Leslie

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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Leslie, a hamlet and a parish of central Aberdeenshire. The hamlet stands, 546 feet above sea-level, on the S bank of Gadie Burn, 4 miles SSW of Insch, under which it has a post office.

The parish is bounded N by Kennethmont, NE by Insch, E by Premnay, S by Keig and Tullynessle-Forbes, and W and NW by Clatt. Its utmost length, from E to W, is 3 miles; its utmost breadth, from N to S, is 2 ⁷/₈ii miles; and its area is 4446 ¼ acres, of which 2½ are water. Gadie Burn, famous in song, runs 2½ miles eastward across the middle of the parish, then 9 furlongs along the Premnay border; and in the extreme E the surface declines to 524 feet above sea-level, thence rising to 800 feet at Gallow Hill, 800 at the Hill of Newleslie, 1181 at Salters Hill, 1355 at Knock Saul, and 1362 at Suie Hill, the last three of which rise close to or on the southern boundary. The rocks include serpentine, felspar, quartz, etc.; and the soil of the northern division is a light yellowish loam with a gravelly subsoil and a rocky bottom, of the southern division is a rich loam overlying clay, but moorish and heathy on the higher hills. Less than half of the entire area is in tillage; wood covers but a small proportion; and the rest is either pastoral or waste. Leslie Castle, or the old House of Leslie, on the Gadie's N bank, opposite the hamlet, is now a ruin. It was founded in 1661 by William Forbes of Monymusk, whose father had acquired the barony through marriage with the widow of the last of the Leslies, its possessors since the 12th century. Of a stone circle and a pre-Reformation chapel the sites only remain. The property is divided between two. Leslie is in the presbytery of Garioch and synod of Aberdeen; the living is worth £219. The parish church, at the hamlet, was built in 1815, and contains nearly 300 sittings. Duncanstone Congregational church (1818) stands 2½ miles NNW; and Leslie and Premnay Free church, ¾ mile E by N, just within Premnay parish. The public school, with accommodation for 98 children, had (1882) an average attendance of 62, and a grant of £50, 13s. Valuation (1860) £2693, (1882) £3279, 11s. 10d. Pop. (1801) 367, (1831) 473, (1861) 577, (1871) 532, (1881) 523.—Ord. Sur., sh. 76, 1874.

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