Coupar: Angus or Perthshire? The Meaning of the Name
Coupar Angus is not the sort of place which
looks like it has a split personality, being to all appearances like a
pleasant, douce town sitting in central Strathmore. Now firmly ensconced in eastern Perthshire, it
was not always so. Until the late 19th
century the parish was split between the ‘Fair land of Gowrie’ in Perthshire
and neighbouring Angus. The county
border formerly ran right through the town, marked by a minor waterway. (Since
the 1890s it has been wholly contained within Perthshire.) The Cistercian abbey of Coupar was built on
the Angus side of the divide. These days
barely anything now survives of the fabric of this great building which once
must have been the most spectacular edifice in the whole broad
valley of Strathmore.
The mysteries of the place are not immense in the scale of things, but
quietly intriguing. First is the meaning
of the place-name itself. We can probably
dismiss the suggestion that Coupar's name derives from ‘Coo byre’, as suggested by the
Rev Charles Roberts, and his alternative theory that the name could be a
corruption of St Cuthbert also seems unlikely.
Also doubtful, to my mind at least, is the suggestion that the name
comes from ‘copar’, a Flemish word signifying someone who traded commodities. Victorian historians Andrew Jervise and Alexander
Warden took the name as being derived from
Cul-Bharr, or rear-of-the-ridge. Yet another suggestion is that the name comes
from Gaelic cobhair, meaning
sanctuary, and suggesting that there was some kind of religious settlement
nearby.
The Early Abbey
Coupar Angus was a
daughter-house of Melrose and the fifth Cistercians house in Scotland, all in
the 12th century. The saintly uncle of the king, Waltheof, the abbot
of Melrose Malcolm IV, is reckoned to have been the person who lay behind the
decision to erect a new monastery at Coupar Angus. Although the abbey
was founded by King Malcolm the Maiden in 1164 as a house of the Cistercians,
could there be a much earlier Christian foundation nearby. Cistercians often founded their houses in
desert places (Novalia, or unbroken ground, as enshrined in the statutes of the order) which was not the case here. The monarchy had a royal manor here. There
is also a repeated suggestion that there was a Roman marching camp on the site of the later
abbey, but this has never been conclusively proven.
More
interesting if the proximity of the site to the border of the counties of
Perthshire (Gowrie district) and Angus – which may well represent the border
between ancient Pictish provinces – possibly points towards an earlier
Christian settlement. Borders between
kingdoms and regions were sometimes chosen as Christian sites to install
spiritual buffer zones between semi-antagonistic neighbours. More than that, borders were liminal areas
where there were fault lines in supernatural as well as temporal power which
could be used by religion. Meigle, to
the north east of Coupar is one such place.
I would very tentatively suggest that Kettins to the south-east of Coupar
is another.
King Malcolm granted the White Monks his lands at Coupar. In a charter he later granted the monks coal, and privileges
in the royal forests in Glenisla and elsewhere.
Malcolm’s brother King William at a later date extended the abbey’s land
ownership in the area, bestowing lands of Aberbothrie and Keitheck,
plus two ploughgates of land in the district of Rethrife (Rattray), and the
marsh of Blair (Blairgowrie). Later benefactors of land to the abbey included
the powerful Hay family, based in the Carse of Gowrie and successive Earls of
Atholl.
At the start of the
14th century the abbey controlled more than 8,000 acres. There was a setback to the material wellbeing
of the abbey when King Edward I confiscated the furniture and silver of the
institution and possibly also imposed English monks into the settlement. In the beginning the Cistercians farmed the
land themselves, in conjunction with lay brothers who oversaw agricultural work
at the abbey’s granges. But in the 1300s
the number of lay brothers ceased and the practice of leasing lands to secular
tenants began. The last record to lay
brothers in the records of Coupar Angus is in the year 1305.
During the previous century there is a
record of a lower class of un-free labour tied to the land. A document of King Alexander II signed on 17
February 1248 empowers the monks of Coupar Angus to recover their fugitive
neyfs in Glenisla. These neyfs or native
were natives of any given area who could be bought and sold with the land they
lived on, though they were not actually slaves. Their status may have included
a poorer class of tenants who leased land.
Kettins
To the south-east of
Coupar, Kettins stands out as a place of some importance, certainly in Pictish
times. There is an inscribed Pictish
symbol stone here, now on the north wall of the kirkyard, having been rescued
in 1865 from centuries of misuse as a footbridge over the Kettins Burn. Its citing points to the place being of some
importance as a place of secular power in the early medieval era. Clues as to
the significance and relatively early date of church activity at Kettins can also
be found in the term abthen, which
refers to land given over to churches.
There is not an abundant record of these places, but there is a
significant number in Angus. There was
the Kirkland of Inverlunan, ‘commonly called abthan’, and also the Kirkland of
Old Montrose which had the term attached to it.
In some instances the religious ruler of a territory is designated as ab, so there was Nicholas ab of
Monifieth, Maurice ab of Arbirlot.
Keittins' ancient church stood on a mound and was designated to St Bridget, both signs (though not infallible signs) that the church was ancient. The foundation was re-dedicated by David de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews in 1249. Half a century earlier there is a charter witness mentioned named Ferbard, capellano de Ketenes. It was one of six chapels on the area which became subordinate to the Abbey of St Mary at Coupar Angus. In a charter of about 1292-3, Hugh of Over, Lord of Ketenes, granted ‘his well in his lands and Abthenage of Ketenes, called Bradwell, with its
aqueduct bounded, and servitude of watergage’ to the Abbey of Cupar.
Bradwell is a corruption of [St] Bride’s Well. Malcolm de Ketenes
appears in a number of charters around 1270 or 1271.
The Three Brothers of Kettins
Also in the thirteenth century the place was home to three brothers, one
of whom was an eminent churchman. There
are records of three brothers John, Robert and Ingram of Kettins who were
present in the University of Paris in the 1340s. The last named brother is identical with the
priest who is commemorated in a monument in Tealing, not far to the east of
Kettins, in the shadow of the Sidlaws. Contemporary
with the Paris record there is another mention of Ingram when, on 25 January 1345, Pope
Clement VI authorized the abbots of Cupar and Scone, and the prior of St Andrews,
to grant Ingram de Kethenis ‘the church of Blaar’, evidently Blairgowrie. The siblings were nephews of John de Pilmore,
Bishop of Moray. Through the
recommendation of the king and queen, Ingram was granted a benefice at
Aberdeen, and further church positions were attained, culminating in the
archdeanery of Dunkeld. Ingram ended his
days in the church of Tealing, north of Dundee.
His monument is set into the north wall of the church there and is
thought to be one of the earliest monuments in the English language north of
the Forth.
Hier : lyis :
Ingram : of : Kethenys : prist. :
Maystr : l : arit
: ercdene : of ; dukeldy : made :
I : hys : XXXII :
yhere : prayis : for : hym : yat :
Deyt :hafand : LX
: yherys : of : eyld : in :
The : yher : of :
Cryet : MoCCC : Lxxx
‘Here lies Ingram of Kettins, priest, Master of Arts. Made Archdeacon of Dunkeld in his 32nd year. Pray for him that died having sixty years of age in the year of Christ 1380’.
At an
early period the Hospital or Domus Dei of Berwick held the revenues of the
church at Kettins. By the end of the 14th century the living of Kettins was
granted to the Kirk of the Red Friars in Dundee, and in the following century
was transferred to the Red Friars Cross Kirk at Peebles.
Coupar Justice. Proverbs and Punishment
Long
after the abbey of Coupar literally vanished from the face of the earth, ‘Coupar Justice’ became a
byword for the stern treatment of offenders in the area. In this way, Coupar
became as infamous as Jedburgh in the borders, where ‘Jethart Justice’ was
another name for harsh treatment by the law. But 'our' Coupar vies with Cupar in Fife for being the fulcrum of these traditions.It is difficult to see exactly which place was the inspiration for this tradition.
At Coupar-Angus there were several layers of legal administration. A self-elected jury of local men, The Court of Burlaw, met every week to regulate mundane disputes. On the next level was the Baron-Bailie Court whose official was appointed by the district baron. The Court of Regality and Justiciary once occupied the site on present-day Queen Street in the town, though earlier it seems to have dispensed its justice outdoors, at Beechwood to the north of the burgh, in the early days of the Abbey. The Court of Regality was presided over by the abbot, though it was delegated at times to a bailie-depute (a role which eventually became hereditary).
At Coupar-Angus there were several layers of legal administration. A self-elected jury of local men, The Court of Burlaw, met every week to regulate mundane disputes. On the next level was the Baron-Bailie Court whose official was appointed by the district baron. The Court of Regality and Justiciary once occupied the site on present-day Queen Street in the town, though earlier it seems to have dispensed its justice outdoors, at Beechwood to the north of the burgh, in the early days of the Abbey. The Court of Regality was presided over by the abbot, though it was delegated at times to a bailie-depute (a role which eventually became hereditary).
Tales of the actual harshness of
local law-giving are scarce. Alexander Warden, the
historian of Angus, gives one example, worth repeating, albeit with the caution
that it represents its Gaelic protagonist in a semi-comical racist way. Warden says that a certain Baillie John was
strolling around Beechwood when he encountered a Highlander and engaged him in
conversation. Without revealing his own identity
Baillie John found out the man was due up before him for some crime that
day. He asked the man whether he was
actually guilty of the crime he was accused of.
‘Oh, aye, she’s guilty,’ the Gael said happily. ‘But there’s nae proof.’ Did he mean to lie to court that afternoon? Of course he did, the man said, because ‘there's mercy wi' God Almighty, but there's nane wi' Bailie Shon’. Fast forward to that afternoon, when the ashen faced Highlander faced Baillie John for real. ‘Will you swear now that you are not guilty?’ the judge asked the accused. The man thought for a minute and then tried to brazen it out. ‘Yes,’ she’ll swore,’ asserted the Highlander. This ploy evidently nonplussed the dispenser of justice, since instead of sentencing the man he declared,
‘Go home, you rascal, and never let me see your face again; and tell your friends in Kirkmichael that there is some mercy in Bailie John as well as in God Almighty!’ [Warden, Angus or Forfarshire, vol. 3,134-5.]
Several writers another tale of harsh judgement. According to this, in 1699 the hereditary
bailie of Coupar, John Ogilvy, was told that a notorious thief named John McCoul
was in the town: ‘ane person of bad fame
and open bruit a thiefadder’. He was
ordered to be arrested and hanged straight away. The man’s friends were outraged by this act
and demanded reconsideration. So the
body was ordered to be exhumed and the court was convened, on 25 August
1699. There the dead man was formally
sentenced to death and ordered to be executed the following Thursday. Whether the earlier monks were quite as
hard-line in their judgements as the laymen who succeeded them is unknown. The
story was repeated in the Dundee Chronicle, written by a correspondent from Coupar
Angus who stated that he had the record of the case lying before him as he
wrote. [Ancient Things in Angus, 101-2, Rambles
in Forfarshire, 203, Dundee
Chronicle, March 1836].
Confirmation that the association with harsh judgement is century old is given byJohn Jamiesion, in volume one of the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808), who favoured the Strathmore town as being the original place of harsh judicial treatment. Jamieson quotes the 17th century soldier poet William Cleland (1661-1689):
Confirmation that the association with harsh judgement is century old is given byJohn Jamiesion, in volume one of the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808), who favoured the Strathmore town as being the original place of harsh judicial treatment. Jamieson quotes the 17th century soldier poet William Cleland (1661-1689):
Yet let the present swearing trustees
Know they give conscience Cowper Justice,
And by subscribing it in gross
Renounce every solid gloss.-
And if my judgement be not scant, Some lybel will be relevant,
And all the process firm and fast,
Ti give the Counsel Jedburgh cast.
Ogilvy Bailies
The Ogilvy family, in the person of James, Lord Ogilvy,a great secular
power in the area, were granted the role as secular bailies of Coupar Abbey by
Abbot Donald Campbell in 1539 and they held this role until heritable
jurisdictions were formally abolished in 1747. As early as 1460, however,
Patrick Ogilvy of Pearsie was appointed bailie-depute of the monastery. For the loss of the privilege John, 4th
Earl of Airlie, was awarded £800 in compensation. The Ogilvys also gained the role as porters
of gate-keepers to the abbey. At an
earlier period another family served in this hereditary function and took their
surname, Porter, from their employment. The
Ogilvys gained this lucrative office as late as 1589, when on 12 March a
contract was agreed between William Ogilvy of Easter Keilor and John Faryar,
porter of the abbey and adopted son of Robert Porter. On 26 May 1590 the charter of the
office was confirmed by Faryar and Porter, to William and Archibald Ogilvy
life-rent and fee.
Baffling Proverbs on Coupar
Coupar also features in other local proverbs, whose meaning and
origins now seem rather opaque. It was
locally said of stubborn people who would not be diverted from their chosen,
foolish path:
But why should someone resolutely doomed to failure go particularly to Coupar Angus? Nobody knows.He that will [gae] to Coupar maun [gae] to Coupar.
Another, arcane twist on the saying runs:
He that will to Coupar maun to Coupar, though Killiemuir [Kirriemuir] had sworn't.
And why did Coupar particularly get a local reputation for being a draconian centre
of punishment? Perhaps it derives from
the strict measures which the institution enforced on its tenants, from runaway
serfs to tenants reluctant to keep their land in order, ingrained into the
Strathmore psyche over the course of several centuries? Another possibility is
that the speedy justice and sometimes summary execution which followed in the
area was a necessary mode of law enforcement which operated in the area and was
designed to meet the lawlessness which filtered into the area from the north,
when Highland caterans raided
Strathmore for cattle and spoils. But does
something darker linger in the collective memory here?
Massacre in the New Church
In
the year 1186, when the church of the abbey was not yet fully completed, there
was a sacrilegious event which violated the abbey. On 17 November that year, the Chronicle of
Holyrood related that:
the peace of the holy church was outraged at Coupar, by the violence of Malcolm, earl of Athole; because Adam (surnamed also Donald’s son), who was the king’s outlaw, was seized, and one of his associates – a nephew – was beheaded, before the altar; and the rest, fifty-eight in number, were burned and killed in the abbot’s dwelling.
The exact circumstances of this mass killing are unclear. Adam McDonald was a representative of one of
the kin-groups who were rebelling against the established monarchy. He and his men had probably sought sanctuary
in the newly established Cistercian precincts, but were ruthlessly extinguished
by the king’s representative, Malcolm son of Madach, the second Earl of
Atholl. The assassinated man may have
been a son of the rebel contingents of the MacWilliam family from Moray who
were in rebellion and attempting to claim the throne, but there is no firm
certainty he came from this family. Donald MacWilliam certainly rose against
the crown in Ross the following year.
This early massacre was
undoubtedly the worst bloodshed the abbey was to witness, but there were other
outbreaks of violent anarchy in later centuries. In 1479 the resident monks were attacked (two
actually held captive for a time) by a gang sponsored by Alexander Lindsay, son
of David, Earl of Crawford. The event involved ‘spulzeing of thair horses parking at thair place, and chusing of thair
servandis’ and damage to property. Lindsay was warded in Blackness Castle and
some of his henchmen were warded elsewhere, while eight other followers, such
as Lindsay of Baikie and Shangy, were summoned to appear before the Sheriff of
Forfar. The decline of the social
structure of the abbey went hand in hand with a diminishing respect of those in
the area, particularly powerful men who saw the undefended monks as easy
prey. Around the time of Lindsay’s was there
was another attack led by Robert Hay, son of the laird of Tullymet. He carried off a hundred head of cattle and
oxen and four horses from the abbey’s land of Pert. He was heavily fined for his depredations.
Decline of the Abbey, Last Years under Abbot Donald Campbell
The abbot at this time was
Donald Campbell, fourth son of Archibald, second
Earl of Argyll, and he supervised the final decline of the institution, from 1526
to 1562. (One of his brothers,
incidentally, was Alexander Campbell who married the widowed Lady Glamis. He died trying to escape from Edinburgh
Castle. His wife was burned to death as a
witch.) Campbell played an important role on the wider national stage, being
part of the secret council
of the Earl of Arran. His later
appointment to the See of Brechin was deferred because of suspicions about his
religious loyalties. Until as late as 1553 Campbell seemed to be intent on regulating the
declining monastery in accordance with orthodox Catholic procedures. He and the fifteen remaining monks in the
institution signed a solemn bond in which they promised that, ‘God being their
guide [they would] lead a regular life, and...order their manner according to
the reformers of the Cistercian order...’
But by the end of that decade Campbell had literally abandoned his habit
– ‘put on secular weed’ – and was attending the Protestant Convention of Estates. Furthermore, he alienated the church lands he
administered and gave outright gifts of abbey lands to each and every one of
his five bastard sons: the properties of
Balgersho for
his eldest son, Keithic for the second son, Denhead for the third son, Cro(o)nan
for the fourth, and Arthurstone . He had
earlier granted part of the monastery’s lands at Lundie to his cousin John
Campbell of Lundie. Two of the last
abbot’s sons were interred at Bendochy: Nicol Campbell, who died in 1587 aged
seventy, and David Campbell, who died three years earlier.
Protestant Violence?
The most fatal
violence done to the abbey was its physical destruction, possibly commenced in
the Reformation, when the mob which tore down the Carthusian monastery and
other Catholic churches in Perth likely did the same at Coupar. The exact process and sequence of destruction
at Coupar Angus Abbey is not clear and was likely piecemeal and certainly
assisted to a large extent by locals looting the valuable building stones of
the abbey over a long course of time.
Much of the older part of the town of Coupar Angus, as well as some
building work in nearby places such as Arthurstone, likely included masonry
from the abbey buildings. An account of
the Chamberlain in 1563 mentions the fact that remedial building work had been
undertaken at the abbey, which suggests there had been some sort of attack
leading to damage.
The extent to which Coupar
Angus Abbey suffered physically when the reforming storm fully hit Scotland is
difficult to determine. The seething religious
foment of the nation is captured in the following lengthy quote by Lord
Herries, which captures one contemporary view of what was happening in this
region in 1559:
Now aryses tumults upon tumults, killing of priests, sacking and pulling doune of churches, ruining of statlie Abbacies, and other glorious buildings, dissolving hospitals; all in confusion. in a word, these antient buildings and brave fabricks, monuments of antiquitie, and marks of pietie, which for many hundred years have been a building, shall, in few months, be destroyed and rased to the ground! The ornaments and riches of the Churches fell to the share of the commone rable; the estats and lands were divyded amongst the great men, by themselves, without right or law; which they resolve to maintain by the sword!
The first storme fell upon Saint Jhonstoune [Perth], in this same month of May. John Knox…was the occasione; whoe, by a seditious sermon, sturred up the people to furie and madnes; who encouradged them to pull doun the Churches…Wherupon they run out in confusion, killed the priests, broake doune altars, and destroyed all the images and ornaments. From that they fall upon the Relligious Houses and Monasteries; those two goodlie Abbayes of Franciscans and Dominicans…were pulled dounde and made levell with the ground in two dayes; and all there riches made a prey to the people! But the Abbau of Charters monks stod longer, by one day. The next storme fell upon Couper. Thos people, upon notice of this busines at Perth, fell lykwayes upon there Church; which they spoyled and ransackt, and chased away the priests.’ [Memoirs, 37-38.]
But did Coupar Angus Abbey actually suffer
the same extremist tsunami as nearby Perth?
A document found in the charters of the Dukes of Argyll suggests that
Abbot Duncan cannily came to terms with the lords at the head of the Reforming
juggernaut, or that he was forced to do so.
This is the unique document that the abbot signed:
Thir ar the pointes that the congregatioune desyris of my lord of Cowper. Imprimis that he incontinent reforme his place of Cowper Putting down and birnyng oppinlie all Idolis and Imagis and tubernaculis thairin destroying and putting away the altaris. And that na mess be thaire done gereaftir nowther privilie nor opinly. And that the superstitiouse habit of his monkis with their ordour ceremoneis and service as you call it be removit. And that na prayeris be usit in the kirk bot in the inglishe toung. And thai according to the scriptouris of God. Item that my lord with all his freindis and folkis at his hale powar assist and mayntein in counsales conventionis and parliament als wele as uther wyse the furth settin of the evangell of cryst and meynteinyng the congregatioyne in thair leberte and to the doune putting of all ydolatre abhominationes and papistre. And that his folkis at this present and at all utheris tymis being requirit pass fordwart with thair congregatioune to the forth-setting of the glorie of god. And alswa that my lord in all placis of his dominioune sall endewoyr himself to the forthsattin and executione of the premissis. Item that ane wryting contenyng the heids abufwrittin as thai ar heir contenit subscrivit with my lordis hand be send incontinent to the congregatioune togidder with the same tollaratione. (Signed) D. Abbot of Cupr
The historian Jane Dawson has drawn attention to the uniqueness of the
arrangement between abbot and reformers at Coupar. There was a chance, after that pacts, that
the abbey buildings might have survived more or less intact. But it was not to be.
Following Campbell’s reign of transition, various secular individuals gained
control over the valuable earthly possessions of Coupar Abbey. By an Act of Parliament in December 1607,
King James VI sought to ‘suppress and extinguish the memories of the
Abbacie’. He erected the abbacy into a
temporal lordship in favour of James Elphinstone, son of the secretary, Lord
Balmerino, and enobled him with the title Lord Coupar. A painting by Balmerino of Coupar in 1607
shows a remaining tower within the abbey precinct. It is stated that Coupar
himself was ‘a weak man of mean capacity, who went by the epigrammatic cognomen
of “that howlit Cowper”.’ [Strathmore,
Past and Present, McPherson, 41.]
The remaining structures in the abbey precinct appear to have been
further damaged in April 1645, in an onslaught by an Irish royalist force of
200 men led by Montrose’s lieutenant Alexander Macdonald. Their damage and plunder was an act of
revenge and intimidation against Lord Coupar because of his Covenanting
views. During this raid the parish
minister Robert Lindsay was slain and a defending party of cavalry under Lord
Balcarres was routed.
Lord
Coupar died without issue in 1669. He
was buried in Coupar without any religious ceremony whatever and the property
eventually devolved on his nephew, John , 3rd Baron Balmerino. The latter took legal action against his
uncle’s widow to repair damage to the rotting remains of the abbey buildings,
but this was not undertaken, because John Ochterlony of the Guynd, wrote in the
Account of the Shire of Forfar, circa 1682, wrote that the abbey was in a sweet
spot but nothing remained of the buildings but rubbish.
Remaining Mysteries, or the Mystery of Remains?
Much of the later building work in Coupar Angus sensibly utilised the
available stone from the former abbey. The
town steeple was built in
1769 on the site of the old prison of the Court of
Regality. Its lower floor was used to confine of
prisoners. Coupar’s kirk was rebuilt in
1878-9 on the site of the abbey. John Carrie wrote in 1881 about the scant remains of the abbey and
its last occupant over forty years previously:
What now remains of the Abbey...consists of a single vaulted apartment, with one or two slender, but finely pointed arches. It was visited in 1838 by a person of antiquarian tastes, who found it then occupied as a workshop by an humble sculptor and painter. His productions, however, possessed considerable merit...About the year 1830 some vaults, probably sepulchral ones, were accidentally discovered, but the authorities soon afterwards shut them up again. [Ancient Things in Angus, 102.]
A Secret Tunnel?
A
more elaborate, though possibly related tradition was recounted by James
Cargill Guthrie. He stated that an old Coupar man informed him there was a
secret tunnel or passageway leading from this last remaining fragment of the
abbey and the south-western Sidlaw Hills.
It was found by workers excavating a very deep drain. One of the men, more brave than the others,
volunteered to explore the passageway to the north. From his point of entry he traced it to the
remains of the abbey and returned to tell his fellows. But for his second foray he re-entered the
tunnel and ventured south. He never returned
from this second adventure. His friends
waited days for his reappearance, but when all hope was gone they sadly sealed
up the entrance to stop anyone else following him to their fate.
A
variant states that the poor, lost original explorer was a woman, not a
workman. Was this story inspired by the discovery of weems or souterrains at
Pitcur nearby, although the latter places lies several miles south-east of
Coupar? It is said that in 1982 a local
mason actually found the underground connection between Pitcur and Coupar Angus.
The mason told the tale to Martha Jane Sievewright, who told it in The Abbey of Coupar Angus (1983), and
re-told by Maurice Fleming. Tunnels,
real and imagined, crop up regularly in folk tales and the association with a human
unwise enough to enter the Underworld and paying the price links the story
directly to a legendary source.
Folklore Afterword: The Ghost of Dron
Those who prefer their history unpolluted by folklore can safely disregard this last piece. It concerns an ancient track named the Priest's Road which runs south from Tullybaccart on the main Coupar to Dundee road, road across the Sidlaw Hills. It is a lonely route, though it may once have been used by the monks of Coupar going down to the fertile coastal plain of the Carse of Gowrie where they held lands, or indeed across the River Tay to the abbey of Balmerino where their brother Cistercians. The pathway crosses the current Angus-Perth border very close to a chapel at Dron. The chapel is little more than a graceful arch standing alone amid scanty, lesser masonry. It is an evocative place, but perhaps not entirely as bereft of company as one might imagine. Between here and Tullybaccart, on the Angus stretch of the ancient Priest's Road, there is sometimes seen a solitary traveller dressed all in white. He may be a bee-keeper, as some have thought, though there are no hives nearby. Or he may be someone else.
Some Sources
Campbell, N., ‘Two Papers from the Argyll
Charter Chest,’ the Scottish Historical
Review, vol. 21, No. 82 (Jan. 1924), pp. 140-3.
Carrie, John, Ancient Things in Angus (Arbroath, 1881).
Dawson, Jane E. A.., The Politics of Religion in
the Age of Mary, Queen of Scots (Edinburgh, 2002).
Dowden, Rev. John, ‘Note on Ingram of
Kethenys, with observations on his monument in the parish church of Tealing,’ Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., 37 (1903),
245-51.
Fleming, Maurice, The Ghost O’ Mause and Other Tales and Traditions of East Perthshire
(Edinburgh, 1995).
Gibson, Colin, 'Nature Diary' [article on Dron Chapel], The Courier, July 1994.
Gibson, Colin, 'Nature Diary' [article on Dron Chapel], The Courier, July 1994.
Guthrie, James Cargill, The Vale of Strathmore, Its Scenes and
Legends (Edinburgh, 1875).
Herries, Lord [John Maxwell], Historical Memoirs of the Reign of Mary
Queen of Scots (Edinburgh, 1836).
Hutcheson, Alexander, ‘Notice of an early
inscribed mural monument and of an undescribed sculptured stone in the parish
church of Tealing, Forfarshire,’ Proc.
Soc. Antiq. Scot., 30
(1895–96), pp. 41–8.
Laing, Margaret, The Cistercian Abbey of Coupar Angus and its Place in Scottish History,
N. D.
McPherson, J. G., Strathmore,
Past and Present, Perth, 1885.
Myles, James, Rambles in
Forfarshire (Dundee, 1850).
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