) southwest of Fraserburgh. Designated a conservation area in 1985, it was founded in 1764 by the Frasers of Strichen and was known as Mormond until the 1850s. The population of the village expanded to 200 in 1790 and 681 in 1840, its development further boosted when the railway arrived in 1865. The two-storey Town Hall in the centre of the village dates from 1816 and the public library in the Anderson and Woodman Institute was opened in 1923. The Parish Church was originally built as a Free Church in 1893 and replaced an older building within the churchyard to the southwest of the village on the union of the Free Church with the Church of Scotland in 1929. The older building which dates from 1798 was itself the successor to an earlier church built in 1620. Also in the old kirkyard is the Tolquhon Tomb which was erected in 1589 for William Forbes of Tolquhon Castle and his wife Elizabeth Gordon. Other church buildings in Strichen include an Episcopal Church (1861) and a building thought to have been built in 1580 as a Roman Catholic chapel but never completed. Nearly a mile to the south of the village is a recumbent stone circle which dates from the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. Strichen House, to the southwest of the village, was designed in 1821 for Thomas Fraser of Strichen who later became Lord Lovat, but was gutted by fire in 1954. The village is the home of the Buchan Countryside Group, a conservation organisation established in the 1970s who, amongst other projects, were responsible for the development of the Formartine and Buchan Way which follows the route of the old railway from Dyce to Fraserburgh via Strichen. There are forest walks and sporting facilities including a bowling green and tennis courts. Each May Strichen hosts the Buchan Heritage Festival and Doric Drama Festival.

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