The Steam-Boat Companion Betwixt Perth and Dundee
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%K)sj. -c 'V. THE STEAM-BOAT COMPANION BETWIXT PERTH AND DUNDEE. EDINBURGH: FRASER AND CRAWFORD. M.D.CCC. XXXVIII. CUPAR. AX THE FIFESHIRE JOURNAL OFFICE, CONTENTS. Page. The Shore of Perth, 1 Descending the River, 7 The Depot, , . 8 The Friartown Hole, . .9 A Boundary Stone, 10 Kinnoull Hill, . 12 Rocks and Minerals in Kinnoull, .... 13 Kinfauns Castle, 14 The Red Rover, ib Deepening of the River, 15 Elcho Nunnery and Castle, ..... ib Wallace's Yew, 19 Blind Harry's Account of Elcho, .... ib Seggieden, ......... 20 Balthayock, 21 Kinfauns Manse and Church, 22 Junction of the Earn and Tay, 23 Pitfour Castle, 24 St Madoes, 25 Abernethy, ......... 27 Carpow, 28 Round Towers, 29 Rhunic Crosses, 30 The Douglasses, ib Macduff's Cross 32 Sir Robert's Prap, ....... ib Sir Hughie's Gates— Roman Baths, ... 33 Mugdrum Island, 35 The Hays of Mugdrum, 36 CONTENTS. Page. 36 Mirage, . 37 Newburgh, . 40 Clatchart Crag, 41 Denmiln, . 42 The Abbey of Lindores, 45 The Last of the Douglasses, . 47 Anglo-SaxoD Coins, ib Barony of Bambreich, . 48 Bambreich Castle, 49 Errol, . 50 Kilsjiindie, . 51 Fingask Castle, . 53 Jacobite Relics, 54 Kinnaird, . 56 Inchture, .... 57 Longforgan, . 58 Castle Huntly, ib House of Gray, . 60 Invergowrie Bay, 63 Mansion-house of Invergowrie, . 64 Flisk, .... 68 Birkhill, . 71 Dundee, . Conveyances from Dundee, 73 . 74 Conveyances from Perth, APPENDIX. A. —The Family of Kinnoull, B.— Blairs of Balthayock, C The Family of Wemyss, Epitaph on Colonel Charteris, VIII ib D Family of Hay of Pitfour, E Richanlsons of Pitfour, The Hays, . CONTENTS. Page. F. — Abernethy, xiii G The Culdees, xv H. — Round Towers, ..... xvii I— Macduff's Cross— Sir W. Scott's drama, xviii K. — Reclaiming Land from the River, xxviii Roofs of Reeds, xxxvii Dr Fleming's Account of the Junction of Fresh and Salt Water in the Tides of the Tay, xl Habits of the Seal, Haverwood on xliii Salmon Fishing, Evidence on ... xlvii Seals, Grampuses, and Porpoises, xlviii Specimens of the genus Salmo found in the Tay, li Geology, ....... lii The Balfours of Denmiln, ..... lix L. — Leslie, Earl of Rothes, .... lxi Leslie, Lord Lindores, .... lxiii M. — Family of Fingask, . lxiv N. — Family of Kinnaird, lxvi O.— Family of Gray, lxix P. — Family of Camperdown, .... lxxi Q. — Family of Scrimgeour, .... lxxiv Family of Elphinstone, ..... lxxvii Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from National Library of Scotland http://www.archive.org/details/steamboatcompani1838pert PREFACE. The following tiny volume is placed before the public with no pretensions to further claims on attention than may be put forward by one who has been anxious, in a very humble sphere, to discharge the duties of a careful and minute com- piler, rather than to obtain the credit of success- ful authorship. During an intercourse of con- siderable intimacy and duration with the locality described, the author had often been struck with the inadequacy and inaccuracy of the information to be obtained, even from those whose circum- stances ought to have rendered them familiar with the neighbourhood, in reference to objects which generally excited the curiosity of strangers. No one can, in the summer season in particular, make a steam-boat trip on the Tay without being perplexed by the multiplicity of questions put to him in reference to matters requiring no great degree of research for their elucidation, nine- Vlll PREFACE. tenths of which he is in all likelihood desirous, but utterly inadequate, to explain. To put full and accurate information on such subjects into the hands of those who might be desirous to receive it, in a shape more ample and authoritative than that usually offered by ordinary Tourists' Guides, had for some time been the wish of the writer of the Topography of the Tay. In the course of more dry and grave investigations in the Library of the British Museum, where such abundance of materials were found to be lying around, that the difficulty lay rather in selection and abridgement than in collection, it afforded amusement and relaxation to compile and arrange, for this little work, authorities which might be referred to and relied on. Hence the origin of the Topography of the Tay, for which, it is hoped, it will not appear egotistical to offer these explanations, in- asmuch as it may account for a redundancy of reference which might otherwise be considered ostentatious or superfluous, and a deficiency of strictly descriptive writing, for the absence of which selections from authors of weight and name will, it is believed, more than compensate. This, it is hoped, will also help to excuse deficiencies riiKFACE. IX in the genealogical division, which a residence on the spot might probably have got supplied. It was essential under the circumstances to refer to books alone for information, and in these the genealogies of recent or untitled families are often difficult to be met with, or little to be relied on. The Baronage of Douglas never extended beyond one volume, and the contents of that are in many cases unauthentic. The references to the families of commoners to be found in the Peerage of the same author has been duly adverted to, but labour, in one respect at least, under the same charge as the Baronage. The Baronetage of Playfair is nowhere to be depended on. The labours of the minute and careful Debrett, which have already done so much to correct previous genealogists as to the Peerage and Baronetage of Great Britain, have been duly taken advantage of, but have not as yet extended to the baronage of the locality described. It is in consequence of deficiencies in printed authorities, and implies no reflection on their lineage, that scarcely any notice has been taken of the families of the Patersons of Carpow and Castle- Huntly, the Aliens of Errol and Inch- martin, the Yeamans of Murie, Drummonds of X PREFACE. Megginch, Hunters of Seaside, Craigies of Glen- doig, Mylnes of Mylnefield, Andersons of Inchyra and of Balgay, Trotters of Ballindean, Websters of Balruddery, and others, whose residences come in for brief notices in the text. The natural his- tory in the appendix, with the exception of the geology, is wholly extracted from books carefully referred to, and will, it is hoped, be found inte- resting, as consisting of a series of papers dis- persed through a great number of works not com- monly in the hands of ordinary readers, for the first time collected together, in reference to the animals, and their habits, which frequent the Tay. The chapter on reclaiming land from the river has been drawn up from information obtained from those who have been most successfully en- gaged in these operations, to whom special ac- knowledgments are due. Nothing has on this point, it is believed, been heretofore published, so that if it can lay claim to no other merit, it may hope to obtain the praise of novelty. In con- clusion, it must be stated that the Topography of the Tay having been ready for the press in Au- gust 1837, unlooked-for circumstances deferred its publication till ten months after that date. In the meantime, it was found expedient to give in various ways fragments of its contents to the public. It is not at present necessary to advert to these, the portions so given being without the name of the author ; but it is important to say this much to account for what might either seem a partial republication, or lead to the suspicion that the guilt of plagiarism had been incurred, where passages are without acknowledgment ap- parently reprinted from works already before the public. Cvpar-Fife, May 20, 1838. ERRATUM. After the present volume was in the hands of the binder, it was found that the designation originally selected for it, " The Topograpy of the Tay," bore so close a resemblance to the title of the Companion to Knox's Map of the Basin of the Tay, that its issue might possibly have been interdicted by the publishers of the latter work. Some pages were there- fore cancelled, and the present title substituted for that with- drawn. It is necessary to make this explanation to account for some allusions, in the preface especially, to a name now no longer employed. THE STEAM-BOAT COMPANION The Shore of Perth. At low tides, the Dundee steamer is obliged to land her passengers at a wooden platform, erected for the purpose, below the ship-building yard, and nearly opposite the contemplated wet-dock. Much more frequently, however, she is enabled to ascend as high, at least, as the lime shore, and sometimes considerably higher. We shall assume ; then, the upper steam-boat landing-place as the point from which to commence our description. The fine avenues and groups of trees contiguous to the river, and everywhere adorning the South Inch, are the remains of the policies of the family of Gowrie, whose house—the scene of the cele- brated conspiracy in 1603—stood where the county buildings now are placed, to make way for which, indeed, it was removed. The parti- A THE SHOEE culars of this remarkable conspiracy are familiar to every reader of Scottish history. Gowrie- house having become the property of the Town of Perth, was, in 1746, given by the Town Coun- cil as a present to the Duke of Cumberland, and it is said that his Royal Highness, either in ig- norance of the nature of the county, or desiring to rebuke the sycophancy of the magistrates on being presented to his new property, drily asked, " whether, along with Gowrie-house, he was not also to receive that piece of ground called the Carse of Gowrie." The avenue nearly parallel to that next the river, beyond the first section of the Inch, indicates the line of the Great North Road.