Dyce, a village and a parish of SE Aberdeenshire. The village lies near the Don's right bank, 4½ furlongs NNE of Dyce Junction on the Great North of Scotland, this being 6¼ miles NW of Aberdeen, under which it has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and railway telegraph departments.
Bounded N by Fintray, NE by New Machar, E by Old Machar, S by Newhills, and W by Kinnellar, the parish has an utmost length from E to W of 43/8 miles, an utmost breadth from N to S of 3¼ miles, and an area of 5285½ acres, of which 481/3 are water. The Don, winding 65/8 miles east-south-eastward, roughly traces all the Fintray, New Machar, and Old Machar border, descending in this course from 146 to 104 feet above sea-level; and from its broad level haugh the surface rises to 241 feet near Farburn and 822 on wooded Tyrebagger Hill. Gneiss occurs along the valley of the Don; but the principal rock is granite, which, suited alike for building and for paving, has long been worked for exportation to London. The soil of the low grounds is a fertile alluvium; but, on Tyrebagger, is so thin and moorish as to be unfit for either tillage or pasture. Fully one-half of the entire area is in tillage, extensive reclamations having been carried out within the last thirty years; and plantations of larch and Scotch firs may cover about one-fourth more. Antiquities are several tumuli on small eminences; an ancient Caledonian stone circle, comprising ten rough granite stones, from 5 to 10 feet high, and 8 feet distant one from another, on a gentle acclivity at the SE side of Tyrebagger; a large block of granite, called the Gonk Stone, said to commemorate. the death of some ancient leader, on the NE of Caskieben; and a large, oblong, curiously-sculptured stone, in the enclosure wall of the churchyard. Pitmedden and Caskieben are the chief mansions; and the property is divided among 13, 4 holding each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 3 of between £100 and £500, 1 of from £50 to £100, and 5 of from £20 to £50. Dyce is in the presbytery and synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth £200. The old parish church, of pre-Reformation date, standing inconveniently in the NE, on a rocky promontory washed by a bend of the Don, a handsome new one has been built, a mile nearer the station, in the course of the last ten years, at a considerable cost. There is also a Free church; and a public and an infant and female public school, with respective accommodation for 103 and 100 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 96 and 70, and grants of £80, 12s. and £61, 2s. Valuation (1881) £5717, 4s. 10d. Pop. (1801) 347, (1831) 620, (1851) 470, (1861) 585, (1871) 945, (1881) 1162.—Ord. Sur., sh. 77, 1873.
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