Place:Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Watchers
NameInverurie
Alt namesInverurie (burgh)source: main settlement within parish
Inverurie (town)source: another name for above
TypeParish, Burgh
Coordinates57.284°N 2.417°W
Located inAberdeenshire, Scotland     ( - 1975)
Also located inGrampian Region, Scotland     (1975 - 1996)
Aberdeenshire (council area), Scotland     (1996 - )

Scottish Record Office Number: 204
(used by ScotlandsPeople, see Research tips, below)

Churches: St Mary, Inverurie, Scottish Episcopal
St Andrew, Inverurie, Church of Scotland
Our Lady of the Garioch & St John the Evangelist, Fetternear, Roman Catholic
The Immaculate Conception, Inverurie, Roman Catholic
Free Church, Inverurie, Non-conformist


Cemeteries: no information given in GENUKI

Old Parish Register Availabilty (within FamilySearch):
Baptisms: 1611-1854
Marriages: 1621-1667, 1716-1854
Deaths: 1609-1638, 1848-1854

NOTE: Civil registration of vital statistics was introduced to Scotland in 1855. Prior to that date births, marriages and deaths had been recorded in local churches in the Old Parish Registers (OPRs). The OPRs were collected by the Registrar for Scotland in Edinburgh as civil registration started. Although local churches continued to record bmd after 1855, these registers were not collected and stored by the Registrar for Scotland. Some may have found their way into local archives. FamilySearch and ScotlandsPeople both keep records prior to 1855, but only ScotlandsPeople retains microfilms of the original parish books.

Missing intervals in OPRs dates may be due to non-collection of volumes (possibly through loss or damage), or the events being recorded in another book held in the parish.

Contents

Inverurie parish

[Condensed from A New History of Aberdeenshire, Alexander Smith (Ed), 1875 provided by GENUKI

Inverurie was, in former times, written "Inneraury", "Ennerawrie", and "Hennerawrie", and latterly "Inverury". The prefix "Inver" is found singly in several instances in Aberdeenshire, it simply means "a confluence," and in its combination with other terms, such as "lire", or "Oir", the Gaelic for "Ury!, and signifies "the river of the margin." The "Inbhir", or "Inver", makes it to be "Inbhir-ure", or "the confluence of the river of the margin," which is very descriptive of the Ury in its lower course, being along the margin of the valley, before it falls into the Don, below an artificial mound called the Bass, or Bas, which, in Gaelic, signifies "death," whence we learn that the Bass must have been a place for the execution of criminals in ancient times.

Geography

The parish is bounded on the west and north by the parish of Chapel of Garioch, on the east by the parish of Keithhall and Kinkell, and on the south and southeast by the River Don and the parishes of Kintore and Kemnay. Its greatest breadth, in a direct line from south to north, is three miles, and its greatest length, also in a direct line from east to west is 4½ miles. The whole area is computed to be 4,995 acres.

Image:Inverurie_PJ.png

The broad flat valley of the Ury extends from the Don along the northern boundary of the parish by the settlements of Howford and Conglass to the burn of Balquhain, which bounds it with Chapel of Garioch on the west. The narrower valley along the Don runs from the confluence of the Ury by Ardtannies Mill and Manar, to the burn of Ervie, which bounds the parish also with Chapel of Garioch on southwest. The lowermost point in the parish is at the confluence of the Ury with the Don, and it is 170 feet above sea level;....the top of the hill of Knocking-lews, which is 781 feet above sea level, is the highest land in the parish. From the Don, on the south, the ground rises very abruptly from the river, in steep ascents to the hills of Ardtannies and Manar, and westward by the ridge of Aquhorthies. The hill of Ardtannies, which overlooks the valley of both rivers and the town of Inverurie, is 524 feet above sea level.

Population Growth

Areaacressq mihectares
1801-19004,9957.8052,021
1901-20014,9517.74 2,004
YearPopulationDensity per sq miDensity per hectare
1801783100.3 0.38
18512,649339.4 1.31
19013,491451.0 1.74
19514,940638.2 2.47
20019,9361,283.7 4.96

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).

Agriculture

Samuel Lewis, in his A Topographical Dictionary of Scotlandof 1851 (available on GENUKI) describes the agriculture of the parish as follows:

The PARISH, which is bounded on the south by the river Don, and on the north and east by the Ury, is about four miles in extreme length and two miles in breadth, comprising an area of 5100 acres, of which 3000 are arable, 1000 woodland and plantations, and the remainder moorland pasture and waste. Its surface, though level near the banks of the rivers, rises gradually towards the west, terminating in the three nearly equidistant hills of Manar to the south, Knockinglew in the centre, and Drimmies to the north, between which are some fine tracts of fertile vale. On the lower grounds the soil is a rich light mould, superincumbent upon sand, but on the higher grounds of less fertility; the chief crops raised are oats, barley, potatoes, and turnips, with the usual grasses. The system of husbandry is improved, and a rotation of crops is duly observed; lime and bone dust, for which the canal affords facility of conveyance, are applied to the soil, and some of the unprofitable land has been brought into cultivation. The Aberdeenshire breed of cattle is that most prevalent, but on some farms a few of the short-horned are reared; a cross between the short-horned and Aberdeenshire breeds is also in high favour, and is rapidly increasing. No regular flock of sheep is pastured; some sheep of English breeds are kept by different farmers for domestic use, and chiefly for their wool. The annual value of real property in the parish is £6395. The plantations are well attended to, and are generally in a thriving state: there are considerable remains of ancient wood. The rocks are chiefly of granite. Manar House is a substantial modern mansion, beautifully situated on the southern acclivity of Manar hill, commanding a fine view of the river Don, and surrounded with plantations.

The building the of Aberdeenshire Canal (completed in 1805) was a boon to the agriculture of the parish, permitting the transport of goods to Aberdeen and beyond.

Churches

[From A New History of Aberdeenshire, Alexander Smith (Ed), 1875]

Inverurie old church, built in 1775 contained only 400 sittings, a number very inadequate to the increased population; and consequently, a new church, containing 1330 sittings, has been erected on its site by the heritors and the burgh magistrates. The present structure is of beautiful granite, in the later English style of architecture. The burial-ground is situated near the river, where the church stood previous to 1775. There are places of worship for members of the Free Church, Independents, and Wesleyans; and an episcopal chapel. A Roman Catholic seminary, formerly at Aquhorties, in this parish, has been removed to Blairs, in the parish of Maryculter, county of Kincardine; and the building, beautifully situated, is at present a farm-house.

[F. H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4) provided by the Gazetteer for Scotland website] is another 19th century gazetteer with a description of Inverure.

Inverurie burgh

The following section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Inverurie (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Uraidh or Inbhir Uaraidh, meaning "mouth of the River Ury") is a Royal Burgh and town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland at the confluence of the rivers Ury and Don, about 16 miles (26 km) northwest of Aberdeen.

South of the River Don and formerly in the parish of Kintore is the village of Port Elphinstone, called a port due to the proximity of the Aberdeenshire Canal (Inverurie to Aberdeen) (now disused). Since 1975 Port Elphinstone is part of the Royal Burgh of Inverurie.

In the 19th century, with the increased use of the postal service, many letters addressed to "Inverury" were being sent to "Inverary" in Argyll, on the west coast of Scotland. The town council ordained that the name to be used for council business should be "Inverurie" which they also regarded as being the "ancient spelling". They asked the public to use this spelling in future and said that the Postmaster General had accepted the change. The town clerk made the official announcement on 20 April 1866. Inverury can still be found in original documents used for genealogical purposes.

History

Inverurie is said to have been founded by David of Huntingdon, Earl of the Garioch, brother of Malcolm IV and great-great-grandfather of Robert the Bruce who defeated John Comyn, 3rd Earl of Buchan nearby at the Battle of Barra in May, 1308.

The religious foundation pre-dates this by five centuries with the establishment of the Kirk of Inverurie now known as St Andrew's Parish Church.

However, the town's earliest known charter dates from 1558, with its modern development taking place after the building of the Aberdeenshire Canal linking Port Elphinstone with Aberdeen Harbour in 1806. The Inverurie Locomotive Works (1905–1969) led to a modest increase in size and prosperity, but it was not until the discovery of oil in the North Sea adjacent to Aberdeenshire in the last quarter of the 20th century that the town developed into much of its present form.

One of the battles of the second Jacobean insurrection of 1745 was the Battle of Inverurie.

Industry

Inverurie is a market town, now with a monthly Farmer's Market, with many small shops, businesses and services. Its main industries other than service and commerce are agriculture, oil and, until International Paper closed the mill in March 2009, paper manufacture. Coombes, a small sweet shop, was famed as being the oldest family-owned business in Scotland until the death of Colin Coombes in 1957 whereupon the business closed.

The Great North of Scotland Railway (1845-1923) constructed its locomotive construction and repair works on a 15-acre (61,000 m2) site at Inverurie.

Agriculture continues to be a mainstay of Inverurie's economy, as it has done since the town's inception. Thainstone Mart, to the south east of the town, is the biggest livestock market in Scotland, and rents out commercial units to various agricultural support services, oil industry storage yards and vehicle hire companies. Lying beside Thainstone Mart, the paper mill was a big employer until the mill was closed in 2009, and is now the site of an industrial site and storage yards for oilfield equipment.

Following the discovery of North Sea oil in the mid-1970s, several oil service companies appeared in Inverurie. Many residents who work in this sector do so on offshore oil installations in the North Sea on a "two week on- two week off" or "four week on" or "six week on" basis in addition to those who work in the town itself.

In recent years, Inverurie has also seen increasing numbers of Aberdeen commuters going to live there making it "the fastest growing town in Great Britain", and increasing congestion on the A96 main road to Aberdeen.

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.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Inverurie. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.