A BRIEF HISTORY OF FOCHABERS

Our present Fochabers dates from 1776.  Prior to the founding of the present village, the old town of Fochabers stood a short distance to the north and nearer Gordon Castle.  The fourth Duke of Gordon had been for some time "desirous to remove the present Town or Village of Fochabers upon account of its inconvenient nearness to Gordon Castle" and at the beginning of 1776, he took steps to shift its inhabitants to a new site.  The architect John Baxter of Edinburgh, already commissioned by the Duke in the renovation of Gordon Castle, drew up the plans for the layout of the new town.

The first feu was taken up in mid 1776 and over the next twenty years or so the planned town took shape with some of the early tenementers being paid to flit from the old town.  Later residents had to pay entry money.