Sell or Rent Property in Aberdeenshire Free
New Pitsligo
Is 18 miles from Peterhead and 12 miles from Fraserburgh with a bank, chemist and doctors surgery there are a variety of shops as well as a primary school, being a
short distance from the towns of Peterhead and Fraserburgh with more amenities,
History
New Pitsligo is situated in Aberdeenshire
is a
large village to the south west of
Fraserburgh .Laid out on the eastern slope of the Hill of
Turlundie
and intersected by a picturesque Den, New Pitsligo, which has three long parallel main streets linked by
many braes, represents a miracle of human Settlement.
Two centuries ago the site
was a wilderness, part of the 'six ploughs on the moor' that formed the upper barony of Pitsligo,
one of the forfeited estates of the 4th and
last Lord Pitsligo, It was cut off from the parish church of Tyrie and the sea-coast by a vast peat moss,
impassable in winter, roadless and
trackless.
The moss still remains in
the heart of the Buchan plain, but is
now beautiful rather than desolate. The transformation was begun by Sir William
Forbes, a banker and grand-nephew of
Lord Pitsligo, who determined to found a village there to perpetuate the honoured name of Pitsligo. He spent a
fortune laying out the streets,
making miles of roads and planting thousands of trees.
The moss is now
worked by several operators, and from it peat is exported for distilleries as far afield as
Japan. Life had always been hard in
New Pitsligo. Its subsistence economy
was eked out by every possible
auxiliary source of revenue. One of these was the making of 'pillow lace', a craft
patronized by Queen Victoria. The village was
always a
stronghold of Episcopalianism and its modern showplace is St John's Church, built
entirely by New Pitsligo masons almost a century ago to designs by G. E.
Street.
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