Fordoun

Fordoun (Scottish Gaelic: Fordun) (Pronounced "For-Dun") is a parish and village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Fothirdun (possibly "the lower place"), as it was historically known,^{[citation needed]} was an important area in the Howe of the Mearns. Fordoun and Auchenblae, together with their immediate districts form the Parish of Fordoun with the Parish Church^[1] in the vicinity of the original settlement, now absorbed by Auchenblae.

Fordoun Scottish Gaelic: Fordun
Fordoun Location within Aberdeenshire
OS grid reference	NO750758
Council area	Aberdeenshire
Lieutenancy area	Kincardineshire
Country	Scotland
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LAURENCEKIRK
Postcode district	AB30
Dialling code	01561
Police	Scotland
Fire	Scottish
Ambulance	Scottish
List of places UK Scotland 56.872920°N 2.411751°W / 56.872920; -2.411751

St Palladius Fordoun

In the 19th Century Fordoun railway station was opened approximately 3 miles to the South East of Fordoun Church and the original settlement. A village grew at the site of the station (opened in November 1849 and closed in June 1956),^{[citation needed]} where there was also a number of shops, but only a seasonal farm shop remains.^[2] In the time since the founding of the railway station the village formerly known as Fordoun Station has come to be known simply as Fordoun and the site of the original settlement has been absorbed by Auchenblae.

People from Fordoun

• John of Fordun (d. c. 1384), Scottish Chronicler was born in the Parish of Fordoun.^[3]
• George Wishart (ca.1513 – 1546) a Scottish Protestant Reformer and one of the early Protestant martyrs burned at the stake as a heretic.^[4]
• John Wishart of Pitarrow (died 1576), a son of John Wishart of Cairnbeg in Fordoun parish, and comptroller of the Scottish exchequer.
• James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714–99), judge on the Court of Session lived at Monboddo House. He was author of The Origin and Progress of Man and Language, a study of evolution that predated the work of Charles Darwin.^[5]
• James Beattie (1735–1803), Scottish scholar and writer was born in Laurencekirk and first worked as schoolmaster in Fordoun. He became Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Marischal College and is noted for his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) and poem The Minstrel.^[6][7]
• Alexander Hamilton (1739-1802) co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, one of the first doctors to recognise the infectious nature of puerperal fever.^[8]
• Donald II of Scotland King of the Picts or King of Alba in the late 9th century.

History

Pictish stone at Fordoun.

There is a Pictish symbol stone, the Fordoun Stone (also known as St. Palladius' Stone), in the parish church on the outskirts of Auchenblae at NO726784^[9]

In his 1819 Geography, James Playfair notes that^[10]

Fordoun is a mean town, and the seat of a presbytery, noted for being the birthplace or temporary residence of John Fordoun, author of the Scotichronicon; and of Palladius, who was sent by Pope Celestine into Scotland, in the 5th century, to oppose the Pelagian heresy. The chapel of Palladius, adjacent to the church, is 40 by 18 feet; at the corner of the minister's garden there is a well still called Paldy's well; and an Annual fair in the neighbourhood is styled Paldy-fair.

20th century to present

As part of the national war effort, a number of men from the Parish of Fordoun (consisting of both Fordoun and Auchenblae) volunteered or were conscripted to fight in World War I and II. A war memorial was erected on Gilbert's Hill overlooking Auchenblae in 1920 which records the names of the 29 servicemen from the parish who were killed in World War I and 13 servicemen and one civilian who were killed in World War II.^[11] A memorial in Fordoun Memorial Hall (located in Fordoun) lists the names of an additional 14 men (43 in total) from the parish who were killed in World War I.^[11] Many of the killed had joined the Gordon Highlanders. The death toll from the village would likely have been higher if the parish's principal source of employment was not farming which was protected as a reserved occupation.

Also in the parish, on the B966, is a disused airfield that was active during World War II. A two-runway satellite for Peterhead airfield, Fordoun Aerodrome operated from 1942 to 1944.^[12]