BRECHIN, a town of Scotland, in the county of Forfar and parish of Brechin, is situated on the face of a hill about the centre of the parish, on the left bank of the River South Esk, which is crossed below the town by a stone bridge of two arches. Brechin consists of one main street running north and south, with several smaller streets. On the south, the town is continued by two suburbs named the Upper and Nether Tenements, which hold in feu of the families of South Esk and Panmure.
This town is said to have been the capital of Pictavia, and the royal seat of the Pictish kings; and the hill of Catterthun, about four miles north of the town, surrounded with an immense coronal of loose stones, is supposed to have been a fortification belonging to that ancient nation. In the earliest record extant, the name of the town is spelt as at present; but as in the days of St Columba there was a noted Druid of the name of "Broichan," probably the town may have derived its appellation from some such source. The Culdees are reported to have had a convent here; and their abbot Leod was witness to the grant made by King David to his new abbey of Dunfermline. In after-times the Culdees gave way to the Mathurines or Red Priests, the ruins of whose house, according to Maitland, are still to be seen in the College or Chandry Wynd.
Brechin was founded into a bishopric by David I. about
1150. At the Reformation its revenues amounted in Brechin money and kind to £700 per annum; but after that event they were miserably reduced by various grants, and mainly by the alienation of lands and tithes, by Alexander Campbell, the first Protestant bishop, to his chieftain the Earl of Argyll. In 1572 James VI. with consent of John Earl of Morton, Regent, founded an hospital in the burgh. "Mr George Buchanan, pensioner of Crossragwell," is one of the witnesses to the grant, which was ratified by his majesty in 1587, when he attained majority. The magistrates and council are patrons of this charity, from which they give a small weekly allowance to the poor, no hospital apparently having ever been erected. William de Brechin founded a chapel in 1256, called Maison de Dieu. Albinus, bishop of Brechin in the reign of Alexander II. was witness to the grant. Parts of the walls of the chapel still remain in the Maison Dieu Vennel, a little west of the High Street, and prove that the chapel had originally been an elegant little building. The house itself, and the property about it, with the superiority of some other lands, are generally gifted by the crown to the rector of the grammar-school during his incumbency, who hence takes the title of preceptor of Maison-dieu. The cathedral, which is now used as the parish church, was originally a handsome Gothic building; but its appearance has been much injured by modern "improvements." The steeple attached is a noble-looking square tower, with an octagon spire, rising to the height of 128 feet. Close to the church stands the round tower, one of those singular structures which are generally supposed to have been places of look-out belonging to the Picts, although their real use has long baffled the research of antiquaries. These towers are peculiar to North Britain and Ireland; in the latter they are frequent, in the former only two at this time exist, one at Brechin and another at Abernethy. There is no stair in the Brechin tower, and the only access to the top is by means of six ladders placed on wooden semicircular floors, which rest on circular projections within the tower. The height from the ground to the roof is eighty-five feet, the inner diameter within a few feet of the bottom is eight feet, and the thickness of the wall at that part four feet two inches, so that the whole diameter is nearly sixteen feet; the circumference is very near forty-eight feet; the inner diameter at top is six feet seven inches, the thickness of the wall two feet ten inches, and the circumference thirty-eight feet eight inches. These proportions give the building an inexpressible elegance. The top is roofed with an octagonal spire eighteen feet high, which makes the whole height of the building 103 feet. Certain it is, that during strong winds this tower has often been observed to vibrate. A stone built into the wall of the church-yard, evidently modernized, but most probably copied from an older stone, records, in not inelegant Latin, that during 1647 six hundred persons died of the plague in Brechin in the course of four months.
Within the burgh there is a house said to have been a Hospitium of the knights templars, now appropriately used as an inn. These knights seem to have had some lands in the neighbourhood, as there is a piece of ground close by Brechin bearing the title of Temple Hill of Bother. A little to the north of this last-mentioned place is Huntly Hill, remarkable for the battle fought there between the Earls of Huntly and Crawford, in consequence of the rebellion raised in 1452, on account of the murder of the Earl of Douglas in Stirling Castle. The victory fell to the royalists under Huntly, who has hence given his name to the ground.
Brechin Castle, the seat of Lord Panmure, stands on the brink of a perpendicular rock overhanging the South Esk, a little to the south of the town. This castle was
besieged by the English under Edward I. in 1303, and was for twenty days gallantly defended by Sir Thomas Maule, ancestor of the family of Panmure, who was slain by a stone thrown from an engine placed on the opposite rising ground, when the castle was instantly surrendered. The south front of the castle above the river presents a romantic mixed mass of buildings, covered with ivy, and showing some remains of the original structure. The west front forms a regular building, in the style of the seventeenth century.
Brechin was burnt by the Danes in 1012, and by the Marquis of Montrose in 1645. At present it has a neat appearance, the excellent free-stone quarries in the vicinity giving every opportunity for substantial erections. The chief manufactures of this place consist of various branches of the linen trade. There is also an extensive distillery in the town, and a smaller one in the immediate vicinity; and at the mills of Brechin a good deal of wheat is ground for distant markets. Brechin has a market every Tuesday, which is well frequented by dealers in grain. About a mile from the town, on the Trinity Muir, four annual fairs are held, the principal of which takes place in June. The town is governed by a provost, two bailies, a dean of guild, seven merchant and two trades' counsellors. This burgh is the seat of a presbytery, and, besides the Presbyterian church, it contains a neat Episcopal chapel, two meeting-houses belonging to the United Associate Synod, one belonging to the Original Seceders, and a Relief chapel. There is an endowed grammar-school under a rector, and a parochial school under two teachers besides assistants, with several private schools, in the town.
Maitland, the laborious historian of Edinburgh and London, and Dr John Gillies, the historian of Greece, were natives of this place. James Tytler, an eccentric and unfortunate personage, one of the contributors to the early editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was born in the immediate neighbourhood. The population of the town and Tenements in 1831 was 5060. Brechin is eight miles from Montrose, thirteen from the county town of Forfar, forty-two from Aberdeen, and the same distance from Perth. Long. 2. 18. W. Lat. 56. 40. N.