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Early Burghs In The Highlands

by
Gordon Johnson
of
KinHelp: Scottish Genealogical Consultant

Just to help the discussion of when urban-type organised settlements began in the Highlands, I list a few references which might be of assistance. Inveraray was erected into a Burgh of Barony in 1474, and was created a Royal Burgh by King Charles I in 1648. The list of Burgesses of Inveraray (publ. by the Scottish Record Society) starts in 1656, when over a dozen tradespeople are listed. The present-day Inveraray is a replacement new town, dating to 1742.

Perth was granted a guild merchant by Robert I in 1209, indicating the existence of a trades guild , a typical urban sign. The surviving Guildry Book starts in 1452. Perth is mentioned many times in between, e.g. being a staging post of the English army in 1307.

The difficulty of describing places in the Highlands is that some of them are new towns, as Inveraray, built to a modern plan, to replace the old one which had grown up haphazardly. There is nothing left to make a judgment on. Even in lowland areas, such as Kincardineshire, the original county town (Kincardine by name) and castle were abandoned and vanished centuries ago. Certainly such towns were little more than what we today would call villages, in sparsely populated countryside. It therefore depends on your definition whether you claim a place as a town or not.

Taking Kintore in Aberdeenshire, for example, this was a burgh with its own tolbooth, but the rest was pretty ephemeral until very recently. Burgh inhabitants would live in what we today would call hovels, and the upper classes would live elsewhere, on their own estates nearby. Most of the population using the Burgh lived on the suroundings estates and farms. We really cannot equate our modern definitions with those of the early part of this millenium. Roads were cart tracks, almost impassable in winter, and this was in the Lowlands! Armies did not fight in winter, for this very reason. Enjoy the debate, but don't let it get too serious. Gordon, IN, a village (pop. 4,000) now within the City of Aberdeen.

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