Ancient Aberuthven

The Name The First Inhabitants The Romans

The name Aberuthven comes from the old Gaelic spelling of In 1198, Gilbert 3rd Earl When the last Ice Age The sea rose and Britain became an island. By 3000BC, Aberuthven is at the eabar Ruthven, ‘the marshy plain of the river Ruthven’. of Strathearn called the ended around 14,000BC, settlers built huts of branches and skins. Northern Frontier of The village was built on safe higher ground. The line of the village Abbey Ruthven was still the Roman Empire, river kept changing, until the land was drained for farming. because of the church attached to Europe by From the Mediterranean came small dark haired people just inside a line overlooking the river. land. Hunters walked who planted barley and wheat. From the east came taller, of forts and signal here pursuing elk, deer, fair haired people, descendants of nomadic Asian shepherds stations between the wild pigs and horses. who also colonised Germany and Scandinavia. A silver denarius coin, found on the rivers Forth and Tay. Gask ridge. It shows Commodus, In 84 AD the Romans Emperor AD 180-192. defeated an alliance In 43 AD the Roman of warlike northern Empire invaded chieftains at the Battle Southern Britain. In of Mons Graupius 79AD Agricola led which may have been up to 18,000 Roman near Craigrossie. soldiers north into Scotland. Villagers and farmers did not fight the Roman army. They traded A hammer, shaped to fit A flint ceremonial mace, imported from A quern, with a hollowed centre where with them profitably, in the hand. South Britain or Europe. It would have grain or herbs were ground up. learning new skills and had a wooden shaft through the centre. The Roman Fort at Ardoch, first built in AD 79 A silver denarius coin, found benefitting from roads and then enlarged. on the Gask ridge. It shows The village in the early twentieth century with a smithy workbench on the right. built by the soldiers. Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius, Emperor AD 161-180. The village was famous for its good blacksmiths, making horse shoes, agricultural tools The Roman legions left in 87 AD to fight in Eastern Europe. and weapons. The most famous is Thomas Smyth in the seventeenth century, Farmers and stock breeders used plants for food and healing. They returned here in 142 and remained in varying numbers in whose smithy stood beside the old church at the west end of the village. They made tools from bronze then iron. They crafted jewellery and pottery. Britain until 410 when Rome was seized by Western Goths. Local people still call the community Smiddy Haugh.

The Old Churches The Marquis of Montrose The Jacobites

St Columba sailed from Ireland to Iona in 563. He sent missionaries across Scotland, James Graham 1st Marquis of Montrose (1612-1650) was Before the D-Day landing, in In 1715, the Protestant and Catholic factions of In 1745, the Jacobites including St Cathan who founded a church where the village cemetery stands today. Scotland’s great cavalier poet and military leader. He lived 1944 to defeat Nazi Germany, the Stuart royal family fought an indecisive battle returned again. They were That wooden building was replaced by a stone church which was rebuilt in the Middle Ages. in nearby Kincardine Castle. He was a Church elder and General Montgomery read to at Sheriffmuir. The Jacobites (supporters of defeated in 1746 at the had his horses shod and swords sharpened in Aberuthven. his troops Montrose’s words: Catholic Prince James) then looted and set fire Battle of Culloden by the He signed the National Covenant in 1638, protesting He either fears his fate too to Aberuthven and surrounding villages. Hanoverians (supporters of The mediaeval church fell into disrepair and against English financial and religious policies forced much or his deserts are small the Protestant King George was closed in 1673. Parishioners had to walk on Scotland. His swift military tactics persuaded King that puts it not unto the touch II). The Presbytery of three miles to church in until Charles I to grant new powers to the Scottish Parliament. to win or lose it all. Auchterarder sent a message in 1852 a new church and manse were built to congratulate the victor beside the site of today’s school. of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland, son of the king.

This early twentieth century photo, shows the main road through Under the caption ‘Justice triumphant’, Aberuthven about 1900. It was rebuilt after the Jacobites in the Culloden medal shows the British lion January 1716 torched Aberuthven with its straw-thatched roofs. defeating a Jacobite wolf. St Cathan’s, the mediaeval church not used since 1673. Aberuthven Parish Church, founded in 1852 on land gifted by Montrose was a political moderate. He left the Covenanters The square Montrose vault in the St Cathan’s Day is 17 May. Major George Drummond Graeme of Inchbrakie. He also paid cemetery was designed by William for all the building materials. The church was then built when they became republican puritan extremists. Charles I Adam in the eighteenth century. by voluntary labour of the community. made him Lieutenant Governor of Scotland. He won a series To the left, using part of the Culloden was the last pitched battle on British soil. The peace afterwards of victories against the Covenanters. After Oliver Cromwell’s mediaeval Cathan’s Church, is the allowed agriculture and industry to thrive. The first textile mills were built vault of the Grahams of Inchbrakie. Puritans replaced Charles I, Montrose was captured and and new types of machinery made production more efficient. executed without a trial. Modern Aberuthven

Employment transport Links World Wars

Agriculture was the main local industry Cloth weaving also brought family income. Until the peace after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, New roads in the nineteenth In 1914, Britain and France went to war against In 1939, Britain and Germany from the 18th to the 20th century. Farmers At first men and women worked at home roads around Aberuthven were muddy tracks. There century allowed bigger carts Germany and Austria. The rest of Europe took fought again. As before, other grew barley, oats, wheat, potatoes, turnips on spinning wheels and hand looms. were few bridges. To go to Perth, people had to use to carry agricultural produce to sides. In 1917, the USA joined the British allies. nations joined in. Many local and raspberries. They reared cattle, sheep In the 19th and 20th centuries, mills in a ferry boat to cross the River Earn at Dalreoch. To markets and bring coal from Fife. A quarter of local men and women were directly people served. The war memorial and pigs. There was a grand cattle fair in Auchterarder employed many local people go to Stirling, people used the old Roman road from Previously, people burned involved in military service, from soldiers to commemorates those whose died. Aberuthven every April and November. to make wool, linen and cotton textiles. Auchterarder to Braco where it joined the military local peat. nurses. The mills in Auchterarder produced khaki road built by General Wade in 1742. cloth for soldiers’ uniforms. By the time the war ended in 1918, a million British servicemen had been killed and two million wounded.

Barefoot children stand in front of the Co-op, the main shop in Aberuthven from Victorian times A new wider bridge was built in 1938, until the mid-Twentieth Century. The aproned manager strong enough to cope with all the heavy traffic and his assistants sold everything from food to oil for lamps. from London to the north until the Horses pull carts laden with straw at Dalreoch. The ‘Hiring and Stabling’ sign on the Smiddy Haugh Inn The narrow hump-backed bridge replaced a ford in the eighteenth century. A9 bypass was created in 1983. About 1950. shows that travellers arrived by horse. The Turnpike Act of 1793 brought better roads In 1828, a railway line was built and bridges to the east and west. In 1822, a road from Stirling to Perth. There was At first, everyone walked to work. The village grew in the twentieth century, adding was built south through Glendevon to Fife and Aberuthven was the first community in a station near Dalreoch, linking to raise funds for a War Memorial. Because German submarines attacked supply a post office, a joiner’s shop and a garage. Before the 1950’s, few people owned cars. Edinburgh. From 1830 there was a daily Aberuthven to the rest of the ships, Britain was short of food, clothes and other Commuters used the excellent bus network. Until the A9 By-pass was built in 1983, stagecoach from Perth to London. UK. Now the nearest station is essentials. In Aberuthven, people were used to the Dundee to Glasgow bus stopped in Aberuthven. Gleneagles, built in 1856 for growing vegetables in their gardens. Many kept a line to . hens. The local diet was better than in cities.

The Church & village hall Map The School

The Parish Church was a centre of village The Old Churches life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The 1852 manse was sold in 1963. The church was later replaced by a much smaller building in 1991.

The modern school preserves some old The modern Parish Church. architectural features, such as signs for separate entrances for boys and girls.

The 1852 former Church stands next to the school. The school was built in 1867 on land gifted to the community in 1852. It replaced an old school

which stood behind the Smiddy Haugh Hotel.

The present school was extended in 1959.

When the school opened in 1867, it had 14 pupils.

For centuries, the only houses stood along the Main Road. This 2005 map shows In 1886, it had 97. In 1920, it had 60. At an Aberuthven School Sports Day in how the village expanded in the late twentieth century. the early nineteen fifties, mothers compete Aberuthven’s first communion token, issued in 1852. The village hall was built soon after World War II with In 1956, it had 52. In 1985, it had only 10. fiercely in the egg-and-spoon race. Parishioners brought their tokens to Church funds raised by the community, confident of victory. In 2020, it had 24. to prove that they had attended. Today it is used by groups of all kinds. The Aberuthven Heritage Display was prepared with the help of pupils, teachers and friends of the community, supported by the Robin and Eirwen Bell Trust.