Kinfauns (Gael. ceann-fan, 'head of the slope'), a parish of SE Perthshire, containing Kinfauns and Glencarse stations on the Dundee and Perth section of the Caledonian, 3¾ and 6 miles E by S of Perth. It is bounded N by Scone, Kinnoull (detached), and Kilspindie, E by Errol, SE by St Madoes and Kinnoull (detached), S by the Tay, dividing it from Rhynd and Perth parishes, and W by the main body of Kinnoull. Its utmost length, from E to W, is 4¾ miles; its breadth, from N to S, varies between 1 and 2 miles; and its area is 4449¾ acres, of which 61 are foreshore and 97¾ water. The navigable Tay, curving 31/8 miles east-by-southward along the southern border, here broadens to 3 furlongs, and has neap tides of 6, spring tides of 9 to 10½, feet. It receives three streamlets from the interior, and is fringed by a belt of level ground, which, narrow in the W, widens eastward into the Carse of Gowrie. Beyond, the surface rises northward to the Sidlaws, attaining 729 feet at *Kinnoull Hill, 555 at tower-crowned Kinfauns Hill, 702 near the Scone border, 342 at *Pans Hill, 596 at Glencarse Hill, and 715 near Pitlowrie, where the asterisks indicate summits that fall just beyond the western and south-eastern confines of the parish. Old Red sandstone predominates in the low tracts, trap rock in the hills; and the latter has been largely quarried both for building and for road metal. The soil of the flat grounds along the Tay is a strong and very fertile clay; on the lower hill-slopes is an easy, deep, rich, black mould; and in the level parts of the eastern district, inland from the Carse, is black mould, mixed in some places with clay, in others with sand. Nearly one-half of the entire area is in tillage; about 215 acres are pasture; and most of the rest of the land is under wood. The lands of Kinfauns are said to have been given early in the 14th century by Robert the Bruce to the French ' Red Rover, ' Thomas de Longueville or Chartres, whose two-handed broadsword, 5¾ feet long, is professed still to be shown in the modern castle. Several of his descendants were provosts of Perth; and one of them, Sir Patrick Charteris, figures as such in Scott's Fair Maid of Perth. From them Kinfauns passed to the Carnegies, and from them again to the Blairs, whose heiress, Margaret, married the twelfth Baron Gray in 1741. Their great-granddaughter, the eighteenth Baroness Gray, dying without issue in 1878, the entailed estates of Gray and Kinfauns went to Edmund Archibald Stuart, Esq. (b. 1840), who has taken the name and arms of Gray, and who holds 2631 acres in Perthshire and 1639 in Forfarshire, valued at £6124 and £2940 per annum. The present castle, 3 miles E by S of Perth and 13/8 WNW of Kinfauns station, is a stately Gothic pile, erected in 1822 from designs by Sir Robert Smirke on the site of its ancient predecessor. Measuring 233 by 160 feet, it has a central tower 86 feet high, and is entered by a noble eastern portico. The interior contains a valuable library, and is richly adorned with stained glass, statues, paintings by the old masters, and family portraits by Raeburn, Sir Francis Grant, etc. The grounds are finely wooded, a Spanish chestnut in particular being 75 feet in height and 17 in girth at 1 foot from the ground. (See Fowlis-Wester, Gray House, and pp. 26-34 of Fullarton's Perthshire Illustrated, 1844.) Other man. sions, noticed separately, are Glencarse, Glendoick, and Seggieden; and, in all, 6 proprietors hold each an annual value of more, 3 of less, than £500. Kinfauns is in the presbytery of Perth and synod of Perth and Stirling; the living is worth £334. The parish church is a new structure of 1870, containing 300 sittings and an organ (1882). There is also a Free church; and Balthayock and Kinfauns public schools, with respective accommodation for 75 and 60 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 37 and 31, and grants of £24, 6s. and £21, 14s. Valuation (1860) £9077, 11s. 4d., (1883) £9355, 1s. 3d. Pop. (1801) 646, (1821) 802, (1861) 657, (1871) 578, (1881) 583.Ord. Sur., sh. 48, 1868.
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