Aberdeenshire
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Aberdeenshire
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Aberdeenshire, the country's sixth largest county, is situated on the north-east coast of Scotland flanked by Banffshire and Inverness-shire to the west and Perthshire, Angus and Kincardineshire to the south. The county is famed for its castles, 17 of which are depicted on our map. They range from fairytale Craigievar to magnificent Fyvie, from elegant Castle Fraser to royal Balmoral. Balmoral Estate was once owned by the powerful Gordon family, but in the 17th century was purchased by the Farquharsons. They eventually ran into financial difficulties, as a result of which the estate passed to the Duff Earls of Fife. The Duffs used to rent the estate out and in 1848 acquired rather prestigious tenants when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took on the lease. Five years later Victoria and Albert bought the estate (for �31,000) and in 1855 Balmoral Castle was built. The castle remains the property of the monarch and is used regularly by the royal family. Aberdeen itself is the nation's third biggest city and in the 16th century boasted two universities, as many as in the whole of England at the time! Earlier, Aberdeen had supported Robert Bruce in his campaign against the English, but subsequently it was the highland clans rather than the English who proved the greatest threat to the city. In 1411, at the extremely bloody Battle of Harlaw, an Aberdeen army led by the city's provost thwarted a Highland force intent on sacking and plundering the city. Two hundred years later, in 1644, Aberdeen was not so lucky when a Highland/Irish army under James Graham Marquis of Montrose defeated the local troops and then wreaked merciless havoc on the city. Patrick Ferguson from Pitfours invented the breech loading rifle. A professional soldier and a marksman, Ferguson fought for the British in the American War of Independence. At the Battle of Brandywine he took aim at a retreating American officer but, being an honourable man, couldn't bring himself to shoot the man in the back and did nothing. That lucky officer turned out to be one George Washington........ The Americans were not so kind to Ferguson, who was killed soon afterwards at the Battle of King's Mountain. Family names associated with Aberdeenshire include Gordon, Forbes, Fraser, Hay, Keith, Leslie, and Lyon. Aberdeenshire is one of our bigger designs, with a stitched area of 18 � 12� inches (460 � 320 mm) and a stitch count of 244 x 170. Stitched on 27-count evenweave, it includes 30 colours, 24 buildings, 2 lighthouses, fishing and sailing boats, as well as place names, compass and county crest.
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