SOME BACKGROUND ON THE PLACE OF BIRTH OF James PETER (PETERS)

PARISH OF TULLIALLEN, SCOTLAND
Tulliallan is a small coastal parish, which lies in Fife Council Area, some 5 miles (7 km) southeast of Alloa in Clackmannanshire and 6 miles (10 km) north of Polmont in Falkirk.

A detached portion of the county (Perthshire) existed before 1890, involving the parishes of Culross and Tulliallan. It is located in the old county of Fife, which disappeared following the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1974.

The parish has an area of 16.1 sq. km (6.2 sq. miles). Tulliallan has Clackmannan and Culross as its neighbouring parishes. The boundaries of this parish were modified among significant changes recommended by the Boundary Commissioners after the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889.

Tulliallan (Gael. tulach - aluinn, `beautiful knoll), a parish of SE Perthshire (detached), containing the small port of Kincardine, on the NE shore of the river Forth, 3 miles S by W of Kincardine station (in Clackmannan parish), this being 3¼ miles E of Alloa and 10 ½ WNW of Dunfermline. The ancient parish comprised only the barony of Tulliallan; but the present parish, since 1673, has included also the barony of Kincardine and the lands of Lurg, Sands, and Kellywood, which previously belonged to Culross parish. It is bounded W and N by Clackmannan, E by Culross, and S and SW by the river Forth. Its utmost length, from N to S, is 3 ¾ miles; its utmost breadth is 3 miles; and its area is 4176 ½ acres, of which 484 are foreshore and 1061/5 water. The surface slopes gently southward to the Forth. It comprises part of a gentle broad-based hill (324 feet), which has declinations to the N and NE, but is itself well sheltered in these directions by rising-ground and extensive plantations. The hill looks beautiful in both form and shelter, and is supposed to have given name to the parish. The coast, inclusive of curvatures, has an extent of 3 ¾ miles. From the western boundary to the New Pans the shore is level; and thence to the extreme E, it abounds in rocks which are either bare or covered with the tide. In 1823-39 a considerable extent of valuable land, as noticed in our article on Kincardine, was reclaimed from the tide by means of two extensive embankments. Nearly 500 acres are under wood; and almost all the rest of the area is either regularly or occasionally in tillage. The soil is variously reclaimed peat, moorish mould, coarse clay, fine loam, and rich alluvium. The rocks belong to the Carboniferous formation; and sandstone of excellent quality has long been worked in the vicinity of Longannet. Coal and ironstone also abound. Of the ancient castle of Tulliallan, 1 mile N by W of Kincardine, nothing remains but the ground story. It seems to have been a place of considerable strength, engirt by a moat, which communicated with the Forth. The lands of Tulliallan, long possessed by the Blackadders, in 1798 were purchased-by the distinguished admiral, the Hon. Sir George Keith-Elphinstone, K. B. (1747-1823), who in 1814 was created Viscount Keith, and who in 1818-20 built the noble modern castle of Tulliallan, 5 furlongs N by E of Kincardine. On the death of his elder daughter, the Baroness Keith and Nairne, and Comtesse de-Flahault (1788-1867: see Meikieour), Tulliallan passed to her half-sister, the Hon. Mrs Villiers, who in 1870 formed a second marriage with Lord W i am Godolphin Osborne, uncle of the -Duke of Leeds. Another mansion, Sands, is noticed separately. Tulliallan is in the presbytery of Dunblane and the synod of Perth and Stirling; the living is worth £327. The churches are described under Kincardine. Tulliallan public and Kincardine schools, with respective accommodation for 357 and 167 children, had (1884) an average attendance of 190 and 171, and grants of £177, 19s. and £149, 12s. 6d. Valuation (1866) £7847, (1885) £8969. Pop. (1801) 2800, (1831) 3550, (1861) 2410, (1871) 2184, (1881) 2207.—Ord. Sur., sh. 39, 1869.

KINCARDINE, SCOTLAND
Kincardine, a small seaport town in Tulliallan parish, SE Perthshire (detached), on low flat ground on the left or NE bank of the river Forth, 3 miles S by W of Kincardine station on the Stirling and Dunfermline section of the North British, this being 3 ¼ miles E of Alloa and 10½ WNW of Dunfermline. Occupying one of the best situations on the Forth, with a good quay and a roadstead 21 feet deep, where 100 vessels may ride in safety, it once, and for a long period, was the seat of commerce for nearly all places round the head of the Firth of Forth, precisely as Leith and Burnt. island are the seats of commerce for nearly all places round the southern and northern sides of the lower parts of the Firth. It commands a safe ferry, ½ mile wide, across the Forth; and, prior to the railway era, was the grand ferry station between Fife and Kinrossn shire on the one hand, and all the SW of Scotland on the other. Seventy years ago it carried on shipbuilding to so great an extent as sometimes to have from twelve to fifteen vessels on the stocks at once; and it still has a few ships, a rope and sail work, and two woollen factories; but its former extensive distillery, brewery, salt works, and collieries are now extinct or exhausted. It is a regular place of call for steamers on the passage between Stirling and Granton; ranks as a burgh of barony, under government of three bailies; and is the seat of a sheriff small debt court on the first Monday of February, May, August, and November. It contains some good, modern, slated, two-story or three story houses, but chiefly consists of red-tiled cottages; its environs are pleasant, with the ruins of Tulliallan Castle, its modern successor, and some good villas; but the town itself presents a very irregular alignment, and an unattractive appearance. At it are a post office under Alloa, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, a branch of the Union Bank, 6 insurance agencies, gasworks, 2 inns, and 3 schools. Tulliallan parish church, built in 1833 at a cost of £3400, is an elegant edifice, and contains 1176 sittings. A Free church contains 470, and a U.P. church, built in 1819 at a cost of £1200, contains 800 sittings. The distinguished chemist, Prof. James Dewar, F.R.S., was born at Kincardine in 1842. Two embankments were completed in 1823 and 1839, on the W and E sides of the town, for reclaiming valuable land from the tidal waters of the Forth. That on the W side is 11 feet high and 2020 yards long, cost £6104, and reclaimed 152 acres; while that on the E side is 16 feet high and 3040 yards long, cost nearly £14,000, and reclaimed 214 acres. Pop. (1841) 2875, (1851) 2697, (1861) 2169, (1871) 1983, (1881) 1985, of whom 1141 were females. Houses (1881) 506 inhabited, 55 vacant, 4 building.—Ord. Sur., sh. 39, 1869.

A village at the western extremity of Fife, Kincardine (known fully as Kincardine-on-Forth) is situated on the River Forth in Tulliallan Parish. Dominated by the high rise flats of Ramsay, Kincairne and Sandeman Courts, Kincardine was founded as a burgh of barony on reclaimed marshland in 1663. It developed as a river port trading in salt and as a centre of shipbuilding and quarrying.

Its attractive old town, which has many fine 17th and 18th-century houses and a mercat cross, is largely bypassed by the A985 road which crosses the Forth over the Kincardine Bridge which was built between 1932 and 1936 to a design by Alexander Gibb & Partners. The Gothic Tulliallan Parish Church built in 1833 replaced an older parish kirk with a tower dating from 1675, and Tulliallan Castle (1817-20), designed by William Atkinson, has been the home of the Scottish Police College since 1954. The Unicorn Inn was the birthplace of the physicist and chemist Sir James Dewar (1842-1923) who was the inventor of the vacuum flask, the first man to liquefy hydrogen gas and co-inventor of the explosive cordite.

The Kincardine Power Station, the chimney of which was also once a notable landmark, opened in 1962 but was demolished in 2001. Longannet colliery, the last deep mine in Scotland, lay 1¼ miles (2 km) to the southeast but closed the following year. The Longannet Power Station continues to operate.

Kincardine has an 18 hole golf course (Tulliallan Golf Club), a primary school, library and community centre.

NOTE: Details extracted from Scottish Gazeteer.


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