Creich and Luthrie North Fife

Creich church today 7th January 2010.

EXCERPTS FROM THE 1861 PAROCHIAL DIRECTORY FOR FIFE AND KINROSS

PARISH OF CREICH 150 years ago.

CREICH is a small Parish in the north of the County, containing the villages of Luthrie and Brunton. It reaches to within less than a mile of the Firth of Tay. It is bounded on the north by the parish of Flisk, on the east by Balmerino and Kilmany, on the south by Moonzie and Monimail, and on the west by Abdie and Dunbog. Its length northward is about three miles, and its breadth about two miles. The surface is a congeries of hills of various forms and sizes, none higher than about 550 feet above sea level, some being cultivated to the summit, others covered with wood, and others rocky or moorish. Two of the summits, Black Craig and Green Craig, command superb views of the bason of the Tay, away to the Sidlaws and the Grampians. The Parish is drained by the head streams of the Motray, a tributary of the Eden. Whinstone and graystone are quarried. The estate and castle of Creich, the ruins of which stand on the north end of the Parish, anciently belonged to the Bethunes, of which family was Janet Bethune, the Lady Buccleuch celebrated in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," and Mary Bethune, one of "the Queen's Four Marys." The Rev. Alexander Henderson, celebrated for his great talents and staunch opposition to Episcopacy, was born in this Parish, in 1583. On a little eminence near the Church are the vestiges of a Roman Camp, with two lines of circumvalation, and about a mile further west, on a higher hill, is another of the same kind.

The Parish Church, which is near Luthrie, was built in 1830-32. It is a handsome structure, and contains 252 sittings. There is a Free Church, jointly for Creich and Flisk, at Brunton. In addition to the Parish School which is at Luthrie, there is a Free Church School at Brunton.

The inhabitants are chiefly employed in agricultural and other out-door labours; there are also a few weavers and other tradesmen in Luthrie and Brunton.

The POST TOWN is Cupar, with Sub-Offices at Luthrie and Brunton. The Sub-Post Masters are David Smith, Luthrie, and John Heggie, Brunton.- A walking postman leaves Cupar about 9.20 A.M., and delivers letters along the route by Moonzie to Luthrie and Brunton. He leaves Brunton on his return at 2.55 P.M., and Luthrie at 1.19 P.M., and reaches Cupar in time for the afternoon's earliest despatch. This has been superseded by a postman in a van from Cupar
though the delivery times have not changed.

Star Bank Luthrie North Fife. Star Bank which lies to the East North East of Luthrie.