COUNTIES OF ELGIN AND NAIRN. 3 



and makes up about yjj part of the surface of Scotlaucl. There 

 are several detached portions of Nairnshire lying within the 

 boundaries of Morayshire. The largest of these sections has an 

 area of about 43J acres, of which about 14 acres is covered by 

 water. 



In 1873 there w^ere 537 owners of land, whose property was 

 120,765 acres, and estimated at £41,767 gross annual value. 

 Seventy owners possess each 1 acre of land and upwards, having 

 amongst them a total of 120,636 acres. The other 467 pro- 

 prietors hold lands less than 1 acre in extent, and measuring 

 in all only 129 acres, or on an average less than one-third of an 

 acre each. Morayshire contains twenty-two parishes, but six of 

 these are only partly within its boundaries. Of these six 

 parishes, which lie partly beyond the limits of this county, five 

 stretch for a considerable distance into Banffshire ; while Dyke 

 and Moy, which are usually regarded as one parish, extend into 

 the adjacent county of Nairn on the w^est. There are only two 

 royal burghs in the county, viz., Elgin and Forres, although 

 there are many villages of considerable importance. The royal 

 burgh, or city of Elgin, as it is frequently called, from the fact that 

 it has been the residence of a bishop, w4th a cathedral in it, is 

 pleasantly situated on the bank of the river Lossie, which in 

 passing Elgin runs through a beautiful sylvan valley. At an 

 early period the town seems to have stood further to the west, 

 at or behind what is now the site of the Infirmary and Lunatic 

 Asylum. Originally the town consisted of huts surrounding 

 Lady Hill, a mound at the west end of the town, about 100 feet 

 high, surmounted by a tall monument to the last Duke of 

 Gordon. Lady Hill was named from a church which was 

 dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and which once stood on the top 

 of it. There are now the ruins of a castle upon the summit of 

 this mound, which had been built of run lime, and the founda- 

 tion of which can still be traced, showing that it occupied the 

 whole top of the hill. When it was built it is impossible to say. 

 It w^as held successively by the Douglases, Dunbars, and also 

 the Lairds of Darnaway, who received certain customs from the 

 burgesses of the town. Kings of Scotland sometimes lived in 

 the castle of Elgin, as was the case with Malcolm III., but the 

 building has been in ruins for about 400 years. The town of Elgin 

 is supposed to have derived its name from Helgy, a Norwegian 

 general, for upon the town seal " S. Commune Civitatis D. 

 Helgyn " was engraved in Saxon characters, supposed to have 

 been done about the middle of the sixteenth century. The 

 cathedral, the principal feature of historical and architectural 

 interest in Elgin, was one of the most magnificent in Scotland. It 

 was founded in 1224, and the bishop removed from his residence 

 at Spynie to Elgin at that period. The ruins of the cathedral, 



