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The united Parish of
Abernethy and Kincardine is about sixteen miles long and twelve broad.
It lies along the east side of the Spey, and is bounded on the south by
Rothiemurchus, the march running by the west end of Loch Morlich, past
the Castle Hill to the top of Cairngorm, and on the east and north-east
by the parishes of Tomintoul, Kirkmichael, and Cromdale. Abernethy was
originally in Morayshire. In the Old Statistical Account (1792), it is
said: "It is a little remarkable that at the south-east point of
this parish, between Glenlochy and Glenbroun, the Shires of Inverness,
Murray and Banff meet, so that when standing on the Bridge of Brown one
may throw a stone into any of the three counties." Another version
of the story was that the parsons of the three contiguous parishes used
sometimes to meet on the bridge, shake hands, and drink a cup of
kindness, each standing on his own ground. It is curious to find a
parallel to this in Italy, at the Proto-de-Fame, where the dioceses of
Trento, Verona and Brescia meet, but the point of meeting is a lake, not
a bridge. So it is recorded by Dante:-
"At midway of that lake, where
he who bears
Of Trento’s flock the pastoral staff, with him
Of Brescia, and the Veronese might each,
Passing that way, his benediction give."
Another parallel may be found in the
Shire Stones, near the source of the River Duddon, in England, of which
Wordsworth writes: "They stand by the wayside at the top of the
Wrynose Pass, and it used to be reckoned a proud thing to say that, by
touching them at the same time with feet and hands, one had been in
three counties at once "—Westmoreland, Cumberland, and
Lancashire. In 1870 a change was made in the county marches;
Abernethy was transferred to Inverness-shire, so that since then the
whole parish, including Kincardine, is in the same county. But by a
clause in the Act of Parliament, certain advantages enjoyed from being
in Morayshire, specially the right of the public school to share in the
benefits of "The Dick Bequest Fund," and the admission of
children to the Elgin Institution, were preserved. Sir Walter Scott’s
famous lines may be said fairly to depict the main features of the
parish:—
"Land of brown heath
and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the
flood."
The "brown heath"
stretches for fifteen miles from Cromdale Hill by Connage, the Plottas,
and Sliamore, to the wilds of the Caiplich. Where can be found finer
specimens of the "shaggy wood" than in the forests of Glenmore
and Tulloch, and on the rugged slopes of Craigmore and Carn-chnuic? The
"flood" is well represented by the Spey and the Nethy, Loch
Garten, Loch Morlich and Loch Pytoulish. For the "mountain,"
there is the ridge of hills that divides Kincardine, and the far grander
range that encircles Abernethy, beginning with the bold peak of
Sgorrgaothidh at the east; then the Geal-charn; then Bynack rising like a
gigantic pyramid from the plain of the Larig, and culminating in the snowy
corries and dark-frowning glories of Glen Avon and Cairngorm. The
character of the scenery in the lower grounds varies much according to the
time of the year. In early summer the browns and the greens predominate;
the brown of the moors, and the green of the pine-woods and the meadows,
which gives rather a sombre cast to the scene. But as summer passes into
autumn there is a change; the moors glow with the bloom of the heather,
and the saffron of the larch, the golden tresses of the birch, and the
purple of the mountain ash, and the fields covered with yellow corn, break
the monotony, and give a rich variety of colour to the landscape. Winter
also, though it has generally a predominance of white, has also its
infinite diversities and changes of aspect. In viewing scenery, much
depends upon the standpoint. Taking the old road from the parish church to
the manse, you have a magnificent view of the valley of the Spey and its
"brotherhood of ancient mountains." Standing at a higher point,
on the brow of the hill above Milton, you look out, as from a window, on
the wide sweep of the forest from Craigmore to the Torr, and away south to
Tomghobhainn and Carn-bheithir. Miss Gordon Cumming, the great traveller,
said of this view that it was one of the finest "sylvan scenes"
she had ever seen. From the south-east face of Rhynettan, the view is
different. You see before you the valley of the Nethy, with great breadths
of moor on each side gully after gully, and terrace rising above terrace,
till the ancient labours of glacier and flood are mixed and lost amid the
roots of the mountains. From a still higher standpoint, as from the top of
Bynack and Cairngorm, whilst the view is greatly widened, reaching to the
sea and the far-off lands of Sutherland and Caithness, the aspect of the
country immediately below is completely altered. The houses are few and
far between, the cultivated land dwindles to strips and patches, and gloom
and desolation seem to cover the vast spaces of heath and mountain. The
configuration is largely accounted for by the character of the rocks, amid
the geological changes which have taken place in the course of the ages.
Along the Spey are large alluvial deposits, forming the meadows of Garten,
Coulnakyle, and Balliemore. Higher up there are mosses of great extent, as
at Garten, Clachaig, and the Plottas. Then higher still there are enormous
accumulations of drift, through which the Nethy, Dorback, and Altmore,
have cut their way. It seems probable that the whole of the basin opposite
Curr had at one time been covered by a vast lake, stretching back to the
heights of Badenoch (the drowned land), which had gradually contracted, or
formed a chain of lakes as the water sank to lower levels. There are
indications of this in the remaining lochs, such as Loch lnsh (721), Loch
Alvie (700), Loch Garten (726), and the terraces so beautifully marked at
Pytoulish (674, 700, 800), and other places on both sides of the Spey. The
first outlet for this lake, on this side, may have been at the pass
leading to the Crasg and Glenbroun. Next there was the gorge at Lynbreck,
and the narrow valley past Lynmore and Ballinluig. Lower there is the
Slockd of Bachdcharn opening out on Balliefurth and Achernack. Then lower
still are the terraces of Craigmore and Culriach, marking the levels at
which the water stood for ages before it had made the passage by which the
Spey now runs past Inverallan and Achnagonaln. These points are all worthy
of study, and something might be learnt by a comparison of their heights
with those of similar terraces in Strathspey and Badenoch, or even with
the mysterious Roads of Glenroy, which have been for so long a perplexity
and puzzle to geologists. The Glen Roy terraces are three in number: (1)
1140; (2) 1059, cf. Loch Morlich, 1046; (3) 847, cf. Loch-an-Eilan, 840.
The following valuable notes on the geology of Abernethy have been kindly
furnished by Mr Lionel Hinxman, with the permission of the
Director-General of H. M. Geological Survey:-
"The greater part of
the area included in the parish is occupied by the metamorphic rocks—mica
schists, quartz schists, and quartzites—of the Highlands. Of these rocks
are formed the range of hills that runs eastwards from Loch Phitiulais to
the head of Glen More, Carn Bheur, the Geal Chain, and the high ground of
the Braes of Abernethy, extending northwards to the Cromdale Hills. The
predominant rock over this area is mica schist, varying in character from
a coarse gneissose schist to a fine-grained flagstone, such as the rocks
seen at the Bridge of Brown, and on Cnoc Fergan, further to the east.
"In the deep gorges
cut by the Ailnack water and its tributary, the Allt Dearcaige, bands of
quartzite alternate with the mica schist. The quartzite is often deeply
reddened with oxide of iron, as is denoted by the name Carn Ruadh-bruaich—the
Red Brae. With the quartzite are associated bands of dark schist,
containing graphite and grey crystalline limestone, which at one spot near
the ford of the Ailnack becomes a white marble. Another band of limestone
crops out along the course of the Allt Iomadaidh between Rynetnich and
Strancamernich, and extends thence to the south-east along the slopes of
the Carn Fhir Odhair. Limestone is also found near Ballantruim and
Sliabhchlach, and at Speybridge.
"A coarse conglomerate
of old red sandstone age covers the western slopes of Glen Brown to the
south of Curr, and can be seen in the ravines cut by the burns on the hill
sides at Crask.
"The granite of the
Cairngorm mountains appears in the extreme south of the parish, the
northern boundary of the igneous rock running eastwards from the foot of
the Lang Pass, through Glen More, to the head of the water at Caiplich. It
crosses Strath Nethy between Sgor na h’ Iolaire and Sron Chano, the red
granite of the latter contrasting strongly with the dark shattered
precipices of mica schist that form the ‘Eagle’s Rock.’
"The Cairngorm granite
is a moderately coarse-grained red or pinkish rock, composed chiefly of
quartz and felspar, with a little black mica. The well-known ‘Cairngorm
stones’ are quartz crystals, coloured in various shades with iron. They
occur in cavities in the granite, but are more often found loose among the
sandy debris on the mountain tops. The rock disintegrates freely under the
action of atmospheric agencies, while the harder portions often weather
out into huge castellated masses, like the Barns of Ben Bynac and the
smaller tors on the summit of Cairngorm.
"Small isolated masses
of granite appear through the schists on the Torr Hill, near Loch Garten,
and on the hill above Revack Lodge, while a larger intrusion occupies the
southern and western slopes of the Baddoch, in the Braes of Abernethy. The
granite at the last-named locality passes at the head of Allt Iomadaidh
into a rock of a peculiar and interesting character. It has been described
as an augite-diorite, and contains large crystals of augite with a
beautiful silky lustre.
"Evidences of former
glacial action are found everywhere throughout the district. The valley of
the Nethy is filled with a vast accumulation of gravelly drift, brought
down in the first instance by the glaciers descending from the Cairngorms,
and subsequently rolled out and dressed into successive terraces by the
torrents flowing from the melting ice. The silent process of denudation
still goes on as the Nethy cuts its ever-deepening channel through these
ancient deposits, bearing the waste of the mountains down to the Spey.
"Higher terraces, seen
here and there far up on the hill slopes, mark the successive levels of
the shrinking glaciers, the interval between the ice and the hill-side
having been filled up with water and ice-borne materials. These lateral
moraines are conspicuous at the head of Glen More, under Mam Suim, and
round the head waters of the Faishellach Burn.
"The fine sand and
silt deposits along the Dorback Burn below the lodge probably indicate the
site of a glacial lake, whose waters, dammed up on the west by the ice
coming down Strath Nethy, may have escaped by the now dry gorge of
Lynbreck.
"Glacial striae, i.e.,
the scratches made on the rocks by stones embedded in the moving ice, are
not frequent, owing to the rapid disintegration of the surface of the
granite on the high mountains and the drift-covering on the lower hills.
They may, however, be observed on the top of Creag Phitinlais, near the
march fence, and on Creaggowrie. In both places they point north-east, and
indicate the direction in which the ice moved down the valley." |
