Place:Newhills, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Watchers
NameNewhills
Alt namesKepplehillssource: early name of parish area
Bucksburnsource: village in parish
Buxburnsource: old spelling of above
Stoneywoodsource: village in parish
Woodend (Newhills)source: village in parish
TypeParish
Coordinates57.176°N 2.222°W
Located inAberdeenshire, Scotland     ( - 1975)
Also located inGrampian Region, Scotland     (1975 - 1996)
City of Aberdeen, Scotland     (1996 - )

Scottish Record Office Number: 226

Churches: St Machar, Bucksburn (Scottish Episcopal)
Newhills Parish Church, Newhills, Aberdeen (Church of Scotland)

Cemeteries: list available from the Aberdeen & NE Scotland FHS

Old Parish Register Availabilty:

  • Births: 1700-1854
  • Marriages: 1700-1854
  • Deaths: 1754-1854

Contents

Origin

"The name of Newhills was given to this place when it was made the head of a separate parish; the name of Keppelhills, by which it had before been called, being changed in order to commemorate the new character it then assumed. Before its erection into a parish, the district formed part of the extensive parish of Old Machar, or St. Machar, whose church was in the town of Old Aberdeen; and it was impossible for the inhabitants, so remotely situated, to attend regularly at the church. This circumstance induced Mr. George Davidson, of Pettens, a burgess of Aberdeen, to assign the lands of Keppelhills, which he had purchased of the town of Aberdeen, as a permanent endowment for a regular clergyman. Upon this estate, consisting of 880 acres, he caused a church to be erected in the year 1663; and in 1666 the trustees, after his death, applied to the Lords Commissioners for planting churches, for the erection of the district into a parish, which application, being supported by the general voice, was successful. Since this period Newhills has enjoyed all the rights and privileges common to parishes in Scotland." From A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland by Samuel Lewis (1851) as provided online by GENUKI.

Geography and economy

Newhills is about 5 miles northwest from the centre of Aberdeen. The parish is about 6 miles in length and 5 in width. It is boundeed on the north by the parishes of Dyce and Kinellar, on the south by the parishes of Peterculter and Banchory-Devenick, on the southeast by Old Machar, on the east by the river Don and on the west by the parish of Skene. The best agricultural land is in the northeast, the rest is hilly and covered with wood or heath and stones. Due to the proximity of Aberdeen, dairying is the commonest agricultural pursuit.

Paper manufacture was carried on in the 19th century. There were also mills producing cloth (worsted), grain and flour, snuff, and a brewery. Modern gazetteers do not comment.

Villages within the parish include Auchmill (or Auchmull), Bankhead, Greenburn, Stoneywood and Woodend. Estates included Cloghill, Fairlee (or Fairlie), Hazlehead and Kingswells. The original school, from the late 1600s, was at Keppelhills. Others were established later. F. H. Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland of 1882-4 (made available online by the Gazetteer for Scotland) provides a great many statistics on the parish economy and welfare.

Communication

The main A96 road crosses the parish from southeast to northwest toward Inverurie, and the A947 spurs off to the north to Dyce and beyond. These modern roads were based on earlier toll roads. A railway line (formerly the Great North of Scotland) parallels the A96 toward Inverurie with a station at Bucksburn (once spelled Buxburn).

History of Governance

Newhills was a parish, both ecclesiastical and civil, in the county of Aberdeenshire from its foundation in 1663 until 1975. In 1975 Aberdeenshire was merged into the Grampian Region. In 1996 a second reorganization of Scottish local government resulted in Grampian Region being split into 5 unitary council authorities including the City of Aberdeen and the Aberdeenshire Council Area which comprises the central and southern part of what had been the county of Aberdeenshire. Since 1996 the parish of Newhills has been part of City of Aberdeen unitary authority, but some of its neighbouring parishes are in the Aberdeenshire Council Area.

Population Growth

Areaacressq mihectares
1801-190010,286 acres16.07 sq mi4,163 hectares
1901-20018,685 acres13.57 sq mi3,515 hectares
PopulationDensity per sq miDensity per hectare
18011,30581.20.31
18513,325206.90.80
19015,753423.91.64
19516,634488.91.89
200111,712863.13.33


Research Tips

  • official civil (from 1855) and parish registers (from when first produced) for births, marriages and deaths for all of Scotland
  • original census images for all years available (1841-1911).
  • references to wills and property taxes, and
  • an extensive collection of local maps.

This site is extremely easy to use. There are charges for parish register entries and censuses. The charges are reasonable and payable by online transfer.

  • The Statistical Accounts of Scotland Online provides access to digitised and fully searchable versions of both the Old Statistical Account (1791-99) and the New Statistical Account (1834-45). These uniquely rich and detailed parish reports, usually written by local Church of Scotland ministers, detail social conditions in Scotland and are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Scottish history.
  • Scotlands Places
  • Gazetteer of Scotland includes descriptions of individual parishes from F. H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4)
  • The FamilySearch Wiki
  • GENUKI which provides, amongst other data, complete quotations from A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1851) by Samuel Lewis, John Bartholomew's A Gazetteer of the British Isles (1877), and A New History of Aberdeenshire edited by Alexander Smith (1875)
  • A list of Burial Grounds in Scotland is now available on the website of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies.
  • Aberdeenshire and Moray Records. Town Council minutes, accounts, letters, plans and harbour records provided by Aberdeenshire Council plus other local records.
  • Aberdeen and North-East Scotland Family History Society is one of the largest and most reputable family history societies in Scotland and has a long list of publications referring to individual parishes.