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NEWSLETTER No 21 OCTOBER 1997

THE SESSION HOUSE BAND

Summer's end is the perfect time to salute an unsung band of Dunningites who every summer perform an invaluable village service. On Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays from June until September they're to be found in pairs at the session-house by the gate of St. Serf's Church ready to guide visitors through the old graveyard and kirk. Hundreds of summer visitors are drawn to the village by road signs advertising St. Serf's and Dunning. Historic Scotland is responsible for maintaining the closed church, the Council for the closed churchyard. But it was through combined efforts of the Community Council and Dunning Parish Historical Society, spearheaded by Ken Laing and Peter Duncan, that a visitor service started. The Society's publication of gravestone inscriptions helped immensely in regularising 5 years ago what started off as an occasional service. This year's rota of volunteers included Ken & Greta Laing, Peter & Alma Duncan, Judi Slater, Kay Williams, Ian & Katie Lambie, Christine Dickson, Dorothy Wilson, Colin & Jane Young, Tony Keene, Alex Herd, Nan Ross, Isobel Barnett, Jim Smith, Jim Dykes, Albie & Shona Sinclair, Lorne & Patricia Wallace, Peggy Smith and Roma Roy. To date, visitors from over 25 countries and many parts of the U.K. have been guided. Hats off to everyone who has served as a session house volunteer!

LOTS TO REPORT, SO THIS IS A SPECIAL EXPANDED EDITION!
A SUMMER OF SUCCESSES

Our summer activities started wetly with a jaunt into the Ochils in heavy June rain. Led by Ken Laing and David Doig, 17 trekkers persisted and despite the damp considered it a very successful visit to old Ochils hill farms (see page 3).

In July our second traditional Barn Dance again drew capacity attendance of three hundred. Chair Ian Philip of Leadketty provided not only the venue but the leadership which inspired the committee, other members and volunteers to another great co-ordinated undertaking. A fine entertainment and a great community event, representing a lot of work, efficiently performed by the committee and friends. And what's more, it raised £1100 for Society projects!

It was committee member Jim Smith who had the bright idea of the DPHS sponsoring a Flower Festival in St. Serf's on the weekend that nationally-organised pilgrims arrived here to celebrate the ministry of St. Serf. The committee also suggested that on the Flower Festival's second day we invite a special group of visitors, Dunning's wartime evacuees and their spouses. But while your Society backed and underwrote the event, it was with the generous support of many Dunning organisations and many hardworking individuals that the Festival was developed and staged. Altogether eighteen Dunning organisations took part in putting up displays (the WRI, Monday Club, Golf Club, Community Association, Community Council, Tennis Club, Cub Scouts, Dunning in Bloom, Parent-Teachers Association, Flower Show Committee, Bowling Club, Freemasons, Dunning Parish Church, St. Serf's Community Church, Toddlers Group, Playgroup, plus the Historical Society and the Evacuees.

And it all turned out to be a great success, with an estimated 700 weekend visitors unanimous in praising the brilliant display of 49 large arrangements of flowers. Afterwards, there were well-attended sociable teas in the Village Hall, and an informal meeting with evacuees and their families (see page 8).

With St. Serf's pews all cleaned and polished for the Flower Festival, it was a treat to attend a couple of weeks later to hear our first Society speaker of the new season. In a setting with many memories of the Rollo family, Cameron Rollo, Rollo clan archivist, told us of the family history. How good to see the church used for both the Festival and for Cameron Rollo's talk! Let's hope the Society continues its efforts to find speakers and events to suit the otherwise unused facilities of St. Serf's, in co-operation with Historic Scotland.

MIDSUMMER MADNESS

A report by Ken Laing on our June field trip in the Ochils

Broadheadfold Line drawing

-Sketch of Broadheadfold, 1997, by Ken Laing

Billed as a natural history walk around Greenhill for Midsummer Day, it seemed fated from the start: the proposal to walk the old coach road from the Knowes along the Thorter Burn had to be abandoned due to forestry and landscape changes. The chosen alternative was to take in Blaeberry Toll, then the old farmsteads of Broadheadfold and Knowehead in the May Valley and back by way of a forestry walk over Craigbakie.

Midsummer morning arrived with heavy rain and mist shrouded hills. On or off? A call to Ron Taylor at Blaeberry Toll elicited the news that the rain was slackening and he could now see the hills. A visit from Ian Philip simultaneous with a call from Davie Doig and it was decided to carry on. In the square, any misgivings about the sanity of this decision were well concealed, but it was a somewhat doubtful and hesitant group that set out from the Craigbakie car park for Blaeberry Toll. Five minutes later, an already wet and bedraggled group arrived at the Tollhouse. Ron's slackening rain had tightened up and the hills were nowhere to be seen! However the welcome from a somewhat astonished Ron and Ann was warm and encouraging.

Ron proudly showed us the huge, pyramid topped stone post, still complete with its irons, which was one of the pair once supporting the toll-gate. He said that one day he might have it re-erected, and perhaps if he could find the other post and erect them with a gate it would be a splendid historical attraction and even more realistic (and profitable) if it was made operational! A local rival to the Skye bridge! Davie and Ron pointed out traces of the old tracks and roads which crossed these hills before the present modern road was constructed and Ann, in traditional custom, produced some delicious shortbread to hearten the travellers on their way.

Ten minutes later, after a steady trudge up the old Knowehead Road, we were at the lochan where we expected to see our first wildlife. In warm sunshine, on the previous morning's recce, my wife Greta and I had been rewarded with families of wigeon, gadwall, mallard and coot whilst the black-backed gull colony shrieked their alarm calls overhead, their white plumage brilliant in the sun. This day the contrast could not have been greater: a few unidentifiable shapes glided reflectionless in and out of the murk like ghost ships, and the gulls whirled wraithlike through the mist like shrieking banshees. The smaller lochan was a sodden sea of algae, flowerless lilies and flattened reeds.

Back on the road, with a 4 to 5 kilometre walk ahead, was this the time to call it a day? Whether out of bravado or a feeling that conditions could only improve we moved on up and over the shoulder of Cock Law to the march (boundary) dyke. Only the yellow of the broom and gold of the gorse relieved the gloom, the colourful wildflowers of yesterday having the sense to keep their heads down. We pondered over the time, labour and material involved in the construction of many miles of these drystane dykes which crisscrossed the hills, but Davie explained that the material was all at hand and at regular intervals along the line could be seen the small outcrops and quarries where the rocks had been cut and blasted. Davie also recounted the occasion one winter when he had walked over this same spot with the fence and dyke buried many feet below in deep snow.

Down the hill and turning into the Broadheadfold road we diverted into the long soaking grass to avoid a truck loading timber. Yes, even in these conditions, forestry clearing was going on.

The weather was disputing our earlier surmise that conditions could only improve on such a dreich day, but the company seeming anything but cheerless, as small groups, spread out along the road, found so much to chat about that, unheedful, the leading group strayed past the turn-off.

An incongruous landmark here was a large rusting scaffold framework used as a platform by marksmen to elevate themselves above the open forest roads out of sight of unsuspecting deer passing below.

Broadheadfold was reached passing the mill-dam on the left with the water channel leading to the sluice and old mill-house with the large hole in its wall through which passed the mill-wheel shaft leading to the grinding machinery-- all long gone. The outbuildings, forming three sides of a courtyard as a protection against weather, and the largish substantial farm-house, are now ruins. The stout house roof, double collared to withstand snow and wind loads is a skeleton of rotting timber, yet the chimney heads with tall ornamental pots still stand. Noticeable were the sandstone sills, lintels and other stone dressings, which would have been brought from some distant quarry as the local hard stone of which the carcass walls were built could neither be cut nor shaped.

Here we lunched--some standing, some sitting on the crumbled outhouse walls and one, confident in the waterproofing of his outfit, lay nonchalantly in the long wet grass! Optimistically, photographs were taken. As we headed down to the low road for the walk to Knowehead, it seemed to be fairer. But perhaps it just wasn't raining so heavily!!

On a clear day, Knowehead can be seen from the road we were on with a background across the May of the ruins of Bankhead, Rashiehill and Lategreen, behind which rises the prominent top of Innerdownie Hill. This day nothing could be seen through the mist.

Although fairly ruinous the farmhouse roof is still intact and most of the group ventured inside. Rebuilt in the early 1800's, the house was, for then, substantially constructed and well-appointed. Rooms were of good size, walls had been lathed and plastered and traces remained of moulded ceiling cornices. Fireplaces were in all rooms and the stair was wide and easy going with a most necessary ample larder under.

Knowehead, and the Rutherfoords who occupied it for many years, has a long, traceable history. The oldest headstone in St. Serf's graveyard, and reputably in Scotland, dated 1623, is to Thomas Rutherfoord and only last year an American insurance executive, Thomas Rutherfoord Jr., and his father Thomas Sr., arrived in the village with a copy of a 16th century feu charter for Knowehead in the family name.

Broadheadfold, Knowehead and all the other May valley homesteads repeatedly appear in the Cromwell Rentals (1650), Hearth Tax Roll (1694) and the censusses from 1841. All were thriving centres of agricultural activity, but with their remote location and indifferent soil, life must have been very hard and the living precarious. The tenant feuar's only income was from his crops and stock. The 1841 census records 23 people inhabiting Broadheadfold and 18 at Knowehead, including 10 year old lads and lasses employed as agricultural labourers and farm servants. The ruins along the May remain a poignant reminder of a way of life long gone.

So we leave a century and a half lost in the mist and head up the hill to the march and back to the cars. As one group disappeared into the mist ahead another straggling group emerged from the mist behind. On the brae the nonchalant young lad in the green weatherproofs admitted late nights were catching up and he was "puggled" athough he expressed this condition in more colourful terms!!

At the march we did not divert over Craigbakie as originally intended, but headed quickly past the lochans to the car park and after some farewell pleasantries headed home to hot baths and showers.

In the last newsletter an optimist asks "what pleasant experiences and unexpected discoveries will these (June) walkers make?"

For the experience, we can report that the company and conversations were excellent and we came to appreciate the situation and harsh life in these old settlements. Discoveries? The rain up there is very wet, the shortest distance between two points is not necessarly a straight line and the optimist's crystal ball is in urgent need of an M.O.T.

Thanks again to Ron and Ann for a cheering start to the expedition and thanks to all who braved the elements even though their Midsummer Night's dream of a glorious sunny day in the hills turned out a Midsummer Day's madness.

---Ken Laing, Bridgend, Dunning

ONTARIO HEARD FROM...

I really enjoyed George Dunn's episode of his young life in Dunning in the last newsletter. I hope Dunning is the same for the young people today, but we had no TV and I think we got a radio only when I was 5 or 6. I remember the fellow who came weekly from Auchterarder to top up the accumulators. We made our own fun, our parents didn't have to contend with marijuana, coke etc.. Oh well, time marches on...My daughter called last week truly excited. She's a great reader and had picked up a book at the Barrie library, "Druids' Sacrifice" by Nigel Tranter. It mentioned that the Druids had travelled back and forth through Dunning, Forteviot, Strathallan, the Ochils, and Culross and it mentioned St. Serf. Perhaps some other members might enjoy the book.

--Helen Laidlaw, R.R. 2, Old Brentwood Road New Lowell, Ontario Canada L0M 1N0

...AND AUSTRALIA

Your letter about the August Floral Festival and the evacuees' get-together was forwarded to my new address. Thank you very much indeed for the contact which I do appreciate. I think it is splendid that it is possible still to arrange these evacuee meetings, and memories flood in as I think of our time in Dunning so many years ago now. I was there as a teacher during the first evacuation and we arrived in Dunning a very bewildered band of pupils and teachers on 3rd September 1939. I have such lovely pictures in my mind of autumn colours in the area. We four young teachers used to walk around after school, enjoying the lovely countryside, during that strange time of the "phoney" war. How soon all that changed!

One of those four teachers was Mrs. Jenny Todd (nee Latto) and sadly, Jenny died last November. I think she had been in contact with the Historical Society. [Editor: yes, two years ago, Mrs. Todd recorded an audio interview with us recalling at length her experiences in Dunning].

---Mrs. Orma Burke (nee Campbell) 75 Yanderra Avenue Arana Hills 4054 Queensland, Australia

THE PATH WE CAME BY

"The Path We Came By" is the title of a fascinating new book partly about Dunning, now available for loan from the Bell Library Local History Dept. or the mobile library which visits Dunning. It's written by Robert Stevens of Toronto, and is the second volume of a series (the first volume,. by the same title, is also available in the library) based on extensive letters and other papers from his ancestors who left from Dunning and Auchterarder to settle in Ontario. Like the first volume, it's a clever and interestingly woven family history rich in detailed information about 19th century Dunning and Ontario. We thank Mr. Stevens for donating the copies on a recent visit here, and also for a generous gift to the Society. We're also pleased to welcome him as a new overseas member.

THE EVACUEES

A satisfying 19 evacuees along with spouses, children and grand-children showed up for the informal get-together during the Flower Festival, August 24. Apologies were received from several other evacuees unable to attend this year, including a letter from one evacuee now living in France and who expressed keen interest in future reunions. As tea was being served Sunday afternoon in the Village Hall, we briefly discussed plans for a possible sixtieth reunion of evacuees in Dunning on September 3, 1999, and what form such a reunion might take.

One of the most ambitious celebration plans put forward was the possible publication of evacuees' recollections of their days in Dunning, carefully prepared so as to be of interest to a wide audience e.g. schoolchildren in other places. Already we have several recollections on hand, and while the Flower Festival was going on a few more were gathered in interview form. Lorne Wallace is coordinating the project and asks any evacuees who still would like to jot down their memories or to record them in interview form, to please contact him at 01764 684 581. The memoirs will be published either as a book or as an attractive feature on our proposed history website.

A reunion subcommittee of the Society is being set up including Ted Dorsett, Liz Fletcher, and Lorne Wallace, and at the August 24 gathering the evacuees named George Boardman, Les McColl, Lily King and May McCusker to help this subcommittee in planning the future reunion.

SPECIAL VIDEO OFFER

Last year we sold over 100 copies of "An Introduction to Dunning, Perthshire" This year we offer you a programme entitled

"SOME DUNNING HIGHLIGHTS 1997"

including a look at some Historical Society activities during the past year like field trips, the Flower Festival and the Barn Dance. The video also includes coverage of certain community events: the 1997 Flower Show and the Duck Race. The price for you as a member is only £6.99 (£8.99 for non-members) (plus £1 for U.K./European postage/packaging/handling, £2.50 overseas).
**********

ALSO NOW AVAILABLE (IN ANY VHS FORMAT INCLUDING NTSC (NORTH AMERICA!!) ARE BACK COPIES OF OUR PREVIOUS DPHS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS:

The Evacuees (13'48" or 20'34")
The Return of the P.O.W. (11'12")
The Thorntree (8'14")
The Patient Art of Fieldwalking (13'48")
The Tattie Holidays (12'07")
Tattie Memories (17'20"), The Butler's Son (13'40")
An Introduction to Dunning, Perthshire (9')
Dunning '93 Flood (10')

YOU CAN ORDER A BACK COPY OF ANY TWO OF THESE PROGRAMMES ( IN ANY VHS FORMAT) ALSO FOR ONLY £6.99 (non-members £8.99) plus pph as above.
To order, please phone or write David Williams, Burnbank House, Kirkstyle Square, Dunning, Perthshire PH2 0RR, tel 01764 684 232.

OFFER GOOD FOR LIMITED TIME ONLY

Line drawing 4.3kb

"PERTHSHIRE VOLUNTEERS"

Sketch by John Robertson

Midsummer, David and Kirsty Halliday, members living in May Cottage, Newton of Pitcairns, donated to the Society's archives a military metal cap badge which they'd found in the garden of May Cottage. We asked longtime member Andrew Dickson of Perth Road, Dunning, who is an avid historian of things military, to write us a brief description of the Perthshire Volunteers,and John Robertson of Croft Place to draw the badge. Here are Andrew's notes:

The "Perthshire Volunteers" were known as the "Perthshire Volunteers National Guard", also as the "Perthshire Volunteer Regiment".

All regiments like this started as "Volunteer Training Crops" and were raised all over the country from August 1914 onwards. They wore green/grey uniforms and the glengarry.

In 1916 the "Volunteer Training Corps" became the "Volunteer Force". In 1918 much of the Volunteer Force was disbanded but the Perthshire Volunteer Regiment became the 5th and 6th Volunteer Battalions of the Black Watch and adopted their uniform and badge.

In a now out-of-print photographic book on Dunning, "A Village of Crossroads and Characters" by Lorne Wallace, picture #58 is captioned "A First War Home Guard?" It shows a group of local men who were members of the Perthshire Volunteers National Guard photographed at Invermay Estate on April 1, 1917, and says "The nickname 'Home Guard' (given to this group) is attested by two reputable Dunning witnesses. Their father was one of the Volunteers who drilled in the Cow Park much to the delight of the local children." The two reputable witnesses, not named in the book, were Mary Dougall, Old Bank House, and her sister the late Ina Hepburn of Findony.

THE WILD GEESE RETURN

By Walter Perrie of Dunning, reprinted by kind permission of the author from his 1997 book "From Milady's Wood" publ. by Scottish Cultural Press

Grey mist cancels the village
concealing the circling hills.
Under its shallow sky
the houses huddle closer
and somewhere
circling geese cry and cry...

The story is also dream:
cradle-song, love song, hymn
work-song, incitement, lament
boundary stones, ancestral
and somewhere
circling geese cry and cry.

Grey mist cancels the village
shrouding the path behind
as ever ahead we scry
phantoms of happiness
and somewhere
circling geese cry and cry...

Neither wish nor the story
proffers the longed-for gift,
asepsis, life without hurt
and mess of the mortal
and somewhere
a mountain hare screams
and the geese cry and cry.

Grey mist cancels the village
each cry muffles a question.
The pavements will not reply
with footstep notation
and somewhere
circling geese cry and cry...

the mist is autumn's changeling
as story, wish and song
are changeling human children
circling where we belong
and somewhere
a mountain hare screams
and the geese cry and cry.

THE WAY WE WERE, 1842 (PART 2)

Last issue, we reprinted the first part of the Rev. Dr. James Russell's description of his Dunning Parish in November 1842, and published in the Statistical Accounts of Scotland. Here is the conclusion of his account.

II. CIVIL HISTORY (CONTINUED)

Parochial Registers.--The first record of session begins 19th April 1691. The register of marriages begins 20th January 1709, and is discontinued after October 28th 1714. The register of baptisms begins May 16th 1708 and ends October 23rd 1716. These registers have been resumed at different dates, but have not the appearance of having been accurately kept. Indeed, the register of baptisms cannot be expected to be so, as few of the Dissenters record their baptisms, at least with the parochial clerk. Some improvement, however, particularly in the registration of banns, has taken place since 1783.

List of the Ministers of Dunning since the Reformation.--Mr. William Reid, ordained April 1691, died January 28, 1716; Mr. Lachlan McIntosh, ordained October 3, 1716, translated to Errol March 21, 1725; Mr. Andrew Smyth, ordained May 14, 1728, died January 31, 1761; Mr. Alexander Smyth, ordained September 24, 1761, died February 20, 1768; Mr. Lewis Dunbar, ordained 1769, translated to Kinnoull, November 7, 1782; Mr. John Baird, ordained February 27, 1783, died 1812; Mr. Charles Hardy, ordained April 20, 1813, died in the winter following; Mr. John Grierson, ordained 1814, translated to Dunblane 1818, Dr. James Russell, the present incumbent, ordained September 24, 1818.

Modern Buildings.--The only modern buildings are, the mansion-houses of Pitcairns and Garvock, both erected within the last 14 years.

III. POPULATION

In 1755(By Dr. Webster)1491
1797(By Sir. J. Sinclair)1600
1801(By Government)1504
1811Do.1723
1821Do.1876
1831Do.2045
1841Do.2125

There are three families of independent fortune who generally reside in the parish, and about ten proprietors of land above the yearly value of L.50.

IV. INDUSTRY

Agriculture.--The number of acres under tillage is not ascertained, and there is no land in undivided common. There are at least 200 acres planted, and the average rent of land is about L.2 per acre. Grazing is at the rate of L.4 per ox or cow for the summer half-year. Good labourers generally receive 10s per week, wrights 12s. Masons and other artisans are paid at the rate current in Glasgow and Perth. The system of raising white and green crops alternately is adopted, and the most skilful farmers interpose pasture between their rotations to insure a better return. The leases are generally for nineteen years. The farm-houses are substantial and commodious stone and lime buildings, roofed with slate.

Draining.--Draining has been extensively practised in this parish. The richest soils have been brought into cultivation by means of it. Upon the estate of Lord Rollo alone eighty acres of very superior land have been reclaimed by this process, which if let, would bring a rent of L.7 or L.8 per acre. The draining of this marsh land, which consisted originally of four separate and detached portions, containing about twenty acres each, was long deemed impracticable, from the want of sufficient declivity to carry off the water. The mode in which this was effected upon one of these swaps, called the White Bog, was as follows: The morass was intersected longitudinally by a drain eight feet deep, which collected and discharged the water into the channel of a neighbouring rivulet, about 80 yards distant. This apparently simple process was attended with difficulties. The bed of the stream, having a greater elevation than the marsh itself, required it to be greatly deepened. In consequence, it was found necessary to underbuild the foundation of a bridge five feet, where a public road crossed the stream. Again, at a point considerably above, the brook had formerly given off a supply of water to turn machinery, but which, by the deepening of the channel, was now cut off. Hence, one of two things became necessary, either to relinquish the use of the water for driving the mills, or to carry it forward at the same level as formerly by means of an aqueduct. The latter was preferred, care being taken to coat the bottom and sides of the aqueduct with clay, to render it impervious to the water. Thus terminated the labour of draining the White Bog. The substances composing the marsh were vegetable mould, clay etc. and were found to rest on a bed of sand. The channel cut for the water was 14 inches deep in this sandy stratum. The water everywhere flowed gently from the sand. The White Bog vanished, and in about one month from the time the operations were brought to a close, the boggy materials had shrunk several feet, exhibiting upon their surface cracks and fissures in all directions. This now valuable land was sown with oats the following spring, (1820), and the produce of about three acres being sold brought L.57, 10s. The remainder not being offered for sale was estimated at L.20 per acre. The whole was planned and brought to a successful conclusion by Dr. Martin, then factor to Lord Rollo; and it is a proud monument to the ingenuity and skill of that gentleman, that, in place of a dreary swamp, producing only what is noxious, there is now a smiling and luxuriant meadow, enlivening the landscape by its beauty, and yielding a liberal return to enlightened and well-directed enterprise.

Quarries.--There are several quarries of durable stone in the parish; and an extensive liver formation of white freestone has recently been discovered on the estate of Balquhandy, the property of Major J.G. Drummond. The Ochils abound with whinstone, and in the beds of the streams are found boulders and pieces of quartz.

Manufactures.--This parish contains three corn-mills, one flour-mill, a saw-mill, and a wool-mill, at which a considerable woollen manufactory is carried on, two malt-mills, a distillery, and a brewery. A great proportion of the inhabitants are weavers and are supplied with work from Glasgow.

V.--PAROCHIAL ECONOMY

The village of Dunning contains many substantial houses, and is held in feu from the Right Hon. Lord Rollo. It is placed under the superintendence of a baron-bailie, and enjoys the advantages of a post-office and a reading-room for newspapers. Of the latter there are 110 delivered weekly at the post-office. So lately as the year 1764, there was only one newspaper read in the whole parish. It was received by the family of Lord Rollo, who are still in possession of the first number ordered, and is entitled "The Craftsman, or Say's Weekly Journal". It sold at 2&1/2 d. including a halfpenny for duty. There is no jail, but in lieu of it there is that old-fashioned instrument of punishment called the jougs. The only other village in the parish is the new town of Pitcairns.

Ecclesiastical State.--The parish church stands in the village and affords accommodation for 1000 persons, the sittings all free. It was rebuilt and enlarged in 1810, is in a state of proper repairs, and convenient for the greater part of the population, being situated at the distance of one mile from the east boundary of the parish, two from the north, three from the west and five from the south. The patron is Lord Kinnoull.

The extent of the glebe is eight acres and a quarter; its annual value, L.20 Sterling. The amount of the stipend is 16 chalders, half meal and half barley, with L.8, 6s. 8d. for communion elements.

There are four Dissenting chapels in the parish, two belonging to the United Associate Synod, one to the Associate Synod of Original Seceders, and one to the Relief. Divine service at the Established Church is generally well attended, as it also is at the several chapels, with the exception of the Relief, which has had no stated minister for the last nine years.

Education.--There are five schools in the parish, the parochial and four unendowed schools. The branches of education generally taught are English, writing, arithmetic and Latin. The salary of the parochial teacher is the maximum. The fees are as under: for reading, 2s.; reading and writing, 2s. 6d.; arithmetic 3s.; Latin, 5s. The parochial teacher has the legal accommodation.

Poor and Parochial Funds.--The average number of persons receiving parochial aid is 20. The average sum allotted to each is 5s. per month. To meet this demand there are annual contributions, amounting to betwixt L.60 and L.70; church collections, storaging L.20; and assessments, L.40; with L.9 of interest from a sum of money.

Fairs.--Alehouses.--Fuel.--Dunning has 3 annual fairs. There are 13 alehouses in the parish. The inhabitants are supplied with coal from Blairingone, thirteen miles distant; and from Tillicoultry, sixteen miles distant. The price of a single-horse cart-load is at present 14s.

--The Rev. Dr. James Russell, minister, Dunning, dated November 1842.

(EDITOR'S QUESTION: DOES ANY READER KNOW THE LOCATION OF THE "WHITE BOG" REFERRED TO ABOVE? PLEASE TELL US.)

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NEXT ISSUE: A LOWER GRANCO RESIDENT RECALLS WHAT DUNNING WAS LIKE IN WORLD WAR II , WITH SOLDIERS STATIONED HERE. WRITER JOE TAYLOR KNOWS, FOR HE WAS ONE OF THEM.

THE DPHS 1997-98 AUTUMN/WINTER PROGRAMME

Thursday, October 23, 7 pm, Village Hall. "Highland Dress" is the colourful subject of what promises to be a lively presentation by Murray S. Blair. Mr. Blair, a Past President of the Old Glasgow Club, comes highly recommended by his fellow members at the Kinross-shire Historical Society.

Saturday, November 8, 10 am Village Hall. Another themed coffee morning with Village Sports the focus of our historical exhibits. The loan of photos and memorabilia relating to Dunning sports will gratefully be accepted the previous evening at the hall or by contacting Felicity Martin at 684 454. The exhibit will be open until 3 pm Saturday afternoon..

Thursday, November 20, 7:30 pm, Village Hall. Ken Murdoch has had a fascinating life, and tonight he tells us of a recent and ongoing project, his rebuilding of Methven Castle where he and his wife reside. (In the spring when weather improves we'll pay a follow-up visit to the Castle).

Thursday, January 15/98 7:30 pm Village Hall. Video Memories of Dunning. For several years, Ochil Gardens resident Bob Palmer has been using his patient skills as a video cameraman to record various village events. He has selected some of the highlights over the years to show us tonight.

Thursday, February 19, 7:30 pm Village Hall. Houses With Stories to Tell. Several members including Janet Crowe, Felicity Martin and Arthur Wright tell of their researches into the houses in which they live. Their homes are varied, and so are their stories.

Thursday, March 19, 7:30 pm Village Hall. Pictures Galore. The fine historic and photographic skills of Kirsty and David Doig combine with videos edited by Lorne Wallace (including the Village Tradesmen show shot in February 1997) to give us some interesting pictorial accounts of Dunning past.

Coming up in 1998: That promised visit to Methven Castle, another coach trip to exciting points yet unknown, a spring field trip, our May agm with a very special speaker, and much much more.

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