OS1/25/8/5
| List of names as written | Various modes of spelling | Authorities for spelling | Situation | Description remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRAMPIAN MOUNTAINS | Grampians The Grampian Mountains Grampian Mountains Grampian Mountains |
Fullarton's Gazetteer Revd. [Reverend] D. McBride, Little Dunkeld Revd. [Reverend] T.C. Wilson Dunkeld R.C. Carrington Esqr. Factor, Dunkeld |
"That broad mountain fringe of elevations which runs along the eastern side of the Highlands of Scotland, overlooking the western portions of the Lowlands, and forming the national barrier or boundary between the two great divisions of the Kingdom. The name is so indefinitely applied in popular usage, and has been so obscured by injudicious and mistaken description, as to want the definiteness of meaning requisite to the purposes of distinct topographical writing. The Grampians are usually described as "a chain" of mountains stretching from Dumbarton, or from the hills behind Gareloch opposite Greenock, or from the district of Cowal in Argyleshire to the sea at Stonehaven, or to the interior of Aberdeenshire, or to the eastern exterior of the shores of Elgin and Banff. No definition will include all the mountains which claim the name, and at the same time exclude others to which it is unknown, but one which regards them simply as the mountain-front, some files deep which the Highlands, from their southern continental extremity to the point where their flank is turned by a champaign country east of the Tay, present to the Lowlands of Scotland. But thus defined, or in fact defined in any fashion which shall not limit them to at most two counties, they are far from being in the usual topographical sense of the word "a chain". From Cowal north-eastward to the extremity of Dumbartonshire, they rise up in elevations so utterly independent of one another as to admit long separating bays between, and are of such various forms and heights and modes of construction as to be at least a series of ridges and single elevations, some of the ridges contributing their length, and others contributing merely their breadth, to the continuation. East and north of Loch-Lomond in Stirlingshire, their features are so distinctive and peculiar, and their amassment or congeries so overlooked by the monarch summit of Benlomond, as to have become more extensively and more appropriately known as the Lomond hills, than as part of the Grampians. Along Breadalbane and the whole Highlands of Perthshire, they consist chiefly of lateral ridges running from west to east or from north-west to south-east, entirely separated by long traversing valleys, and occasionally standing far apart on opposite sides of long and not very narrow sheets of water; and they even - as in the instances of Schichallion and Beniglo - include solitary but huge and conspicuous monarch-mountains, which, either by their isolatedness of position, or their remarkable peculiarity of exterior character, possess not one feature of alliance to any of the groups or ridges excepting their occupying the confines of the Highland territory. In the north-west and north of Forfarshire and adjacent parts of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, they at last assume the character of a chain, or broad mountain elongation, so uniform and distinctive in character that we must strongly regret the non-restriction of the use of the word Grampian exclusively to the district. In Kincardineshire, they fork out into detached courses, and almost lose what is conventionally understood to be a Highland character; and at the part where they are popularly said to stretch to the coast and terminate at the sea, are of so comparatively soft an outline and of so inconsiderable an elevation, that a stranger, who had [continued on page 6] |
Continued entries/extra info
[Page] 5Perthshire -- Parish of Auchtergaven
Transcribers who have contributed to this page.
DANIALSAN, Alison James- Moderator, Brenda Pollock
Location information for this page.
There are no linked mapsheets.