Lumphanan, a hamlet and a parish in Kincardine O'Neil district, S Aberdeenshire. The hamlet has a station on the Deeside section of the Great North of Scotland railway, 27 miles W by S of Aberdeen; a post and railway telegraph office; a branch of the North of Scotland Bank; an hotel; and fairs on the second Thursday of January, February, March, April, May, September, and December.
The parish is bounded N by Leochel and Tough, E by Kincardine O'Neil, S by Kincardine O'Neil and Aboyne, and W and NW by Coull. Its utmost length, from N by E to S by W, is 5 ¼ miles; its utmost breadth is 5 ¼ miles; and its area is 8757 3/5 acres, of which 3¾ are water. The drainage is carried partly northward to the Don by Leochel Burn, but mainly southward to the Dee by the Burns of Beltie and Dess, along the latter of which the surface declines to 420 feet above sea-level, thence rising to 923 feet at Stot Hill, 1250 at Mill Maud, and 1563 at Craiglich on the Coull boundary. The drainage of a good-sized loch in lv860 has been noticed under Auchlossan. The predominant rock is granite; and the soil varies from a deep loam on the low grounds to a thin sand on the higher. About 3500 acres are in tillage; 625 acres are under wood; and the rest of the land is either pastoral or waste. On the Perk Hill, 1 mile N by W of the parish church, is Macbeth's Cairn, which in 1793 was described as ` 40 yards. in circumference, and pretty high up in the middle. ' Here, on 15 Aug. 1057, Macbeth, pursued across the great range of the Mounth, was slain by Malcolm Ceannmor, the son of Duncan. In Lumphanan another king, Edward I. of England, on 21 July 1296, received the submission of Sir John De Malevill-probably at the Peel Bog, a moated, round earthen mound, 46 yards in diameter, and 12 feet high, in a marshy hollow, a little SW of the church. Till 1782 it was crowned by remains of a stone building, called Haa-ton House. Another strength was the Houff, on the lands of Auchinhove; and two earthen ramparts, 230 yards long, extended along the base of the Hills of Corse and Mill Maud. Estates are Auchinhove, Burnside, Camphill, Findrack, Glenmillan, and Pitmurchie; and Mr Farquharson of Finzean owns three-fourths of the parish, 1 other proprietor holding an annual value of more, 7 of less, than £500. Lumphanan is in the presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil and the synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth £217. The parish church, built in 1762, and enlarged in 1851, contains 600 sittings. Its ancient predecessor was dedicated to St Finan (Lumphanan being a corruption of Llanffinan); and this dedication, according to Dr Skene, ` must have proceeded from a Welsh source.' According, however, to the present minister, the church in pre-Reformation times was dedicated to St Vincent, and Lumphanan means ` bare little valley.' There is a Free church; and a public school, with accommodation for 200 children, had (1882) an average attendance of 130, and a grant of £114, 16s. Valviation (1860) £4126, (1884) £5676, plus £985 for railway. Pop. (1801) 614, (1831) 957, (1861) 1251, (1871) 1239, (1881) 1130.—Ord. Sur., sh. 76, 1874.
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