Arbroath, Angus : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

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

Place Type of entry Source
Arbroath a royal, police, and parliamentary burgh, a seaport, and a seat of manufacture Groome
Arbroath, or Aberbrothock parish, parliamentary and royal burgh 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 Arbroath 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.
Samuel Johnson Arbroath and Montrose 3
William Camden Scotland: North of the Antonine Wall 2
Robert Gammage Touring central Scotland 1
John Wesley 1769-70: Opens a New Church; Comments on Rousseau; Geology; Swedenborg 1
John Wesley 1771-3: Windsor Park; Wesley as Art Critic; Glasgow and Perth; Preaches to 30,000 People 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
Inverbrothock 0 2
Abbey 0 2
St Vigeans 0 2
Arbirlot 0 2
Auchmithie 0 2
Gowanbank 0 2
Colliston 0 2
East Haven 0 2
Inverkeilor 0 2
Panbride 0 2
Carmyllie 0 2
Carnoustie 0 2
Kinnell 0 2
Kirkden 0 2
Lunan 0 2
Guthrie 0 2
Barry 0 2
Letham 0 2
Monikie 0 2
Farnell 0 2

Names from historical writing

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

Name Author Source
ABERBROTH William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
ABERBROTHICK Samuel Johnson A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (London: W. Strahan and T.Cadell, 1775).
ABERBROTHOCK John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).
ARBROATH John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).
ARBROATH OR ABERBROTHOCK John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
ARBROTH William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).

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.