Ordnance Survey large scale Scottish town plans, 1847-1895
PERTH (surveyed in 1860)
Perth
lies on the west bank of the Tay, at the point where the river becomes tidal
and enters the Firth of Tay. The town took its name from 'Bertha', which was a
Roman fort about three miles to the north of the existing burgh of Perth.
'Bertha' is believed to derive from a Brythonic or Cumbric word meaning
'copse', 'wood' or 'thicket'. For four or five centuries Perth was also known
as 'St John's Toun', after the parish church established when the burgh was
first built. Perth was founded by David I circa 1125, at the lowest ford or
bridgepoint on the Tay. The town quickly grew in size and importance, becoming
the caput or centre of a Sheriffdom, gaining a castle, forming links with
significant religious foundations and establishing trading links with the
continent and other Scottish burghs. Despite being occupied by English troops,
and then partly destroyed whilst being recaptured by Robert the Bruce, by the
mid-fourteenth century Perth was, according to Smith (2001), one of the 'four
great towns' of Scotland, the others being Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen.
Its royal
residences and proximity to Scone, the traditional coronation place of Scottish
monarchs, gave Perth a claim to be the capital of Scotland, but in 1452 Edinburgh
was officially recognised as the capital, and the Scottish Parliament ceased to
meet in Perth. Perth's economic development faltered in the late-sixteenth and
early-seventeenth centuries, due partly to the silting of the Tay and outbreaks
of bubonic plague, but by 1665 prosperity in the town was rising again due to
the growth in the linen industry. Textile manufacture, and Perth's traditional
role as a trading and service centre, ensured that the town flourished in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in 1851 the population of the
parliamentary burgh of Perth was measured at 23,835.
The earliest
community in Perth lived along the west bank of the Tay, on the line of the
present Watergate (sheets XCVIII.5.9.-5.14.), where boats could be beached. The
burgh planned by David I was to the same design as many of the other early
Scottish burgh foundations, comprising a long high street, sloping east towards
an open market place (sheet XCVIII.5.9.), a few hundred feet above the main river
crossing. The castle was built just to the north of the marketplace, and St
John's church just to the south (sheet XCVIII.5.14.). Perth was unusual in
Scottish burgh development, however, in that a second major thoroughfare, South
Street (sheet XCVIII.5.14.), was added to the town very early in its
development. South Street ran parallel to the High Street, and the square
appearance this lent to Perth's streetscape led some antiquarians to believe
that the burgh must be of Roman origin. The two main streets were linked by
perpendicular secondary streets and vennels, and later development of the town
generally continued in this pattern, producing a compact, grid-like town
centre, bounded at either end by two public greens, the North and South Inches.
Defensive walls which surrounded the original town centre were still intact in
many places as late as the eighteenth century.
From its earliest
days Perth had a rich and diverse manufacturing base, which included leather
tanners, shoemakers, jewellers, potters, coppersmiths, weavers and dyers. The
success of these industries fluctuated, and different crafts or trades
dominated the burghal economy in different periods. By the late-seventeenth
century textiles had replaced metalworking as Perth's most significant
industry, and by the nineteenth century linen, flax and cotton were all being
spun, woven and bleached in Perth. The town's textile industry also facilitated
the success of Pullar's, specialists in silk dying, whose factory, first opened
in 1848, could by the 1920s claim to be the largest dyeworks in the world.
Sheepskin was another staple product of Perth, and glove-making was for a long
time its most notable specialist manufacture, although by the time the town was
surveyed the craft had largely disappeared.
Other industries in
the town in the mid-nineteenth century included umbrella gingham production,
shawl and scarf production, ink-making, rope-making, shipbuilding,
coach-building, iron-working, flour-milling, brewing, and most significantly,
distilling.
In 1846 John Dewar
had set up a wholesale wine and spirit business in Perth, and in 1851, Arthur
Bell joined Sandeman's, a small local drinks business of which he soon became
sole owner. By the end of the nineteenth century Bell's and Dewar's of Perth
were two of the most famous whisky distillers in the world.
Perth harbour, while
no longer one of the busiest Scottish ports by the mid-nineteenth century,
continued to see steady trade. Principal imports included Baltic and American
timber, bark, hides, flax, tar, coal, salt, lime, linseed, clover seed, cheese
and foreign spirits, while Perth's main exports were Scottish timber, oak-bark,
slate, pit-props, rails, potatoes, corn and manufactured goods.
The town was also an
important market centre for produce from the rich surrounding farmland. Markets
were held twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Fridays, and around seven fairs were
held every year, some specialising in the sale of sheep and wool, others in
cattle, butter and cheese and yet others in cattle and horses.
Perthshire contains
some of the finest farmland in Scotland, and in the nineteenth century various
agricultural improvements were carried out in the area, including better
drainage, the building of flood barriers on the Tay's flood-plain, and a new
six-year crop rotation cycle. The low-lying land immediately adjacent to the
town was mainly given over to arable farming, and the staple crops produced
were wheat, beans, barley, oats and potatoes. The cattle reared in the area
were either of the Angus or short-horned breed. According to the 1845 Statistical Account, no sheep were
reared in the parish of Perth.
Perth was not
significantly concerned in sea-fishing, but the Tay was famous for its salmon
fisheries, which in the mid-nineteenth century employed more than 450 men at
any one time. Later in the nineteenth century, grouse shooting also became a
profitable business for the hinterland of Perth.
The parish church of
Perth, St John's, has been the centrepiece of the town since its foundation,
and it is believed that a church building may have stood on the site from as
early as the fifth century. The mid-nineteenth century building was
substantially the same as the building that exists today, containing some parts
dating back to the twelfth century, and various later additions. As well as St
John's, there were four other established Church of Scotland buildings in 1850s
Perth, including St Leonard's, built in 1835 and one of the most distinctive building
in Perth, and St Stephens, where services were conducted in Gaelic. Other
denominations represented in the town included the Free Church, United
Presbyterians, Original Secession Church, Independents, Old Scotch
Independents, Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists, Glassites, Episcopalians and Roman
Catholics.
Perth Academy, the
foremost school in the town, was established as a fee-paying school in 1760. A
grammar school had existed in Perth since before the Reformation in 1560, and by
the mid-nineteenth century taught some subjects in conjunction with the
Academy. Other schools included an endowed school for poor children, an endowed
trades-school, a school of industry for destitute boys, a school of industry
for females, two infant schools, for girls and for boys, a ragged-school farm,
two further endowed schools and more than twenty unendowed schools throughout
Perth district.
The County Buildings
in Perth were built on Tay Street, facing the river, in 1819, and contained a
courtroom, county hall, committee room, tea-room, and various offices connected
to the courts. The council room and police office were situated at the east end
of the High street, and the Guild Hall and Freemasons' Hall were also situated
on, or just off, the High Street. The city and county prison, also erected in
1819, stood directly behind the County Buildings, and to the south of the South
Inch was located the general prison for Scotland (sheet XCVIII.9.4.),
originally built to house French prisoners from the Napoleonic Wars, and now
known as H.M. Prison Perth. King James VI's Hospital, endowed by the monarch
whose name it bears, stood on South Street and was rebuilt in 1750. The
infirmary stood on county place, at the west end of South Street, and the
lunatic asylum was built on the east bank of the Tay in the 1820s. The
waterworks, in a distinctive roundhouse overlooking the Tay at the foot of
Marshall Place (sheet XCVIII.5.19), were opened in 1830, and the Canal Street
gas-works were opened in 1824. In the 1850s nine different banking companies
had branches in Perth, and there were also numerous charitable societies and
friendly societies. Four weekly
newspapers were published in the town: the Perthshire
Courier, founded in 1809 and issued on Thursdays, the Perthshire Advertiser, founded in 1829 and issued on Thursdays, the
Perthshire Constitutional, founded in
1835 and issued on Wednesdays, and the Northern
Warder, founded in 1845 and also issued on Thursdays.
Perth made
some notable contributions to Scottish culture in the nineteenth century, as
the setting of Sir Walter Scott's 1828 novel The Fair Maid of Perth, and as the birthplace of the novelist John
Buchan (1875-1940) and the poet William Soutar (1898-1924). As befitting an
affluent town with a rich history, Perth was well served with social and
cultural amenities in the 1850s. The public library and museum were contained
in a fine domed building on George Street, the museum containing some valuable
artworks among its collections. The town also contained five other public or
circulating libraries, the literary and antiquarian society, a public newsroom,
and monuments commemorating Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott. A theatre opened
in 1820, various horticultural and agricultural societies were in existence,
and the sports clubs in the town included two curling clubs, a cricket club, a
golf club, and a racing and hunting society.
A
View of the Character of the People of Perth in 1845
'There are
some persons among us who openly profess infidel principles, and some, also,
who openly disregard all religious ordinances, and, what in this country is
uniformly symptomatic of an abandonment of all feeling of religious propriety,
there are some tradesmen who walk abroad on the Lord's day in their ordinary
working habiliments, as if to show a marked contempt of what the community in
general holds to be sacred. With the exception of these characters, who are
generally held in the lowest estimation by their fellow townsmen, the inhabitants
of the parish are entitled to the appellation of a moral and religious people.'
(from the Statistical Account)
Groome,
Francis H. (ed.), 1894-5. The Ordnance
Gazetteer of Scotland; a survey of Scottish topography, statistical,
biographical, and historical, 2nd ed., (London: William Mackenzie)
Mackay,
George, 2000. Scottish Place Names
(New Lanark: Lomond)
Smith, Robert,
2001. The Making of Scotland: a
comprehensive guide to the growth of its cities, towns and villages (Edinburgh:
Canongate)
Wilson, Rev.
John Marius (ed.), 1857. The Imperial
Gazetteer of Scotland or Dictionary of Scottish Topography (Edinburgh: A.
Fullarton & Co.)
Edina Website –
Online Statistical Accounts of Scotland - http://edina.ac.uk/statacc/