Banff, Banffshire : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Banff. You may be able to find further references to Banff in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Banff parish, parliamentary and royal borough, market town, seaport, and capital Bartholomew
Banff a royal burgh and seaport, the capital of Banffshire Groome

This additional information from our descriptive gazetteers is for locations within the parish or parishes associated with Banff.

Place Type of entry Source
Duff House a seat Groome
Headrooms school Bartholomew

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Banff within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Thomas Pennant August 7-13: Aberdeen and the North East 7
John Wesley 1774-6: Wesley Arrested; A Terrible Ride; A Methodist Isaac Newton; the American War 5
Daniel Defoe Letter 13, Part 2: Dundee, Aberdeen and the Highlands 2
James Boswell August 24th to 26th, 1773: Aberdeen to Forres 1
Samuel Johnson Slains Castle and Banff 1
Samuel Johnson Elgin, Forres and Fort George 1
Thomas Pennant Appendix VIII: Itinerary 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Duff House 1 2
Macduff 0 2
Whitehills 0 2
Alvah 0 2
Boyndie 1 2
Boyne 0 2
King Edward 3 2
Portsoy 2 2
Gamrie 0 1
Gardenstown 0 1
Durn 1 2
Craigston 2 2
Cornhill 0 2
Forglen 0 2
Glassaugh 1 2
Fordyce 2 2
Ordiquhill 0 2
Aberchirder 0 2
Troup 1 2
Turriff 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Banff. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
BAMF Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
BAMFF Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
Samuel Johnson A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (London: W. Strahan and T.Cadell, 1775).
Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland 1769 (London: Benjamin White, 1776).
BANFF John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.