Fordoun

Fordoun (Scottish Gaelic: Fordun) is a village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Fothirdun (possibly "the lower place"), as it was historically known, 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]

At one time it had a railway station in the nearby village named Fordoun Station (opened in November 1849 and closed in June 1956)^[2] where there were also a number of shops, but only a pub and a seasonal farm shop remain.^[3]

Notable people

• John of Fordun (d. c. 1384), Scottish Chronicler was born in Fordoun.
• James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714–99), judge on the Court of Session lived at Monboddo House, a 17th century house in the parish. He was author of The Origin and Progress of Man and Language, a study of evolution that predated the work of Charles Darwin.
• 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.^[4]

History

There is a Pictish symbol stone, St. Palladius' Stone just outside the village at NO726784^[5]

In his 1819 Geography, James Playfair notes that^[6]

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 Pady's well; and an Annual fair in the neighbourhood is styled Pady-fair.

North of the village is a disused airfield that was active during World War II. A two-runway satellite for Peterhead airfield, Fordoun operated from 1942 to 1944.^[7]

Notes