Findhorn
Encyclopedia
Findhorn is a village in Moray
Moray
Moray is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland.- History :...

, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It is located on the eastern shore of Findhorn Bay and immediately south of the Moray Firth
Moray Firth
The Moray Firth is a roughly triangular inlet of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotland...

. Findhorn is 3 miles (5km) northwest of Kinloss
Kinloss
Kinloss is a village in Moray, Scotland. It is located near the shore of Findhorn Bay, around 3 miles from Findhorn and 2.5 miles from Forres. RAF Kinloss is located northeast of the village, and is transitioning to an Army barracks.The Cistercian Kinloss Abbey was created in 1150 by King David...

, and about 5 miles (9km) by road from Forres
Forres
Forres , is a town and former royal burgh situated in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately 30 miles east of Inverness. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions...

.

The Findhorn Foundation
Findhorn Foundation
The Findhorn Foundation is a Scottish charitable trust registered in 1972, formed by the spiritual community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, one of the largest intentional communities in Britain....

, an educational charity and the associated ecovillage
Findhorn Ecovillage
Findhorn Ecovillage is an experimental architectural community project based at The Park, in Moray, Scotland, near the village of Findhorn. The project's main aim is to demonstrate a sustainable development in environmental, social, and economic terms...

 are located to the south of the village.

History

Original settlement

The existing settlement is the second village to bear this name, the original having been a mile to the northwest of the present position and inundated by the sea. This transposition was not an overnight catastrophe but a gradual withdrawal from the earlier site during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Some sources (e.g. Graham), claim it is the third village to bear the name, perhaps erroneously assuming that the seventeenth century destruction of the nearby Barony of Culbin by shifting sands resulted in an earlier relocation.

Although surely Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic language
Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....

 in origin the derivation of the word "Findhorn" is not absolutely clear. It may be a corruption of Invererne and mean 'at the mouth of the river Erne' or Fionn-Dearn, "the white river Dearn", or perhaps Fionn simply referred to the white sands and breaking waves which dominate the shores.

Major seaport

In the seventeenth century Findhorn was the principal seaport of Moray and vessels regularly sailed to and from all parts of the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 and as far as the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

 Ports. Changes to the narrow and shallow entrance to the Bay created obstacles to navigation and as the size of trading vessels increased so the volume of trade to the village declined.

Findhorn Bay witnessed a brief episode in the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion
Jacobite rising
The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by...

. In March 1746 the French brigantine Le Bien Trouvé entered the tidal waters with dispatches for Bonnie Prince Charlie
Charles Edward Stuart
Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...

 but her departure, with the Prince’s aide-de-camp on board, was delayed by the arrival of two British men-o’-war
Man of war
The man-of-war was a Royal Navy expression for a powerful warship from the 16th to the 19th century. The term often refers to a ship armed with cannon and propelled primarily by sails, as opposed to a galley which is propelled primarily by oars...

. Unable to enter the shallow bay, the two warships lay in wait in the Firth. Somehow Le Bien Trouvé slipped out and away to safety on a dark night. The name is recalled in the modern-day training gig
Captain's Gig
The captain's gig is a boat used on naval ships as the captain's private taxi. It is a catchall phrase for this type of craft and over the years it has gradually increased in size, changed with the advent of new technologies for locomotion, and been crafted from increasingly more durable...

 of the same name which is based at Findhorn.

Fishing village

During the nineteenth century fishing predominated. During the 1829 floods known as "The Muckle Spate
Muckle Spate (1829)
The Muckle Spate was a great flood in August 1829, which devastated much of Strathspey, in the north east of Scotland.It began raining on the evening of 2 August 1829, and continued into the next day when a thunderstorm broke over the Cairngorms. To the south, the River Dee rose rapidly above its...

" five Findhorn fishing boats rescued Forres
Forres
Forres , is a town and former royal burgh situated in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately 30 miles east of Inverness. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions...

 residents. For a few years (1860-9) there was a branch railway line to the village to take advantage of the herring fleet.

Modern times

The early twentieth century saw a decline in fishing as the traditional two-masted zulus were in their turn being replaced by larger vessels. Some of the craft, 'temporarily' beached on the western shore of the Bay whilst their crews fought in the First World War, were never used again. The wreckage is still visible at low tide. The shore-based salmon fisheries lasted until the 1980s but they too are no more. Today the village is a dormitory suburb and leisure craft dominate the moorings.

The Crown and Anchor Inn, dating from 1739, is the oldest surviving structure in the village. Other prominent buildings of note include Findhorn House built in 1775, which is the home of the Royal Findhorn Yacht Club, The Kimberley Inn, the James Milne Institute, The Universal Hall at the Findhorn Foundation
Findhorn Foundation
The Findhorn Foundation is a Scottish charitable trust registered in 1972, formed by the spiritual community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, one of the largest intentional communities in Britain....

and the ice house Heritage Centre.

External links

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