Alves

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Alves, a village and a coast parish of Elginshire. The village stands ½ mile NE of a station of its own name on the Great North of Scotland railway, at the junction of the Burghead branch, and 5¼ miles W of Elgin, is small and straggling, and has a post office under Forres. The parish formerly included a large portion of what is now Kinloss, but was curtailed in 1659 or 1660. It is bounded NW for 3½ furlongs by Burghead Bay, NE by Duffus, E by Spynie, SE by Elgin, SW by Rafford, and W by Kinloss. Its length, from N to S, is 6½ miles: its greatest breadth is 5½ miles: and its land area is 9404 acres. Alves contains no stream of any size: and the conical Knock (335 feet), at the eastern extremity of the parish, is the only noteworthy summit in its upper half. This is crowned by the modern York Tower, and claims, like several neighbouring localities, to have been the meeting-place of Macbeth and the Witches. The lower half of the parish consists entirely of wooded uplands, that culminate in Eildon Hill (767 feet) on the SE border. A hard and very durable sandstone is quarried for building purposes, and a rock suitable for millstones is also worked. Aslisk Castle, 2 miles SW of the village, is a ruined baronial fortalice: and near the old Military Road stood Moray's Cairn, thought to commemorate a battle, but now destroyed. Near it some Lochaber and Danish axes have been exhumed. Four landowners hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 3 of between £100 and £500, and 1 of from £50 to £100. Alves is in the presbytery of Elgin an synod of Moray: its minister's income is £351. The church is a long, narrow building, erected in 1760, and containing 590 sittings. There is also a Free church, rebuilt in 1878 at a cost of £1000, which measures 50 by 42 feet, seats 500, and has a spire 53 feet high. A board school, with accommodation for 200 children, had (1879) an average attendance of 90, and a grant of £100,5s. Pop. (1831) 945, (1871) 1018, (1881) 1117.—Ord. Sur., shs. 85,95,1876.

Crook of Alves, a hamlet in Alves parish, Elginshire, 3½ furlongs N of Alves station.

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Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical 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 text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer