Carnoustie
Carnoustie is a town and former police burgh in the council area of Angus, Scotland. It is at the mouth of the Barry Burn on the North Sea coast. In the 2011 census, Carnoustie had a population of 11,394, making it the fourth-largest town in Angus.
The town was founded in the late 18th century, and grew rapidly throughout the 19th century due to the growth of the local textile industry. It was popular as a tourist resort from the early Victorian era up to the latter half of the 20th century, due to its seaside location, and is best known for the Carnoustie Golf Links course that often hosts the Open Championship.
Carnoustie can be considered a dormitory town for its nearest city, Dundee, which is to the west. It is served principally by Carnoustie railway station, and also by Golf Street railway station. Its nearest major road is the A92, north of the town.
History
Toponymy
Carnoustie's name is of uncertain origin. The first element has been linked to a variety of Gaelic words, including cathair, càrr, and carn, but the second has eluded interpretation. Càrn Ùstaidh, the name used by Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba, is merely a Gaelicized form of the English name. A popular theory interprets the name as "craws' nestie", in reference to the large number of crows and rooks which once built their nests here, and the burgh seal displays a tree surrounded by crows in allusion to this.Whatever its origin, the name predates the town itself by several hundred years. It first appears as "Carnowis" in a charter issued by James IV to the Earl of Angus in 1510. "Carnussie" farm is recorded in the Balmerino Abbey register of 1575, which states that it was feued to the Fairny family and "Karnousty" farm can be seen on Pont's map of Lower Angus, 1583––1596. The town is seen as "Carnowstie" in a deed of sale from 1595, "Carnushie" appears in a tax roll from Balmerino Abbey in 1617, and the lands of "Carnouslie" are referred to in the title deeds confirming its purchase by the Earl of Panmure in 1672. Adair is perhaps the first to depict Carnoustie with the current spelling in 1703, while Roy's military survey of Scotland, 1747–55 has it as "Cornisty". In Webster's Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, Carnoustie is mentioned as "Carnuistie".
Early history
The area surrounding Carnoustie has been occupied continuously since the Neolithic period, as evidenced by a Cursus monument, identified from cropmarks near Woodhill. This cursus is of a similar scale to the well characterised, mid-4th-century BC enclosure found nearby at Douglasmuir near Friockheim. Numerous stones incised with cup and ring marks have also been found in the surrounding area. An assemblage of Late Neolithic pottery fragments found at Carlogie, north of Carnoustie, has been interpreted as evidence of a settlement of that age in the area.Bronze Age archaeology is also present in the area. Numerous short cist burials have been found in the area, including one found in 1994 at West Scryne, northeast of Carnoustie, that was radiocarbon dated to between 1730 and 1450 BC. The presence of Bronze Age round barrows at Craigmill is also indicated by cropmarks. From the Iron Age, perhaps the most prominent remains are of the Dundee Law Hill Fort, with the Iron Age fort at Craigmill Den being less well known. Near to Carnoustie can be found the souterrains at Carlungie and Ardestie, which date from around the 2nd century AD. Several brochs are also found in the area, including the ruins at Drumsturdy and at Craighill. Roman remains are also found in the area. Particularly notable are the temporary marching camps at Kirkbuddo, Marcus and Finavon, and Roman coins have periodically been found nearby.
Pictish remains are to be found in abundance in the surrounding area. Class I sculptured stones from Aberlemno and Strathmartine can be seen in the McManus Galleries in Dundee while the class I Dunnichen Stone is on loan to the Meffan Institute in Forfar. A class I stone can also be seen in situ at Aberlemno, and this stone appears to be a recycled neolithic stone, having cup and ring marks apparent on its side. Class II stones can be seen at Aberlemno and Glamis and a much-misinterpreted class III stone can be found north of Carnoustie at Camuston Hill on Panmure Estate. Linked in misinterpretation with the Camus stone is the early Christian Pictish cemetery that was situated to the West of the Lochty burn, in the vicinity of the High Street. The soil in this vicinity is sandy and was prone to wind erosion, and periodically human remains became exposed to the surface prior to the founding of the town. Popular interpretation was that a great battle had taken place at the site, giving rise to the legend of the Battle of Barry.
The medieval period marks the earliest recorded history in the area. Arbroath Abbey was founded by William the Lion and dedicated in 1178 and the earldom of Dundee granted to David, Earl of Huntingdon around 1182. Closer to Carnoustie, a number of medieval mottes can be found, including at Old Downie, where the thanage can be traced to Duncan of Downie in 1254, and at Grange of Barry, as well as the ruins of Panmure Castle where, it is said, William the Lion signed the Panmure charter granting the lands of Panmure to Philip de Valognes in 1172. The original castle was destroyed at some point in the Second War of Independence, possibly in 1336.
The Parish of Barry was bestowed to the monks of Balmerino Abbey in Fife by Alexander II in 1230. The monks managed the lands from the Grange of Barry and latterly the land was controlled by the office of the Bailies of Barry, an early holder of this position being Sir Thomas Maule of Panmure in 1511.
A number of feus were granted in the parish around that time, including Ravensby in 1539, Gedhall to David Gardyne in 1541, half of Barry Links and Cowbyres to Walter Cant in 1545 and the other half of the links to Robert Forrester in 1552. A document from around this time details the rent charged for each of the farms in the area, and it is in this that we see the first mention of Carnoustie:
"The two part of Grange of Barrie 10s. land of ye same 9 aikers of badihill. And toun and lands of Carnussie set to ffairny for 25 li. 2s. 24 capons 20 puld."
The land was annexed by the state in the Protestant Reformation following an Act of Parliament in 1587 and the Bailiery of Barry was granted by James VI as a heritable gift to Patrick Maule in 1590. Ownership of the lands was granted by the King to James Elphinstone, Secretary of State in 1599, and was sold to George Maule, 2nd Earl of Panmure in 1667 for £746 13s 4d. The land was forfeited following James Maule, 4th Earl of Panmure's involvement in the Jacobite rising of 1715.
The first recorded owners of the Barony of Panbride was the Morham family, whose ancestral name was Malherbe. They are first mentioned in relation to Panbride in the registers of Arbroath Abbey in a charter of John Morham made in the mid-13th century. It is thought that they had possession of the land until 1309 when Robert I conferred the land to his brother in law, Alexander Fraser, Lord Chamberlain of Scotland. Fraser died at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in 1332 and it is thought that David II conferred the barony to the Boyce family in 1341.
The lands of Panbride were fragmented and passed through a number of hands from that point, and were gradually acquired by the Carnegie family, later to become the Earls of Northesk, in the 16th century. The lands were forfeited following the Jacobite rebellion but were bought back by James Carnegie in 1764. Carnegie used the lands to purchase lands near his main estate and the barony of Panbride passed to William Maule, linking Panbride with Panmure.
Origin
The lands of Carnoustie remained in the ownership of the Fernie family until the end of the 16th century. In 1595 they had passed into the hands of Mitchell Downie and Margaret Fernie who sold them to Robert Bultie, Burgess of Dundee for the sum of 5,000 merks. They then came into the possession of the Alexander family, probably around the beginning of the 17th century, and documents dating to the middle of that century mention a village of Carnoustie. The estate was then sold to Patrick Lyon of Strathmore around 1680, and remained in that family's ownership, passing through marriage to James Milne, a wealthy shipmaster from Montrose around 1752.The Barry parish register attests to a small but thriving community based largely on linen weaving existing on the land that became Carnoustie at least from the early 18th century. Around a fifth of the births registered in the parish in the mid-18th century are listed as being in the Carnoustie estate.
The stimulus that triggered the expansion of the town was undoubtedly the sudden increase in demand for linen from around 1760, caused by the population explosion of the mid-18th century. Handloom weaving was a relatively easy trade to learn and, at that time, a fairly prosperous career. In 1792 on his return from India, Major William Phillips, former valet to the Earl of Panmure, purchased Carnoustie estate from James Milne for £5,000. Phillips most likely recognised the potential of the local industry when he offered portions of the land for feu in 1797.
The first person to take up a feu was Thomas Lowson, a local loom wright, who rented of land near the new road that had been recently been marked out by David Gardyne of Ravensby. Over the next few years, more and more people settled in the immediate area The venture proved profitable and Phillips sold the property in 1808 to George Kinloch for £11,000.
Kinloch promoted the further growth of the village, setting up brickworks and granting loans to prospective feuers to allow them to settle and, by the mid-19th century, the population of the town had risen to more than a thousand. For many years, the village was known simply as 'the Feus'. Perhaps the first cartographic depiction of the town is from a French maritime chart of 1803, where the village is shown as 'Feux', while Thomson's 1832 map of the area shows 'the Feus' as being a number of properties, largely concentrated in the area to the west of the Lochty burn.