Walk 2 – The Square

Tomintoul is the highest village in the Highlands and sits on a plateau above the River Avon (pronounced A’an) in the upper reaches of old Banffshire at about 345m above sea level. Tomintoul derives its name from the Gaelic tom-an-tsabhail ‘the barn on the hill’. In 2026 we celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the founding of our village.

In the 1770s Alexander, 4^th Duke of Gordon decided it was his duty as an improving landlord to establish a village on the land at ‘Tamantoul’, a small settlement (clachan) on the military road of 1754, with the intention of providing employment by developing a local linen industry. Thomas Milne surveyed the land in 1773, which marked the beginning of Tomintoul's planning.

The ‘spirit of improvement’ in 18^th century Scotland was the practical dimension of the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’, a widespread drive to modernize the nation's agriculture, economy, infrastructure, and society.

During the 18^th & 19^th centuries, Scotland saw the establishment of 490 planned villages and small towns. For landowners, new planned villages provided opportunities to diversify income from their estates and create employment and industry for a rural population that had become displaced by agricultural improvement. It was also a more efficient way to collect rent from tenants.

Tomintoul’s layout features a grid design with a central Main Street flanked by a parallel street on either side. It stands as one of the most well-preserved planned villages in Scotland and is unique in retaining its associated lotted lands, or 'feus'.

A ‘feu’ was a historical form of land tenure in Scotland where a feudal superior granted a piece of land to a feuar (vassal) in perpetuity in exchange for a perpetual annual payment. The main purpose of lotted lands was to give households enough land to grow crops like oats and turnips, as well as provide grazing for cattle and horses. The anticipated development of a linen industry in the local area, based on lint/flax cultivation, did not come to fruition, resulting in tenants becoming increasingly dependent on their leased land to sustain their livelihoods.

1. The Fountain

The Fountain has stood as a focal point in the village since 1915, presented to the people of Tomintoul by Dr Robert Grant ‘as a memento to his boyhood’. The fountain was made by the Lion Foundry in Kirkintilloch which manufactured ironworks (1880-1984) including red telephone and postal boxes. The lions’ mouths no longer spout water for the thirsty passerby, although we hope to restore this one day. There are two cast iron stools with the inscription ‘Step up bairns’ (bairn – Scots word for child). Dr Grant’s family still live in The Square today.

2. The Sheep Market

Regular sheep and cattle markets took place in The Square itself (see photo below) before a permanent ‘Mart’ was built on the east side of the village in the 1920s. Small local marts like Tomintoul declined and ceased during the 70s and 80s as larger modern auction markets took over. With its maze of stalls and pens, the old Sheep Market was always a favourite playground for local kids to entertain themselves and make mischief. It was dismantled in the 1990s.

3. Houses No. 1, 1A, 2, 3

These houses are located to the right of the road and were among the earliest homes constructed in the village during the late eighteenth century.

House No.1 is reputed to have been used as a temporary army barracks in its early days. During the 1940-50s it was owned and run by the Spalding family as The Corner Café. In 2003 the ‘Tomintoul Coat’ was discovered by builders in the attic space of the house.

The Tomintoul Coat  – dating from the 1820s the coat is believed to have been owned by a whisky excise officer or ‘gauger’, whose role it was to enforce taxes on alcohol production and crack down on illicit whisky production. In the early 1800s it is estimated that there were hundreds of small illicit whisky stills in and around Tomintoul and Glenlivet. The coat is on display in the Discovery Centre, be sure not to miss this!

The local minister of Tomintoul in 1797 wrote “Tomintoul is inhabited by 37 families, without any industry. All of them sell whisky and all of them drink it. When disengaged from this business, the women spin yarn, kiss their inamoratos or dance to the discordant sounds of an old fiddle”.

No.3 Mallory Cottage is one of the best preserved and unaltered houses in the village and remains one of the few early buildings to retain its late 18th century character. It is built with coursed field rubble and roofed with local Cnoc Fergan stone slates and is a Category C Listed Building.

4. The Richmond Arms Hotel

Tomintoul’s first Inn was built on this site in 1777, the current building, the Richmond Arms Hotel, dates from 1898.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the Richmond Arms was under the ownership of the McNiven family and gained recognition for its excellent salmon fishing on the nearby River A’an.  A popular destination for tourists, anglers, cyclists and skiers it enticed many of its patrons to return year after year. Amongst them were the authors W.E. Johns (creator of Biggles) and Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart (British Diplomat, author, secret agent… and Vice President of Tomintoul Golf Club).

‘For many years it has been the shrine of my annual pilgrimage north. Its old hotel, the Richmond Arms, can be recommended for the best poor man’s salmon fishing in Britain, and its proprietor, Duncan McNiven, an Argyllshire man with Campbell connections, is the best all-round fisherman that I have ever met.’ (Bruce Lockhart, My Scottish Youth 1937)

5. The Clockhouse

The Clockhouse building has long been a prominent part of the village. From 1898 Alexander MacIntyre and his family operated a thriving business at the premises for over 50 years, offering groceries, wine and spirits, drapery, hardware, stationery, seeds, and early fuel pumps for motorists.

In 1958 the business was bought by Peter Campbell and family who continued to provide a successful and vital outlet for the local community over the next 20 years as ‘Campbell’s Corner Store & Glenlivet Whisky Depot’: “We stocked everything from nails to rat poison – you name it, we had it”. Peter also sold his very own blended whisky ‘Campbell’s Tomintoul Special’; his family still live in The Square.

6. Old Cyldesdale Bank Buildings

ld Clydesdale Bank Buildings In the late 1980s a stranger calling himself Lord Williams arrived in the village and began to buy up local properties and businesses and investing heavily in their repair and restoration, including The Clockhouse, Mallory Cottage, Gordon Arms Hotel and the Old Fire Station.

Anthony Williams, known as ‘The Laird of Tomintoul,’ was in fact a finance officer at London’s Metropolitan Police. Since 1981, he had been embezzling funds intended for undercover police operations. In 1995, he received a prison sentence of seven and a half years for the theft of £5 million, though only £1 million was ever recovered.

Embarrassingly for the Metropolitan Police they may never have discovered his deception had it not been for a bank teller in the Tomintoul branch of the Clydesdale Bank who became suspicious over his cheques and raised the alarm.

Overall, the village remembers him for preserving many buildings, despite using funds that were not his own.

7. The Village Store

Tomintoul Village Store is now the only remaining ‘general store’ in the village. In the early 1900s the ground floor was a baker’s shop owned by Mr and Mrs Mackie and above that a tearoom called the Empire Café. During the second half of the 20th century, the Ross family operated it as both a Post Office and General Store. To the rear of the building was Birnie’s Bakery.

8. The Richmond Memorial Hall

The old Richmond Memorial Hall was built in 1921 to commemorate the fallen of the Great War, it replaced and incorporated parts of the previous hall and housed the village library. During the 1980s, ongoing repairs and the worsening state of the Hall led to the decision that demolishing it and constructing a new hall would be more cost-effective. It is understandable that the decision to demolish it in 1988 instead of preserving it received a range of responses. The Hall we have today has the original war memorial plaques on the exterior wall.

9. The Hotel Square

The Hotel Square, until recently known as the Gordon Arms Hotel, was constructed in 1901 to replace the earlier Gordon Arms Hotel, seen below.

10. The Glenavon House and Discovery Centre

The Glenavon is the village’s only pub, although it spent many years as a successful hotel.

We arrive back at the Discovery Centre building, which was once home to Spalding’s Bakery, and in the 1960s as a Scottish Co-operative shop.  The Museum was founded following the Tomintoul bicentenary exhibition in 1976, it was later modernised and re-opened as the Tomintoul & Glenlivet Discovery Centre in 2018, run by the Tomintoul & Glenlivet Development Trust.