Tour Scotland 4K late Spring early Summer travel video, with Scottish music, of a road trip drive West on the A90 road then North on the B953 road on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to the historic parish church and graveyard in Abernyte, Perthshire, Britain, United Kingdom. The church is cruciform in shape. It stands on the site of a pre Reformation church. It was been renovated in 1672, then largely rebuilt in in 1736 by David Smart, a Dundee mason and James Morris, a local wright. In 1870 the architect Thomas Saunders Robertson extended and remodelled the church. He added a chancel to its south side, extended the north transept into what became a nave, and turned the ends of the 1736 church into east and west transepts. The end result was the Gothic styled, cruciform church you see today. The surrounding churchyard is home to some early 18th century gravestones. David Smart was born in Alyth, Perth and Kinross, in 1824. he worked for many years in the office of David Bryce. It is rumoured that a disagreement in that office resulted in Smart leaving to take over the practice of William Macdonald Mackenzie from his widow in 1858. The quarrel was settled amicably. By the late 1870s, Smart was worked with a relative, James Smart, who was his partner from around 1887. Their firm was D & J Smart. The partnership was dissolved shortly before the turn of the century, possibly due to the readmission of James Smart's son. David retained the office at 42 Tay Street in Perth, while James opened his at 28 York Place, Perth. In 1907, David Smart began a partnership with his senior assistant Donald Alexander Stewart, born 1876, who had been articled to Smart since 1892. The firm became known as Smart & Stewart. Smart retired around 1911 at the age of 86.
Thomas Saunders Robertson was born in 1835 at Blairgowrie and educated at Perth Academy. He was articled to Charles Edward in.1851. Around 1857 he joined J Anderson Hamilton who had acquired what was left of Playfair's practice in Edinburgh and thereafter probably worked for a time in England, returning to become Edward's partner He practised in Dundee in partnership with Thomas Saunders Robertson from at least April 1859 when Edward & Robertson advertised for contractors for Rathillet UP Church. He was a member of the Fine Art Committee of the British Association meeting of 1867. He was also a keen angler, curler and golfer. In the 1870s Robertson was co-owner with the solicitor J P Kyd of four houses in Grove Road, Broughty Ferry, which were presumably acquired as an investment. Either in 1867 or possibly earlier the Dundee industrialist and art collector G B Simpson introduced Robertson to the painter William McTaggart. They became close friends, frequently going sketching together, particularly at Carnoustie in the spring and autumn, and McTaggart’s teaching greatly improved Robertson’s skills as a watercolourist. In 1872 McTaggart painted a portrait of Robertson’s daughter Nellie, exhibited at the RSA in 1873, which was in the possession of Mrg Agnew in Walsall in 1917. After McTaggart’s death Robertson wrote reminiscences of their friendship which were published in the Dundee Courier and Glasgow Herald and have been drawn upon by subsequent writers. Robertson was also closely associated with another of McTaggart’s main patrons, the art collector, mill owner and iron founder, James Guthrie Orchar, who appointed him as one of the Trustees of his will and specified him as the architect of a new Established Church and a gallery to house his pictures on the expiry of Mrs Orchar’s life rent of his estate, both in Broughty Ferry. In the event Mrs Orchar lived on until 1916, and the Trustees could afford to build neither of these. Like Edward before him, Robertson lived in considerable style in West Ferry, first at Riverview and later at Balmyle: but by the early years of the twentieth century Robertson had little architectural employment and had become mainly a water-colourist. He retired in September 1904, and diminishing income eventually compelled him to live in a more modest fashion at Willowbank, Camphill Road, where he died on 2 March.
The A90 road originates in Edinburgh, it the travels west and over the Forth Road Bridge, before turning into the M90 motorway. At Perth, the M90 again becomes the A90, now running north east to Dundee and through the Kingsway road system. It then passes Forfar, Brechin, Stracathro, the site of an ancient Roman Camp, Stonehaven, Bridge of Muchalls, where the Burn of Muchalls flows under, near Muchalls Castle, near Saint Ternan's Church, Newtonhill, Portlethen, from there through the city of Aberdeen, crossing the Ythan Estuary, on to Peterhead on its way to Fraserburgh. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. Find things to see and do in Scotland where you are always welcome. When driving on Scottish roads in Scotland slow down and enjoy the trip
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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