|
The Parish of Gamrie is situated upon the shore of the Moray Firth and extends from the Bridge of Banff to the Burn of Netherhill which separates it from the Parish of Aberdour in Aberdeenshire. Gamrie abounds in glens and precipices, its coast line consisting of a great wall of crags whose ledges are the home and resort of sea-birds of all kinds.
Between the two well-known headlands, Gamrie-mor and Troup Head, lies Gamrie Bay, which provides an anchorage for vessels of large size. These heights command a wide and magnificent prospect, which includes the hills of Caithness, Sutherland and Ross.
St Johns Church
Along the coast many caverns are found, two of which are particularly interesting. Into one, the full force of the sea driven before northerly gales find entrance by a passage eighty yards long, the spray escaping through a wild fissure and drifting away like smoke. This weird place is locally known as "Hell's Lum". The other is entered by a natural tunnel of such restricted dimensions that it is called "The Needle's Eye" on account of the difficulty of going through it.
The spelling of the name of the parish has undergone many vicissitudes. Gaemrie, Gemri, Gamry, Gamery, and Gamrie, have all had their turn. The etymology cannot with any certainty be now decided.
On a high cliff beside Gamrie-mor stands the old Church, said to have been built in 1004. It was dedicated to St John, and, according to tradition, it owed its erection to a vow made by the leader of the Scots in a conflict with the Danes, that if St John gave him the victory this monument of his gratitude would be raised above the foeman's landing-place.
Until the Church became a ruin three skulls were preserved fixed in niches in the wall on the east side of the pulpit. The story is that the defending Scots succeeded in gaining possession of the top of the hill, directly over the Danish main camp, and, by rolling down large stones upon the invaders, obliged them to abandon it and escape by the north-east brow of the hill where many were killed in the fight.
The Rev.Patrick Thomas Clark Gamrie Churchyard ( circa.1891 )
The Rev.Patrick Thomas Clark
The Manse, Gamrie ( circa.1891)
The Danes having been joined by a party of their countrymen who had landed at Old haven of Cullen, about four miles westward, made a successful attack on the Scots, and drove them back to the hill. By this time, however, the alarm had spread far and wide, and the Scots, pouring in from all quarters, not only forced back the Danes to their old position on the brow of the hill, but, getting possession of the whole heights, and enclosing them on all sides except that overhanging the sea.
The Scots again rolled down large stones while the helpless Danes could neither oppose nor escape, and then rushing down upon them, sword in hand, the Scots cut them to pieces to a man. The Bleedy pots (Bloody Pits) is still the name of the place.
The late Sir William Geddes, Principal of Aberdeen University, who for a short time was schoolmaster of Gamrie, immortalised this interesting ruin in his well-known verses, which first appeared in the Banffshire Journal of 26th August 1856:-
"Hast seen the old lone churchyard,
The churchyard by the sea,
High on the edge of a windswept ledge,
And it looks o'er Gaemrie."
Inside the old Church there used to be a handsome marble monument to the memory of Lord Gardenstown, but the weather has worn it quite away, and only the framework is now left. Major Garden, the first of the Gardens of Troup, and some of the members of that family, are buried within the old Church.
There is a quaint tablet in the wall of the Church, next to the sea, to the memory of Patrick Barclay, lord of Towie-Barclay, and his spouse, Janet Ogilvy, who died in 1547. The family residence of these famous Barclays was at this time at Cullen in Gamrie.
The old Church of Gamrie having fallen into a ruinous state in the spring of 1827, preaching in it was given up, and the Minister conducted service in the Churchyard in summer, and in the old School of Findon and in the Society Hall of Gardenstown in winter. This arrangement seems to have continued till the new Church was formally opened on the 29th June 1830. The Church and its adjoining large and commodious Manse are built about a mile inland from the old, on a conspicuous height, and is a widely-known landmark.
Sources and acknowledgements: The source for most of the information above is The Kirks of the Turriff Presbytery: The Book of the Bazaar by the Rev. Patrick Thomas Clark, dated 1904.
|
|
|
