TheGrampian Mountains(Scottish Gaelic:Am Monadh) is one of the three majormountainranges inScotland,that together occupy about half of Scotland. The other two ranges are theNorthwest Highlandsand theSouthern Uplands.The Grampian range extends northeast to southwest between theHighland Boundary Faultand theGreat Glen.The range includes many of the highest mountains in the British Isles, includingBen Nevis(whose peak contains the highest point in the British Isles at 1,345 m or 4,413 ft above sea level) andBen Macdui(whose peak contains second-highest at 1,309 m or 4,295 ft).
A number of rivers and streams rise in the Grampians, including theTay,Spey,Cowie Water,Burn of Muchalls,Burn of Pheppie,Burn of Elsick,Cairnie Burn,Don,DeeandEsk.[1]The area is generally sparsely populated.
There is some ambiguity about the extent of the range, and until the nineteenth century, they were generally considered to be more than one range, which all formed part of the widerScottish Highlands.This view is still held by many today, and they have no single name in theScottish Gaelic languageor theDoric dialectofLowland Scots.In both languages, a number of names are used. The name "Grampian" has been used in the titles of organisations covering parts of Scotland north of theCentral Belt,including theformer local government areaofGrampian Region(translated into Scots Gaelic asRoinn a' Mhonaidh),NHS Grampian,andGrampian Television.
Name
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The Roman historianTacitusrecordedMons Graupiusas the site of the defeat of the nativeCaledoniansbyGnaeus Julius Agricolac. 83 AD. The actual location ofMons Graupius,literally 'Mount Graupius' (the element 'Graupius' is of unknown meaning), is a matter of dispute among historians, though most favour a location within the Grampianmassif,possibly atRaedykes,Megray HillorKempstone Hill.The spellingGraupiuscomes from theCodex Aesinas,a mediaeval copy of Tacitus'sGermaniabelieved to be from the mid-9th century.[2]In theMiddle Ages,this locale was known as theMounth,a name still held by a number of geographical features.
Etymology
editRecorded first asGraupiusin 83 A.D,[3]the origin of the nameGrampiansis uncertain.[3]The name may beBrittonicand represent a corrupted form, of which the genuine would be*Cripius,containing*cripmeaning "ridge" (c.f.Welshcrib).[3]
"Graupius" was incorrectly rendered "Grampius" in the 1476 printed edition of Tacitus'sAgricola.[4]The nameGrampiansis believed to have first been applied to the mountain range in 1520 by the Scottish historianHector Boece,perhaps an adaptation of the incorrectMons Grampius.Thus the range may owe its name to a typesetter's mistake.[4]
Extent
editThere is some ambiguity about the extent of the range. Fenton Wyness, writing about Deeside, puts the northern edge of the Grampians at the River Dee in the introduction to his 1968 bookRoyal Valley: The Story Of The Aberdeenshire Dee:
... until comparatively recent times, Deeside was an isolated and little frequented region and the reason for this is the extensive mountain barrier of the Grampians which begins in a low range on the seacoast immediately south of Aberdeen and rise through various intervening heights such as Cairn-mon-earn (1,245 ft), Kerloch (1,747 ft), Mount Battoch (2,555 ft), Mount Keen (3,007 ft), Lochnagar (3,786 ft), Beinn a' Ghlo (3,671 ft), to Beinn Dearg (3,556 ft)
— Fenton Wyness[5]
This introduction appears to suggest that Wyness defines the Grampians as being the range of mountains running from immediately south of Aberdeen westward toBeinn Deargin theForest of Atholl.Similarly,Adam Watson,when defining the extent of theCairngorms,specifically excluded the range south of the River Dee, writing:
The other main hill group is the long chain running fromDrumochterin the west almost to the sea just south of Aberdeen. Many maps and books have given its name as 'the Grampians' but although children have to learn this at school, they do not learn it at home and nowhere is it used in local speech. Some map-makers have confused the issue by printing 'Grampians' over the Cairngorms and Strath Don hills as well!
— Adam Watson[6]
Both Wyness and Watson appear to exclude the Cairngorms from the Grampians, regarding them as a separate range. In effect, Wyness' and Watson's definition of the Grampians is as asynonymfor theMounth.However Robert Gordon, writing in the 1650s, used the term Grampians to refer to hills on either side of the River Dee, and thus explicitly included the Cairngorms within the range.[7]
Wyness and Watson both exclude areas west of thePass of Drumochterfrom the Grampians, but the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica adopted a wider definition, including the highlands as far asDunbartonshirein the west.
Geology
editThe Grampian Mountains are chiefly made up ofmetamorphicandigneousrocks.[8]The mountains are composed ofgranite,gneiss,marble,schistsandquartzite.[citation needed]
TheQuaternary glaciation(<2.6 Ma) eroded the region significantly, and glacial deposits, such astills,are largely those of thelast Ice Age(< 20 Ka).[8]
Sub-ranges
editThe following ranges of hills and mountains fall within the generally recognised definition of the Grampians, i.e. lying between the Highland and Great Glen fault lines:[citation needed]
- Cairngorms
- Monadh Liath
- Mounth
- Grey Corries
- Mamores
- Ben AlderForest
- The mountains ofGlen CoeandGlen Etive
- Black Mount
- BreadalbaneHills
- Trossachs
- Arrochar Alps
- Cowal
- TheIsle of Arran
In Literature
editIn the popular 1756 playDouglas,the second act begins with a speech that mentions the Grampian Hills:
My name is Norval; on the Grampian Hills My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain, Whose constant cares were to increase his store. And keep his only son, myself, at home.
The speech "acquired a life of its own, independent of the play, and became widely known through public recitations, lessons in speech, school memorizations and the like" during the 18th and 19th centuries. The speech (and thus the reference to the Grampian Hills) are casually referred to by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and George Bernard Shaw.[9]
See also
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References
edit- ^United KingdomOrdnance SurveyMap, Landranger 45, Stonehaven and Banchory, 1:50,000 scale, 2002
- ^Agricola, edited by Ogilvie and Richmond
- ^abcAndrew, Breeze (2002)."Philology on Tacitus's Graupian Hill and Trucculan Harbour".Proc Soc Antiq Scot.132:305–311.
- ^abHistory in the making: a Roman map... and an 18th-century hoax.Edited extract from Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain byCharlotte Higginspublished inThe Guardian,19 July 2013
- ^Wyness, Fenton (1968),Royal Valley: The Story Of The Aberdeenshire Dee,Alex P. Reid & Son, Aberdeen, p. 1
- ^Watson, Adam (1975).The Cairngorms.Edinburgh: The Scottish Mountaineering Trust. p. 19.
- ^Ian R Mitchell.Scotland's Mountains Before the Mountaineers,pp. 62–63. Published 2013, Luath Press.
- ^abStephenson, D, and Gould, D. 1995. British regional geology: the Grampian Highlands. Fourth edition. Reprint 2007. Keyworth, Nottingham: British Geological Survey.
- ^Prior, Moody E. (Winter 1979)."In search of the Grampian Hills with W. C. Fields".The American Scholar.48(1): 102–103.Retrieved8 June2023.
External links
edit- Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911)..Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 333.