Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Castleton

Castleton, the capital of the Deeside Highlands, in the Braemar section of Crathie and Braemar parish, SW Aberdeenshire, 35 miles N of Blairgowrie, 30 NE of Blair Athole, 32 ESE of Aviemore, and 17½ WSW of Ballater station, this being 43½ WSW of Aberdeen. Backed by Mor Shron (2819 feet) and Carn nan Sgliat (2260), it stands, at 1110 feet above sea-level, on both sides of turbulent Clunie Water, which here, at 1 mile above its confluence with the Dee, is spanned by a substantial bridge, erected in 1863, in place of one built by General Wade, and which parts the village into Castleton proper to the E, and Auchindryne to the W. At it are Braemar post office under Aberdeen, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a branch of the Union Bank, 2 fine hotels (the Fife Arms and the Invercauld Arms), a public library, and a meteorological observatory, whose instruments were a present from the Prince Consort. The Established church, built as a chapel of ease in 1870 at a cost of £2212, and raised to quoad sacra status in 1879, is a cruciform Early English edifice, with a spire 112 feet high; other places of worship are the Free church, with graceful clock tower and spire, St Margaret's Episcopal church (1880), and St Andrew's Roman Catholic church (1839). A public school, with accommodation for 100 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 58, and a grant of £42,6s. On the site of the InverCauld Arms Hotel the Earl of Mar upreared the standard of insurrection, 6 Sept 1715. Pop. of village (1841) 124, (1881) 234-145 of them in Auchindryne; of quoad sacra parish of Braemar (1881) 861.-Ord. Sur., sh. 65, 1870. See also Braemar, Crathie, and Invercauld.


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "the capital of the Deeside Highlands"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Crathie and Braemar ScoP       Aberdeenshire ScoCnty
Place: Braemar

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