Place:Foveran, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Watchers
NameFoveran
Alt namesNewburghsource: village in parish
TypeParish
Coordinates57.305°N 2.019°W
Located inAberdeenshire, Scotland     ( - 1975)
Also located inGrampian Region, Scotland     (1975 - 1996)
Aberdeenshire (council area), Scotland     (1996 - )

Scottish Record Office Number: 195
(used by ScotlandsPeople, see Research tips, below)

Churches: Foveran Parish Church, Foveran, Church of Scotland

Cemeteries: list available from the Aberdeen & NE Scotland FHS (link under Research tips)

Old Parish Register Availabilty (within FamilySearch):
Baptisms: 1658-1854
Marriages: 1693-1854
Deaths: 1658-1682, 1760-1854

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.

[Condensed from Samuel Lewis's A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1851) - transcription copyright Mel Lockie 2016] (available on GENUKI)

Foveran is a parish, in the county of Aberdeenshire, 12 miles (north by west) from Aberdeen; containing, with the village of Newburgh and the barony of Knockhall, 1620 inhabitants. This place was formerly remarkable for its castle, called Foveran, ... but every vestige of the fortress is gone.

The parish is situated in that part of the county called Formartine. It stretches along the coast of the German Ocean [North Sea], and is separated from the parish of Logie-Buchan on the north by the burn of Tarty, and from the sands of Forvie (in the parish of Slains) on the east by the River Ythan. It is about seven miles in length from east to west, and three in breadth from north to south, and is watered by the beautiful burn of Foveran, which... falls into the Ythan at Newburgh. Agriculture is steadily pursued, and considerable traffic is carried on at the fishing-village and maritime port of Newburgh. The land is generally fertile, and distributed into many good farms, producing fine crops; the farm-houses are mostly built of stone and lime, and are commodious and well finished. Within the last twenty or thirty years large tracts of barren soil have been improved, and drains and fences constructed on an extensive scale.

The mail-road from Aberdeen to Peterhead intersects the parish (now mostly the A90), and has several branches, one of which, called the Fiddes road (B999), joins the Udny turnpike-road, opening up important facilities of intercourse with that part of the county: there is also a turnpike-road from Aberdeen to Methlick (now the A947), which passes at the western extremity of the parish; and another has been recently completed, which is found highly beneficial, from Old Meldrum to the village of Newburgh (now the A920 and the B9000). About twenty head of fat-cattle are shipped every week at the port, for the London market; and lime, coal, timber, bones, &c., are imported. The annual value of real property in the parish is £5713.

The church is a plain substantial edifice, built in 1794, and accommodating 700 persons; it contains two handsome marble monuments to the family of Robertson of Foveran, and another, of very superior character, designed by Bacon, to the Udny family. The parochial school affords instruction in the usual branches; the master has a salary of £28, with about £31 fees. There is also a school at Cultercullen, in the western quarter, with an endowment of £8 per annum, and a free house, an piece of land.

About half a mile north of Newburgh are the ruins of the castle of Knockhall, built in the year 1565, and accidentally burnt in 1734: it was the seat of the family of Udny, whose ancient burial-ground, also in the neighbourhood of the village, contains the remains of an old chapel generally called Rood Church.

[From A New History of Aberdeenshire, Alexander Smith (Ed), 1875] (also found in full in GENUKI)

Of Foveran Castle, near Foveran House, not a vestige remains. The oldest part bore the name of Turing's Tower, after its first possessors, from whom it passed, about the middle of the 17th century, to a branch of the Forbeses of Tolquhoun. The tower did fall not long before 1720. [Wikipedia notes that the hereditary baronetcy of Foveran is held by the Turing family (see Turing Baronets). The cryptographer and computing pioneer Alan Turing (1912–1954) was uncle to the present Baronet.]

An ancient burying-ground near the village retains a fragment of the 'Red Chapel of Buchan,' or Chapel of the Holy Rood. Foveran House, 1 mile south-southwest of Newburgh, is an old mansion; whilst Tillery, in the west of the parish, 1½ mile south-southeast of Udny station, is a more recent Grecian edifice. Five proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, and 6 of between £100 and £500. The parish church, on the right bank of Foveran Burn, 1½ mile southwest of Newburgh, is a plain edifice of 1794, containing 700 sittings, and a marble monument with two fine busts of Col. John Augustus and Col. Robert Fullerton Udny, of Udny and Dudwick [Ellon parish], who died in 1859 and 1861. There is also a Free church 1-3/8 mile further south-southwest; and three public schools: Cultercullen, Foveran, and Newburgh Mathers.

Population Growth

Areaacressq mihectares
1801-190010,84416.944,388
1901-200110,52416.44 4,259
YearPopulationDensity per sq miDensity per hectare
18011,39182.10.32
18511,63896.7 0.37
19011,793109,1 0.42
19511,53593.4 0.36
20012,374144.4 0.56

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 Ellon, 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. )

  • 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.