River Ythan

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.

This edition is copyright © The Editors of the Gazetteer for Scotland, 2002-2022.

It has taken much time and money to make the six-volumes of Groome's text freely accessible. Please help us continue and develop by making a donation. If only one out of every ten people who view this page gave £5 or $10, the project would be self-sustaining. Sadly less than one in thirty-thousand contribute, so please give what you can.

Use the tabs on the right of this page to see other parts of this entry

Ythan, a smooth, slow river of Aberdeenshire, rising at the Wells of Ythan, 768 feet above sea-level, and winding 35 ¹/₈. miles east-south -eastward, through or along the borders of Forgue, Auchterless, Fyvie, Methlick, Tarves, Ellon, Logie-Buchan, Slains, and Foveran parishes, till it falls into the German Ocean near the seaport village of Newburgh. It is a capital stream for salmon, sea-trout, and yellow trout; and pearl-mussels are still found in it when the water is low. The great pearl in the crown of Scotland is said to have been found here; and about 1750 Mr Tower, an Aberdeen merchant, got £100 sterling from a London jeweller for a lot of pearls from the Ythan. The price he had named was only £100 Scots, or £8, 6s. 8d.—Ord. Sur., shs. 86, 87, 77, 1876-73.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

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