Place:Auchterless, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

The following description is based on F. H. Groome's, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland of 1882-4 produced online by the Gazetteer for Scotland website.

Auchterless is a village and a parish on the northwest border of Aberdeenshire. The village of Kirktown of Auchterless has a central position upon the left bank of the River Ythan, 3 miles SW of Auchterless station on the Inveramsay-Banff branch of the Great North of Scotland railway. The station is 4 miles south by east of Turriff, and 34 miles north-northwest of Aberdeen. At the village are a post office, the manse (built 1867), and the parish church (built 1780; wing added, 1835; 650 seats); the Free church stands ¾ mile SSW. The parish contains also the hamlet of Badenscoth, 2 miles SSW of Kirktown of Auchterless. (Samuel Lewis's A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland also mentions the village of Gordonstown about 2 miles from the church.)

The parish is bounded on the north by Turriff, on the east and southeast by Fyvie, on the south by Rayne and Culsalmond, on the west by Forgue, and on the northwest by the county of Banffshire. It has an extreme length from north to south of 6½ miles, a width from east to west of almost 6 miles, and a land area of 16,826 acres. The Ythan, entering the parish 1½ mile from its source in Forgue, flows 2¾ miles eastward, next strikes 5 miles north-north-eastward to the old castle of Towie, and, thence bending southward, forms for 2 miles the eastern boundary, descending in this course from about 500 to 134 feet above sea-level. One tributary, Pitdoulsie Burn, traces the northern boundary; another, Rothie Burn, the southern; and a third, Garries Burn, flows through the northwestern half of the parish to the Knockleith estate.

On either side of the Howe (valley) of Auchterless the surface rises into rounded hills, rarely too steep for cultivation. The soil of the uplands is a thin slaty clay, better for cereals and roots than for grass; but on the lower slopes and along the howe are clay loams of considerable fertility. Plantations (planted trees) cover some 500 acres and are mostly young. The chief residences are Knockleith, Badenscoth, Hatton, and Templand.

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 Turriff, 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.