Kirriemuir

Sister cities

• Volvic

History

Some of the Kirriemuir Sculptured Stones, a series of late Pictish cross slabs, are on display at the Meffan Institute in Forfar, and the others can be seen in the Kirriemuir Gateway to the Glens Museum which now occupies the Kirriemuir Town House. The lands of Ummarchie lay in the feudal barony of Kirriemure – then in the Sheriffdom of Forfar – and were owned for centuries by the Lauder of the Bass family. Alexander Lauder of Ummarchie, Co. Forfar, born about 1504 and a younger brother of Robert Lauder of the Bass, appears in many documents and died at some time in 1580. In October of this year, his younger son Walter had murdered his father's Roman Catholic brother James in a religious dispute. Walter was found guilty at Edinburgh on 15 December and beheaded. The eldest son, another Alexander Lauder of Ummarchie, stood surety on 22 March 1600 in an Act of Caution in the Privy Council in a principal for 2000 merks for William Rynd of Kers, who was involved in violent armed feuds between the Lindsays and the Ogilvies. Alexander Lauder of Ummarchie was still living in 1608. Kirriemuir has a history of witchcraft accusations dating back to the 16th century. A pond on the outskirts, known as the Witch Pool, was a millpond for the 19th-century Meikle Mill. Local amateur historians tend to think this referred to a "mickle" (small) mill, but the reference is to one of James or his son Andrew Meikle's mills, based on ideas picked up in the Netherlands in the 1700s. The Meikles were a family of agricultural engineers from Haddington who were held in high esteem for many generations. The adjacent "Court Hillock" was shown, during excavations for a housing development, to be no more than a spoil heap left after excavation and cleaning of the pond. Though Kirriemuir's…