Annals of Arngask

Here are a few items of interest, taken from the Annals . . .

Before the Romans Came
Diodorus Siculus records that, between the Forth and the Tay, and in the Ochil district of Perthshire and in Lower Strathearn, lived the tribes of the Horesti (Ptolemy calls them the Dumnonii), "red-haired and large limbed." These Horesti figure more than most tribes in our meagre traditionary tales of early British warfare. They had mean habitations, constructed for the most part of reeds and wood. They grew corn, but their method of garnering the harvest was simple in the extreme, they cut off the ears of corn and stored them in subterranean depositories. They lived largely by the chase, and wealth was measured by the possession, not of land or money, but of cattle.

Roman Occupation
All these sites, Ardargie, Balmanno, Carmore, and Drunzie, were certainly in the "occupied zone" from about 85 to 115, and their strategic siting, as well as the evidence, supports the idea that they were Roman forts.

Arngask Placename
Although one authority on place names asserts that in 1250 the area was known as ARDGROSC, the oldest written form seems to be ARRINGROSK, the name of one of the several farms on the old Manor of Fourgie or Fargie.

The Village School - as related by James Skinner, metaphysician
At the age of six, Skinner went to the parish school. The schoolmaster was George Greig (whom Baxter came to assist in 1832). . . .
Greig, however, was a respectable man, and "no worse than his neighbours". Occasionally, "his stomach was apt to get a little chilly" and, for his comfort, "he was necessitated to swallow a cinder". In teaching, he never got beyond the three R's, and Skinner remarks that, of all Greig's pupils, he was the only one who ever went to college.

One Parish in Three Counties
Arngask now lies wholly in Perthshire, but, before 1891, when a Royal Commission made drastic changes in county boundaries, the parish was in three counties - Perthshire, Fife, and Kinross-shire. In 1890, the Parish Church was in Fife, the Free Church in Kinross-shire, and the School in Perthshire.

From Glenfarg to St Andrews Golf Course
Arngask gives birth to a river whose name is writ large in the history of that most Scottish of all games, golf. The Eden begins on the lands of Gallowhill, near Edenmount on the Duncrievie Road, and its head waters run along the east side of the Public Park. At this stage it is, naturally, just a trickle which hardly suggests the possibilities of importance. Running under a bridge at the foot of the Calfford Brae, it turns east round Carmore Farm, on to Burnside; thence it passes Gateside, Strathmiglo, Dunshelt, Pitlessie, Cupar, and Guardbridge, and finally, amidst world famous golf courses, it pours its waters into St. Andrews Bay.