Auchenblae is a village in the Kincardine and Mearns

Kincardine and Mearns

Kincardine and Mearns is one of six area committees of the Aberdeenshire council area in Scotland. It has a population 38,506 . There are significant natural features in this district including rivers, forests, mountains and bogs .Transport links with Aberdeen have encouraged rapid population...

 area of Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area.The present day Aberdeenshire council area does not include the City of Aberdeen, now a separate council area, from which its name derives. Together, the modern council area and the city formed historic...

, formerly in Kincardineshire

Kincardineshire

The County of Kincardine, also known as Kincardineshire or The Mearns was a local government county on the coast of northeast Scotland...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It is featured in Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell , a Scottish writer.-Biography:...

's novel, Sunset Song

Sunset Song

Sunset Song is a 1932 novel by the Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon. It is widely regarded as one of the most important Scottish novels of the 20th century...

. The name is a derivation from the Gaelic for "Field of Flowers" possibly due to the growing of flax in bygone times. The village was known for its weavers, a distillery and the annual Paldie's Fair horse market. The parish church on the opposite side of the Luther Water was built as Fordoun Parish Church on a site known as Kirkton of Fordoun, a religious site since the 7th century. St Palladius died and was reputedly buried here. There is a Celtic stone in the kirk's vestibule. In the graveyard is the ancient ruin of St Palladius' Chapel and there is a memorial to Scotland's first Protestant martyr George Wishart

George Wishart

George Wishart was a Scottish religious reformer and Protestant martyr.He belonged to a younger branch of the Wisharts of Pitarrow near Montrose. He may have graduated M.A., probably at King's College, Aberdeen, and was certainly a student at the University of Leuven, from which he graduated in 1531...

, born at Mains of Pittarrow in the old parish of Fordoun

Fordoun

Fordoun is a village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Fothirdun , as it was historically known, was an important area in the Howe of the Mearns...

and burnt at the stake by Cardinal Beaton in St Andrews.

Line notes

• George Robertson (1810) A General View of Kincardineshire, Or, The Mearns, R. Phillips (Originally published by Oxford University), 576 pages