Tomintoul
Encyclopedia : T : TO : TOM : Tomintoul
Tomintoul from the Gaelic Tom an t-Sabhail (Hillock of the Barn) is a village in Moray, Scotland, formerly in the county of Banffshire.
It claims to be the highest village in Highland Scotland, but at 345 metres is still significantly lower than the highest in Scotland (Wanlockhead, Dumfries and Galloway).
The three hotels, restaurant, cafe, museum and handful of shops are scattered around the picturesque central square. Its current appearance is an improvement on that in 1860, when Queen Victoria recorded that it was the most tumbledown, poor-looking place I ever saw.
The village was laid out on a grid pattern by the 4th Duke of Gordon in 1775. It followed the construction, twenty years previously, of a military road by William Caulfield – now the A939. By 1841 the parish reached a population of 1,722. In 1951 this had fallen to just 531. The 2001 census reveals a village population of 322 with the total parish population now unavailable.
Despite its small size, it on the famed Whisky Trail, which also includes Dufftown, Keith, Tomnavoulin, and Marypark.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.