Kemnay, a village and a parish of central Aberdeenshire. The village stands near the right side of the river Don, close by Kemnay station on the Alford Valley branch of the Great North of Scotland railway, this being 4 miles W of Kintore and 17¾ WNW of Aberdeen, under which there is a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments. Occupying a pleasant slope and commanding a delightful view of the basin of the Don, with Bennochie beyond, it was a paltry hamlet down to 1858, but then rising suddenly into note in connection with the opening and working of neighbouring quarries, it has been so rebuilt and extended as to become one of the finest villages in the county, and now presents an entirely new and tasteful appearance, with cottages and semidetached two-story houses, constructed of granite, roofed with blue slate, and adjoined by garden plots. The granite quarries, ¾ mile to the N, were opened in 1858 by the lessee, Mr John Fyfe, an Aberdonian, to whose genius and enterprise is owing their great success. More extensive than any others in the N of Scotland, and employing on an average 250 men all the year round, they are worked with aid of seven steam cranes, each capable of lifting ten tons, and of two of a novel type, devised by Mr Fyfe, and named Blondins, which lift smaller stones and rubbish with great despatch. The quarries have furnished the principal materials for the Thames Embankment and the Forth Bridge; and produce curve stones, paving stones, and building stones, of light-greyish colour and close texture, in blocks occasionally 30 feet long, and weighing 100 tons.
The parish is bounded NW by Chapel of Garioch, N by Inverurie, E by Kintore, SE by Skene, S by Cluny, and W by Monymusk. Its utmost length, from N by E to S by W, is 5½ miles; its utmost breadth, from E to W, is 2½ miles; and its area is 5154¾ acres. The Don winds 5 miles along the north-western and northern border; and where it quits the parish, the surface declines to 195 feet above sea-level, thence rising southward to 400 feet near the quarries and 500 at Lochshangie Hill. There are numerous springs of the finest water, by one of which, yielding nearly 30,000 gallons a day, the village is supplied; as by another of like flow, aided by a ram, are a number of dwelling-houses on the Quarry Hill. A low hillocky ridge, made up internally of rounded stones and gravel, and bearing the name of the Kaims, extends for about 2 miles on the line of the river, and is evidently a moraine. Traces of glacier action are found on the surface of the Quarry Hill, when newly bared; and within the radius of a mile around the village there are about a dozen erratic boulders of gneiss of huge dimensions, supposed to have been brought down from Bena'an near the source of the Don. Granite is the predominant rock. The soil along the Don is a rich, deep, stoneless loam, and elsewhere is mostly a light mould, incumbent on sand or clay. A kistvaen was some years since accidentally uncovered by the plough; and an ancient standing-stone exists, measuring 11½ feet from the ground, and 9 feet in mean girth. Kemnay House, to the S of the village, is a large old mansion with finely-wooded grounds: its owner, the Rev. Alex. George Burnett (b. 1816; suc. 1847), holds 4486 acres in the parish, valued at £3250 per annum. Two other proprietors hold each an annual value of more than £100; and there are also a good many feuars. Kemnay is in the presbytery of Garioch and synod of Aberdeen; the living, including the value of the glebe, is under £200. The church, at the village, is of recent erection, and contains some 400 sittings. There is also a Free church; and a public school, with accommodation for 355 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 207, and a grant of £154, 8s. Valuation (1860) £2735, (1883) £5643. I Pop. (1801) 583, (1831) 616, (1851) 680, (1861) 832, (1871) 1300, (1881) 1636.—Ord. Sur., sh. 76,1874.
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