Issue 12, 2003
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Issue No 12 NEWSLETTER Friends of Perth & Kinross Council Archive Honorary Presidents: Bob Scott, Provost of Perth & Kinross Council and Sir William Macpherson of Cluny and Blairgowrie Welcome to our autumn edition of the Friends’ Newsletter. Despite the summer holidays, work has continued on the archive projects; Perth Burgh Historical Files are now being listed, as are the records of St Andrews Episcopalian Church, Strathtay. The Perth Burial Registers database now contains nearly 3500 records, and we’re talking with the experts on the best means of searching the database when it is online. Unfortunately, Alex Porter has had to withdraw from working on the Name Authority File, although John Howat has kindly taken up the baton. Alex has done tremendous work on what is a very complex task, for which we sincerely thank him. We wish him the very best and good health and hope to see him again very soon. As you will see on the back cover, our next meeting is in January, when Margaret Laing, author of Close-up on Coupar Angus and Donald Abbott, author of A Ramble in Rait will be talking about their experiences as local historians. Everyone (and their guests) are very welcome to come and spend what I am sure will be an enjoyable and informative afternoon.. Another exciting announcement is that, with the help of the Library and Archive Services, the Friends of Perth & Kinross Council Archive have their own publication coming out in the next few weeks. Our Chairman, Donald Abbott, has, over the years, written extensively about various aspects of Pitroddie in the Carse of Gowrie. He was persuaded to put his essays together, and the result is Pitroddie Perspectives. This is a fascinating booklet which spans two hundred years of Pitroddie history and reminiscences, from the Quarry and the life around it, the dissenting Pitroddie Church and its ministers to the POW camp after WW2. Thanks to the generosity of Donald and the Library and Archive Services, all monies earned through the sale of Pitroddie Perspectives will go directly to the Friends in order to fund further projects within the Archive. Costing just £4.95, Pitroddie Perspectives will be available from the shop in the AK Bell Library well in time for Christmas - keep an eye out for details of the launch! Finally, I should mention the unusual circumstances in which we have received a posthumous membership. In sorting through the papers of the late Adam Malcolm his wife, Mollie, came across a completed membership form with an attached £5 note. She has sent this to us together with her own membership fee for which we are most grateful. Adam had long shown an interest in the archives, especially those relating to his beloved Blairgowrie, and had obviously intended to join. We are also grateful to Mr and Mrs Malcolm for ensuring the preservation of the records of the old barony council of Blairgowrie and arranging for their deposit in the Council Archive. Adam was also a keen filmmaker and the Scottish Screen Archive now holds his productions. Perth & Kinross Council Archive, AK Bell Library, York Place, Perth PH2 8EP, Tel: 01738 477012, Email: [email protected] www.pkc.gov.uk/library/fpkca/index..htm 1 Coupar Angus Snippets Margaret Laing The following snippets and information are gleaned from various records and newspapers, but were not included in the ‘Close-up on Coupar Angus’ publication. Mrs Laing has kindly let us reproduce them in the Friends’ Newsletter. 1781 A Tannery or Tan Yard was built in Coupar Angus where 2600 hides were dressed each year using 9000 stone or bark in the process. At the end of the 18th century a hen cost one shilling [5p]. A mason was paid 7½p per day and a tailor 4p per day. The Waukmill, which in earlier times was used for fulling cloth, was in the second half of the 19th century, rented by a dyer. It was used as an early laundry and during World War I, army and prison blankets were washed here. 1833 There was a Farina Works at Couttie which turned potatoes into flour. 1833 A steam sawmill was built in Coupar Angus which would remain in operation until the early 1990s. The site is now a housing complex known as ‘Brodie’s yard’. 1861 A sow’s head was chopped off with an axe at Corston. No one was apprehended. Charles Spence - The Carse Poet Donald M Abbott Charles Spence (1779-1869) was a well known resident in the village of Rait, Carse of Gowrie. He lived with his wife and family at the old lint mill which had been converted into a cottage. Spence had been born in a cottage at Cockerhall on the Glendoick Estate, which cottage was demolished during his lifetime. His birthplace was located just off the road from Glendoick Antiques Centre (the former Glendoick School), heading for Kilspindie and running along the road at the foot of the Carse Braes, known sometimes as the Hillfoot road. At the very first significant bend in the road from its starting point as above, there remains a wooden sign stating Cockerhall, which is not too discernible, and this leads to a modern two-storey house. Spence lived for most of his life in Rait and while nothing can be seen today of the old lint mill in which he lived, the remains of the dam where the flax had been steeped can just be seen. It is much overgrown today and the former sluice on the Rait burn is inoperable, indeed unrecognisable almost. This has allowed the waters from the dam to escape, causing heavy growth of reeds and the like on the locus of the former dam, which is, however, a haven for birds and some wildlife. This is but an example of many aspects of the changes to this old flax weaving village, which includes an ingress of modern homes and a number of commuter households,whereas the residents of yesteryear mostly were employed locally. Charles Spence was a mason by trade, working mostly on the repair etc. of cottages, but his work on the construction of the Free Church at Errol (located at the eastern entrance of the old kirkyard of Errol and built just after the Disruption of 1843), 2 is a magnificent achievement. It is a much larger building than it seems at first glance from the neighbouring road. Spence was an avid supporter of the Free Church of Scotland, and his stridency in that regard caused him much aggravation with those who had remained within the old Kirk. His restoration, including the reproofing, of Kinnaird Castle in the mid 1850s after the Threiplands of Fingask had repurchased it, was one of his crowning glories. The notebook receipts for the wages of his workforce were stumbled upon by the writer when looking through the Fingask papers held at the Perth & Kinross Council Archive.* These notebooks, which refer to each member of his workforce by name and which included two of his sons, were all signed by Spence. The notebooks are little gems and help highlight the significant work done at the 15th century Kinnaird Castle to recreate the fine building seen today. Some snippets about the renovations and other local events can be read in the Butler's Day Book, a record of the daily operations of the butler at Fingask of the era. This has been published by Mr Andrew Threipland of Fingask and is available from all good bookshops, or else by contacting Mr Threipland himself. However, away from the day job, Charles Spence's main interest was poetry, and a number of his more significant poems were collected by the Rev James M Strachan of Kilspindie & Rait. He published a limited edition of 300 for private subscribers in 1898, entitled From the Braes of the Carse. Copies can be accessed at the AK Bell Library, Perth. At first reading, the poetry might seem a bit dated, but considering that this resident of Rait had no more than the good Scots parish school education of his time, likely at Glendoick or Kilspindie School, then it does begin to impress on second reading that this is something of a significant collection of his work. The subscription list at the rear of the book reads like a microcosm of the residents of the Carse in 1898 and in itself is a piece of local history. There was also a fair leavening of other subscribers from elsewhere, who obviously had a Carse of Gowrie or Charles Spence connection at some stage of their lives. The whole publication being the ‘poems and songs by the late Charles Spence’, is dedicated to ‘The Lord Provost of Dundee, The Hon. Henry McGrady, who during the poet's lifetime was his loyal friend and after his death his faithful admirer.’ Our Laird lives in a braw new hoose, Wi' slated roof and whitened wa'; A dainty muckle braw new hoose, There's no its marrow hereawa'. Leeze me on my ain house, Be it homely, be it braw, I wouldna gie my ain house For a' the houses ere I saw. The foregoing is the first verse and stanza of the poet's ‘My Ain’ and tells something of his pride in his Rait home. The poem is of five verses and with separate stanzas after each verse. Significantly perhaps, the verse above uses the Scots term hoose and the stanza house. Like other Scots' poets , Spence wrote in his native Scots as well as in English, as the mood took him.