Kintore - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

KINTORE, a royal and police burgh of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 789. It is situated on the Don, 134 m. N.W. of Aberdeen by the Great North of Scotland railway. It is a place of some antiquity, having been made a royal burgh in the reign of William the Lion (d. 1214). Kintore forms one of the Elgin group of parliamentary burghs, the others being Banff, Cullen, Elgin, Inverurie and Peterhead. One mile to the southwest are the ruins of Hallforest Castle, of which two storeys still exist, once a hunting-seat of Robert Bruce and afterwards a residence of the Keiths, earls marischal. There are several examples of sculptured stones and circles in the parish, and 2 m. to the north-west is the site of Bruce's camp, which is also ascribed to the period of the Romans. Near it is Thainston House, the residence of Sir Andrew Mitchell (1708-1771), the British envoy to Frederick the Great. Kintore gives the title of earl in the Scottish, and of baron in the British peerage to the head of the Keith-Falconer family.