Parish of Ordiquhill

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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1791-99: Ordiquhill 1834-45: Ordiquhill

Ordiquhill, a parish of Banffshire, to the N containing Cornhill village, ½ mile SSE of Cornhill station in Fordyce parish, this being 8½ miles SW by W of Banff, under which it has a post and railway telegraph office. It is bounded NW by Fordyce, NE by Boyndie, SE and S by Marnoch, and SW by Grange. Its utmost length, from NE to SW, is 4¹/₈ miles; its utmost breadth is 2¾ miles; and its area is 4758 acres, of which 3¾ are water. The drainage is carried north-north-eastward by head-streams of the Burn of Boyne; and in the extreme N the surface declines to 240 feet above sea-level, thence rising to 410 feet near Rothen, 711 at Corn Hill, 865 at Culvie Hill, 890 at Weather Hill on the southern border, and 1409 at Knock Hill on the meeting-point with Grange and Fordyce, the summit of which last, Knock Hill, is covered by a stratified bed of moss 15 to 20 feet deep. The predominant rocks are mica slate and gneiss, with some granite; but they mostly lie under thick deposits of coarse, gritty, ferruginous clay. Trap boulders are everywhere plentiful; serpentine rock, prolonged from the famous beds and pits near Portsoy, occurs along the eastern base of Knock Hill; and specimens of garnet, tourmaline, asbestos, and rock-cork are found. The soil is in most parts deep, but lies on a cold retentive bottom. Till 1842 nearly half the entire area continued to be pastoral or waste; but the greater part of it has since been brought under the plough; and some 350 acres are under wood. Park House, 1] mile SSE of Cornhill station, is a good and commodious mansion, enlarged in 1829. Its owner, Major Lachlan Duff Gordon-Duff (b. 1817; suc. 1855), is sole proprietor. (See Botriphnie.) Ordiquhill is in the [presbytery of Fordyce and the synod of -Aberdeen; the living is worth £272. The parish church, 2 miles SSW of Cornhill station, is a neat edifice of 1805, containing 490 sittings. There is also a Free church; and Park female and Ordiquhill public schools, with respective accommodation for 74 and 120 children, had (1883) an average attendance of 73 and 66, and grants of £63, 17s. 6d. and £64, 9s. Valuation (1860) £3067, (1884) £3477. Pop. (1801) 510, (183l) 655, (186l) 764, (1871) 761, (1881) 714.—Ord. Sur., shs. 86, 96, 1876.

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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