Keith is the hub of the surrounding farmland with agriculture, as well as woollens and whisky, as a mainstay of the local economy. Latterday Keith, like so many other Highland towns, was a planned community but there was already a settlement here in 700 AD and in 1195 Keith was included in a charter of lands granted by William the Lion to the Abbey of Kinloss. Burgh status was conferred by Charles II but the town today is based on the town planning set in train by the local laird in 1750. This was in the wake of the last Jacobite Rebellion and the bloody nose the Highlanders handed out to the Duke of Cumberland’s army at Keith may have been one of the reasons for his murderous behaviour at Culloden.
Milton Tower is all that is left of a larger castle that dates from 1480 and which belonged to the Ogilvies, local lairds at the time. The family went on to acquire its very own saint, John Ogilvie, who was martyred in 1615 and is Scotland’s first post-reformation saint.
Above: The packhorse bridge at Keith used to be the only river crossing in town.
