Burgh-Head

   BURGH-HEAD, a village and district, in the parish of Duffus, county of Elgin, 9 miles (N. W.) from Elgin; containing 829 inhabitants. This place is equidistant from Elgin and Forres, and is seated on the north of a fine bay of the same name, said to be one of the best roadsteads on the east coast north of Leith. The harbour, which is commodious, was formed about 1811, and as many as 400 vessels now enter it in the course of the year; twelve vessels, of the aggregate burthen of 738 tons, belong to the port, and there is, by these traders, and by steam-ships, a regular communication with London, Liverpool, Leith, and Aberdeen. The greatest length of the district is five miles, and its greatest breadth, three; the village is very thriving, and has several good houses, an excellent inn, a public reading-room, and convenient baths for the accommodation of summer visiters, who frequent it in great numbers. A chapel of ease was built in 1832, and in 1834 was slightly altered, to increase the number of sittings, which are now 414; the minister's stipend is £70, paid partly by seat-rents and partly by two societies, with a house rent-free. The members of the Free Church, and the United Secession, have each a place of worship, and a school is supported by the General Assembly. On the promontory of Burgh-Head, are considerable remains of a regular Roman or Danish insulated fortification; the works were divided into two parts, a higher and a lower, and presented four strong ramparts, built with oaken logs, directed towards the small isthmus upon which the village now stands. A deep well, of extreme regularity in its construction, and much too carefully formed to allow of its being supposed to be Danish, was lately discovered on the spot, and adds another link to the chain of evidence adduced by General Roy, in his learned work on Roman antiquities, to show that Burgh-Head was a Roman station of very considerable importance.