Belhelvie Parish (Potterton, Belhelvie, Blackdog & Whitecairns) Community Action Plan 2015 Map Community Action Plan
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Belhelvie Parish (Potterton, Belhelvie, Blackdog & Whitecairns) Community Action Plan 2015 Map Community Action Plan Fig 1: Map Of Belhelvie Parish 2 Introduction & Background Community Action Plan I. Introduction & Background dunes, which gradually become higher, wider and more active northwards This Community Action Plan has towards the Ythan estuary. Inland been produced by and for Belhelvie again is a parallel strip of low-lying, Community Council with the assistance fertile, heavier soils before the second of the Formartine Partnership, the topographic area is reached. Formartine Community Planning Officer and Aberdeenshire Council’s This, the western part of the Parish, Community Learning and Development could not be more different. It is Service, using the Planning for Real® higher. It is made up of hard igneous methodology (www.planningforrreal. and metamorphic rocks more than org.uk/what-is-pfr/). It covers the 542 million years old. Soils tend to be communities of Potterton, Belhelvie, shallow, infertile and poorly drained. Whitecairns and Blackdog. There is sometimes a thin covering of glacial deposits but often bare rock and Belhelvie is a parish and Community steep cliffs show through. Council area in Formartine, Aberdeenshire, on the North Sea coast b. History immediately north of Aberdeen. Its According to Belhelvie: A Millennium of area is 4,983 ha and total population History, the name ‘Belhelvie’ was first is 5,082 (2011 Census). Balmedie, pop mentioned in a Papal bull of 1157 and Aerial view of Trump International Golf Course. 2,534 (2011 Census), is the largest was well established by the middle (Courtesy of Trump International). settlement, but it is excluded from ages, though with a variety of spellings. this Action Plan because of a previous The origin of the name is lost in the community engagement exercise.1 mists of time but two suggestions The villages which are included in are both derived from Gaelic:- baile this document are:- Potterton, pop shealbhain (pronounced ‘balluh-helvan’) 998 (2011 Census), Belhelvie Village, meaning ‘cattle town’; or ‘mouth of (pop 360), Blackdog (pop 200) and the rivulets’ referring to the seven Whitecairns (pop 40). streams which flow through the parish- Newtyle, Menie, Orrok, Hopeshill, Fig2: Population Of Balmedie Parish Eggie, Potterton and Blackdog. But a. Census 2011 the Belhelvie area was occupied long Potterton 899 before the Gaels as witnessed by Belhelvie Parish (excl Balmedie) 2,548 the discovery of many prehistoric Balmedie beach and dunes. Belhelvie Parish (total) 5,082 artefacts dating from the Bronze Age approximately 4,500-2,800 years ago b. Council Estimates 2012 for example widespread remains of Belhelvie Village 360 the beaker culture from the early part Blackdog 200 and a gold torc. There is reference too, Whitecairns 40 in the New Statistical Account 1840, to numerous cairns, tumuli and even two a. Topography or three ‘druidical stone circles’ which There are two very distinctive occupied the moorland in the west of topographical areas in Belhelvie Parish. the parish The eastern part of the parish is low-lying and made up of geologically The original parish church was recent, soft, unconsolidated deposits probably located close to the ruined in which solid rock rarely reaches church at Pettens. The latter was in use the surface. The coastline itself is a until the current Parish church was superb, continuous, sandy beach which built north of Belhelvie village in 1878. stretches throughout the parish and The graveyard contains two interesting beyond. It is bordered on the inland morthouses for protection of bodies side throughout its length by an against body snatchers, an earlier one impressive rampart of very active sand built of turf and a second, stone built, dating from 1835. There was also 1Balmedie, was the subject of a previous consultation a United Free Kirk built in 1843 in in 2009 using a different methodology, a Community Action Survey. The results are published in Balmedie Potterton which has been converted Dunes in Balmedie Country Park. Views 2009, a document available on the Aberdeenshire into a house. Community Planning Partnership website. 3 Introduction & Background Community Action Plan The two Statistical Accounts, the beginning the Company was in financial Old Statistical Account of Scotland difficulty. Having purchased these (OSA) of 1791 and the New Statistical estates, it had great difficulty getting Account of Scotland (NSA) of 1840 them to produce revenue. There was give a clear description of Belhelvie poor management, short leases, little Parish in 1791 and the changes through investment and little understanding, to 1840. The topographic division whilst obstructing the London Lairds described above is very obvious in became a national sport in Scotland. both Accounts. For instance, the OSA Eventually, the Company was forced states:- to sell most of its assets. In 1782, the Old Parish Church and later Morthouse. Belhelvie Estate was divided into 16 Along the sea coast the soil is sandy, and lots and sold, and some of these were free of rocks; a little farther up it is a deep further sublet as small crofts. Long black mould or loam, and red rich clay. leases of 57 years were granted and The west part of the parish is mossy, and improvements followed. wet in some parts; and in other parts dry and rocky, and not so much calculated for Thus, for much of the 18th Century, improvements as the east part. Belhelvie suffered from a lack of investment and poor management This affects the distribution of farms by absentee landlords. Rents were and population both being concentrated short term so tenants had neither on the better soils in the east. encouragement to invest nor to improve. No wonder that the OSA Another factor which affects the states that the Parish has “long lain in appearance and life of the Parish at the a state of nature”, the “appearance of time of the OSA, is the forfeiture, after the ground is very unfavourable” with the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion, of the “little but heath and stones” and that Belhelvie Estate, which owned most “agricultural improvements are in their of the land in the parish. It was part infancy”. No wonder, too, that in this of the Panmure (or Panmuir) estates depressed state, population fell from centred in Angus at Panmure House 1471 in 1755 to 1318 in 1791. and Brechin Castle. James, Fourth Earl of Panmure (1658-1723), was a The changes over the following 50 staunch Royalist and Privy Councillor years are recorded in the NSA 1840. Old Parish Church and earlier turf Morthouse. to King James II of England (James VII of Agricultural improvement accelarates. Scotland). Despite being a protestant, Most fields are now enclosed by fences he fought at Sheriffmuir on the Royalist or dry stone dykes. The land under side, and was arraigned for high cultivation is fully one third greater treason and his estates were forfeited than in 1791, for over 5000 acres have to the Crown. He was twice given been recently reclaimed from moor the opportunity to have his estates land. Additionally, 4000 acres are in returned but refused to take an oath of grain and 10,000 acres are in turnip, allegiance to the Hanoverian crown. potatoes, hay, pasture and grass. A great many cattle, mainly of the “improved In 1719-1720, the Panmure estates Aberdeenshire breed”, are bred and fed were auctioned to the York Buildings for the London market. Woodland has Company. This Company was a been planted along the field edges and speculative enterprise, based in the farmers’ houses are now much London, developed specifically to buy improved and comfortable. Salmon the forfeited estates. This was the time netting is also important, the six miles of the South Sea Bubble, a time of of sea coast being occupied by a great wild speculation, and almost from the number of stake nets. Orrock House 1781. 4 Introduction & Background Community Action Plan Fig 3: Historical Population Graph Balmedie Quarry. The population has grown, too, to coast and a granite quarry at Belhelvie 1640 in 1836, more than making up village was opened in 1919 to provide for the decline in the previous century. chippings for road surfaces. The THE NSA states that this increase cottages along Council Terrace and is “entirely owing to improvements in Scott Terrace were constructed for its agriculture and agricultural industry”. Of workers in 1926 and 1930. There has the 351 households in the Parish 297 also been extensive sand extraction are chiefly employed in agriculture. near Blackdog and a clay pit with brick Population distribution has changed, and tile works in the same area. To the too, so there is now a greater despair of present Blackdog residents, population in the west of the parish many of these have since been than in the east. This is because in the resurrected as landfill sites. east are large farms which support a smaller population than the small farms The Parish took on an additional in the west. However, it specifically function in the late 20th Century. The Quarrymen’s Cottages, Belhelvie Village. mentions that there are no towns or Parish became a dormitory area. The villages. There are two turnpikes:- from discovery of North Sea Oil in 1969 Aberdeen to Ellon bridge (1799) and and the subsequent development of onward towards Fraserburgh and Aberdeen into the “Oil capital of Peterhead (1813) and to Tarves (1825) Europe” have expanded commuting and there are seven alehouses along into Aberdeen. Population has grown these, though, according to the NSA, and there are now substantial villages they are not much frequented by the where previously there were none. parishioners as one would expect in a population described as ‘intellectual, Potterton was the initial dormitory sober, moral and religious’ with hardly village expanding rapidly in the 1970s, any poaching and in which smuggling is in the initial rush for the “Black gold”.