Place:Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Alford is a village as well as a parish and is located nearly in the centre of Aberdeenshire, in a valley called the Howe of Alford which also includes the parishes of Keig, Tough, and Tullynessle and Forbes, and is entirely surrounded with mountains and hills. The River Don is the northern boundary of the parish. From the river it extends up to 7 miles to the south and spans a distance of up to 3 miles from east to west. The River Leochel flows in from the south and empties into the Don at the village of Alford. The burns of Bents and Buckie are also southern tributaries of the Don within the parish.

About half the parish can be cultivated and in the 19th century turnips, potatoes and oats were commonly grown. However, the raising of livestock was the more profitable activity of the farming community. The Aberdeen Angus breed of beef cattle, often known as the "black cattle", originated here. The rivers are good for fishing, especially salmon and trout.

Since 1859 there has been a railway line between Alford and Kintore. This has enabled the shipment of beef to southern sections of Scotland and into the urban areas of England as well. Until 1966 there was a monthly market for beef cattle in Alford village as well as two larger fairs per year.

Other settlements in the parish include Bridge of Alford (on the Dee to the west of Alford) and Muir of Alford (further south on the A980 road). Estates mentioned by F.H. Groome in his Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland of 1882-4 (copyright by the Gazetteer for Scotland were
"Haughton, on the Don, 1¼ mile NE of the village, for more than two centuries the seat of the Farquharsons: Breda, just to the left of the mouth of the Leochel: and Kingsford, on its right bank, 1¼ mile SE of Alford."

History

According to Samuel Lewis in his A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland of 1851 (available on the GENUKI website)
"The only event of historical importance is the battle of Alford, which took place here on the 2nd of July, 1645, and terminated in the entire defeat of the army of the Covenanters under General Baillie, by the royal forces under the command of the Marquess of Montrose, and in which Lord Gordon, the eldest son of the Marquess of Huntly, was killed."

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 Alford, Synod of Aberdeen, Scotland. It would appear that since 1975 the organization of the presbyteries and synods within the Church of Scotland 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.