~ Scottish Place Names: ghi~

 Inverurie... 

The word "Inverurie" comes from the Scottish Gaelic Inbhir Uraidh meaning "Mouth of the Ury" after the river which joins the River Don just south of the town.

It was commonly spelt "Inverury" until the late 1800s when, it is alleged, it was altered to avoid confusion with the town of Inveraray in Argyll, on the south west coast of Scotland. The reason given was that  it was felt that "a" and "u" were particularly hard to distinguish in handwritten addresses.

Inverurie sits in the Don Valley at the centre of Aberdeenshire. The town straddles the River Don and the River Ury, is surrounded by farmland and lies only 4 miles (6.4 km) from Bennachie** 

Inverurie is said to have been founded by David of Huntingdon, Earl of the Garioch, brother of Malcolm IV, great-great-grandfather of Robert the Bruce who defeated the Comyns nearby at the Battle of Barra on Christmas Eve 1307.

Its religious foundation pre-dates this by five centuries with the establishment of the Kirk of Inverurie now known as St Andrew's Parish Church, though the town's earliest known charter dates from 1558.  Most of the town's modern development happened after the building of the Aberdeenshire Canal linking Port Elphinstone with Aberdeen Harbour in 1806. The Inverurie Locomotive Works (1905-1969) led to a modest increase in size and prosperity, but it was not until the "Oil Boom" of the last quarter of the 20th century that the town developed into much of its present form.

 ** Bennachie is the name given to a range of hills near Inverurie; the picture above, taken from the North, shows the the three main hiils. From the left, they are Mither Tap, Craigshannoch, Oxen Craig. The highest - Oxen Craig - climbs 1733 feet. Mither Tap has an Iron Age fort on its summit.

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