Place:Crathie and Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Crathie and Braemar is a parish at the extreme southwest of Aberdeenshire. It is by far the largest of the parishes in the county and the villages in its title are 22 miles and 32 miles respectively from Aberdeen. Little of the parish is under cultivation, but by 1850 about 10,000 acres had been planted with trees. The River Dee commences its 90-mile course to the North Sea in the far west of Braemar and zigzags its way through the parish. The highest peak in Scotland, Ben Nevis, is also within the parish. From east to west the parish stretches to a maximum of 28 miles and its north-south width reaches 18 miles. The parish is bounded on the north by the parish of Kirkmichael in Banffshire and Strathdon in Aberdeenshire, on the east by the parish of Glenmuick, Tullich, and Glengairn, on the south by the parish of Glenisla, in Angus or Forfarshire, and the parishes of Kirkmichael and Blair Atholl, in Perthshire; and on the west by the parishes of Inch and Abernethy, both in Inverness-shire.

The parish is best known for being the location of Balmoral Castle, the summer holiday home of Her Majesty the Queen. Balmoral has been in the hands of the Royal Family since Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert, purchased it in 1848 from the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Gordon. The castle of Braemar was built as a seat of the ancient Earls of Mar, but was subsequently used as a garrison to keep in awe the lawless chieftains, and in 1748 was let to government for barracks, since the great military road from Blairgowrie to Fort George and Aberdeen passing through the district.

Other large estates are Abergeldie in Crathie at present occupied by the 21st Laird, John Seton Howard Gordon, Baron of Abergeldie, who has been living there since 1972, Invercauld, originally built by the Farquharson family in the 16th century, and Mar Lodge, built in 1895, replacing an earlier building, by Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife. In the 19th century the Duffs, who owned Mar Estate at the time, built the second Mar Lodge at Corriemulzie in Braemar.

[From Samuel Lewis's A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1851), available on GENUKI.

The word Crathie is supposed to be of Gaelic origin, and derived from the words crag and tir or thir, which signify "stony or rocky land," and are descriptive of the general appearance of the surface. The ancient parish of Braemar (a name expressive of the highest land in the three districts, Buchan, Garioch, and Mar, into which the county was once distributed) was in early times called St. Andrew's, and subsequently Bridgend, the latter name in consequence of a bridge having been built over the Cluney at Castletown by Malcolm-Ceaun-Mor [Malcolm Canmore], who had a hunting-seat here. It received its present designation towards the end of the reign of Mary, when the lands about Castletown became the property of the Earl of Mar; but at what time it was united to Crathie is uncertain. The united parish extends about forty miles in length and twenty in breadth, and is situated in the heart of the Grampian range. The principal part was in ancient times covered with wood; it was included in the great Caledonian forest, and has always been celebrated for its abundance of superior timber, and the number of fine deer which traverse it.

Population Growth

Populations 1801-1951 from A Vision of Britain through Time (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk).
2001 population from Scotland’s Census (https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk).

Research Tips

There was formerly a note on this page that the parish was linked to the Presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil, Synod of Aberdeen, Scotland. It would appear that since 1975 the organization of the presbyteries and synods has been revised. Readers are reminded that the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian in nature while in England the Church of England is Episcopalian. (See Wikipedia. )

• Scotlands People, the website of the Scottish Register Office provides

• 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.