Tour
Inchture In The Carse Of Gowrie
Just
south of the busy A.85 dual-carriageway between Perth
and Dundee, 7 miles west of the latter, is the village
of Inchture. As its name implies, once an island in the
flooded Carse of Gowrie. It must have been a very low island,
for its eminence is hardly noticeable in the level flats;
indeed the church and churchyard are alleged to be built
up 6 to 8 feet artificially, presumably to afford suitable
burial facilities in the early days. Tuir, in Gaelic
means a dirge, or lament for the dead, and it may be that
the original inch got its name thus; although another claimed
derivation is innis-t-ear, the island to the east.
Today there is a neat red-stone estate-type village, with
church, school, hotel and a shop or two, all under an avenue
of tall old trees, and rather attractive.
The parish church is distinctly
ambitious for so small a community; but the parish itself
is fairly large, and now incorporates the former parish
of Rossie. The Gothic building dates from 1834, and
is unusual in having handsome red ashlar stone at front
and sides, but only harling at the rear, an economy the
present author has not seen elsewhere in a church. It stands
amongst many ancient gravestones, with another Kinnaird
vault below the building, additional to that at the old
chapel at Rossie.
Most of the antiquities of this
parish are in the higher ground of the Rossie area, and
dealt with under that name. A battle was allegedly fought
near the ruined castle of Moncur, across the main road to
the north of the village, in 728, when in a civil war Hungus,
or Angus, defeated Nectan and gained the leadership of the
Picts.
The Parish covers 5330 acres,
of which no fewer than 1200 are described as foreshore
or have been reclaimed from the firth. A long dead-straight
road of 2 miles runs down over the rich flat cornlands
to salt water at Powgavie. Pow or poll is the name given
to the sluggish streams or stanks which drain the carse.
At Powgavie there was formerly a harbour, once quite important,
where there was a hamlet and alehouse, all now gone and
only a sea of reeds and rushes remaining. At low tide, the
Powgavie Burn winds its way out through the mud-flats and
sandbanks of Dog Bank for almost three miles. Some of the
farms in these fertile carselands have odd names-such as
Maggotland, Mammiesroom, Waterbutts and Unthank. At Grange,
3 miles south-west of Inchture, there is a sizeable community,
amongst scattered orchards and broiler-houses. Inchture
district is famous for the cultivation of strawberries.
All this Carse of Gowne, of course, claims the title of
the Garden of Scotland.
