Fordoun is a village in 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...

, 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...

. Fothirdun (possibly "the lower place"), as it was historically known, was an important area in the Howe of the Mearns

Kincardineshire

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

. Fordoun and Auchenblae

Auchenblae

Auchenblae is a village in the Kincardine and Mearns area of Aberdeenshire, formerly in Kincardineshire, Scotland. It is featured in Lewis Grassic Gibbon's novel, Sunset Song. The name is a derivation from the Gaelic for "Field of Flowers" possibly due to the growing of flax in bygone times. The...

, together with their immediate districts form the Parish of Fordoun with the Parish Church

Parish church

A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 

At one time it had a railway station in the nearby village named Fordoun Station (opened in November 1849 and closed in June 1956) where there were also a number of shops, but only a pub and a seasonal farm shop remain.

Notable people

• John of Fordun
  John of Fordun
  John of Fordun was a Scottish chronicler. It is generally stated that he was born at Fordoun, Mearns. It is certain that he was a secular priest, and that he composed his history in the latter part of the 14th century; and it is probable that he was a chaplain in the St Machar's Cathedral of...
  
   (d. c. 1384), Scottish Chronicler was born in Fordoun.
• James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
  James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
  James Burnett, Lord Monboddo was a Scottish judge, scholar of linguistic evolution, philosopher and deist. He is most famous today as a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics . In 1767 he became a judge in the Court of Session. As such, Burnett adopted an honorary title based on his...
  
   (1714–99), judge on the Court of Session
  Court of Session
  The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland, and constitutes part of the College of Justice. It sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh and is both a court of first instance and a court of appeal....
  
   lived at Monboddo House
  Monboddo House
  Monboddo House is a historically famous mansion in The Mearns, Scotland. The structure was generally associated with the Burnett of Leys family. The property itself was owned by the Barclay family from the 13th century, at which time a tower house structure was erected...
  
  , a 17th century house in the parish. He was author of The Origin and Progress of Man and Language, a study of evolution
  Evolution
  Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
  
   that predated the work of Charles Darwin
  Charles Darwin
  Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
  
  .
• James Beattie
  James Beattie (writer)
  Professor James Beattie FRSE was a Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher.He was born the son of a shopkeeper and small farmer at Laurencekirk in the Mearns, and educated at Aberdeen University. In 1760, he was appointed Professor of moral philosophy there as a result of the interest of his...
  
   (1735–1803), Scottish scholar and writer was born in Laurencekirk
  Laurencekirk
  Laurencekirk is a small town in the ancient county of Kincardineshire, modern county of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, just off the A90 Dundee to Aberdeen main road. It is the largest settlement in the Howe o' the Mearns area and houses the local secondary school; Mearns Academy, which was awarded the...
  
   and first worked as schoolmaster in Fordoun. He became Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Marischal College
  Marischal College
  Marischal College is a building and former university in the centre of the city of Aberdeen in north-east Scotland. The building is owned by the University of Aberdeen and used for ceremonial events...
  
   and is noted for his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) and poem The Minstrel
  The Minstrel
  The Minstrel was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse in Great Britain and Ireland. His performances led to him becoming the Horse of the Year in the United Kingdom, Horse of the Year in Ireland and being inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.Foaled at E.P...
  
  .

History

There is a Pictish symbol stone

Pictish stones

Pictish stones are monumental stelae found in Scotland, mostly north of the Clyde-Forth line. These stones are the most visible remaining evidence of the Picts and are thought to date from the 6th to 9th centuries, a period during which the Picts became Christianized...

, St. Palladius' Stone just outside the village at NO726784

In his 1819 Geography, James Playfair notes that

Fordoun is a mean town, and the seat of a presbytery, noted for being the birthplace or temporary residence of John Fordoun, author of the Scotichronicon; and of Palladius, who was sent by Pope Celestine into Scotland, in the 5th century, to oppose the Pelagian heresy. The chapel of Palladius, adjacent to the church, is 40 by 18 feet; at the corner of the minister's garden there is a well still called Pady's well; and an Annual fair in the neighbourhood is styled Pady-fair.

North of the village is a disused airfield that was active during World War II. A two-runway satellite for Peterhead airfield, Fordoun operated from 1942 to 1944.