Luncarty

Luncarty (listen^ⓘ; pronounced Lung-cur-tay [ˈlʌŋkəɾte]) is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, approximately 4 miles (6 kilometres) north of Perth. It lies between the A9 to the west, and the River Tay to the east.

Luncarty Scottish Gaelic: Longartaidh
Luncarty Location within Perth and Kinross
Population	1,630 (2020)[1]
OS grid reference	NO095298
Council area	Perth and Kinross
Lieutenancy area	Perth and Kinross
Country	Scotland
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	PERTH
Postcode district	PH1
Dialling code	01738
Police	Scotland
Fire	Scottish
Ambulance	Scottish
UK Parliament	Ochil and South Perthshire
Scottish Parliament	Perthshire North
List of places UK Scotland 56.451644°N 3.469857°W / 56.451644; -3.469857

Etymology

The name Luncarty, recorded in 1250 as Lumphortyn, may be of Gaelic origin.^[2] The name may involve the element longartaibh, a plural form of longphort meaning variously "harbour, palace, encampment".^[2]

History

War memorial at Luncarty

The historian Hector Boece (1465–1536), in his History of the Scottish People, records that, in 990, Kenneth III of Scotland defeated the Danes near Luncarty.^[3] However, the Scottish historian John Hill Burton strongly suspected the battle of Luncarty to be an invention of Hector Boece.^[4][5] Burton was incorrect. Walter Bower,^[6] writing in his Scotichronicon around 1440, some 87 years before Boece first published his Scotorum Historia, refers to the battle briefly as follows:

"that remarkable battle of Luncarty, in which the Norsemen with their king were totally destroyed". Bower does not quote specific sources concerning the battle, but, two sentences later, he refers in a general way to ancient writings that he has consulted. The term Norsemen would include Danes.

The present village was founded in 1752 by William Sandeman, to house workers at his bleachfields.^[7] The village formerly had a railway station,^[8] and the Perth to Inverness railway line still runs through the village.

A rare example of a morthouse is located in the churchyard, built to frustrate the activities of bodysnatchers in the 19th century.

Bleachfields

William Sandeman and his partner Hector Turnbull manufactured linen in Perth and bleached it in Luncarty, for instance with an order of 12,000 to 15,000 yards (11,000 to 14,000 metres) of "Soldiers' shirting". In 1752 he leveled 12 acres (5 hectares) of land in Luncarty to form bleachfields. By 1790 when William died, the Luncarty bleachfields covered 80 acres (32 hectares) and processed 500,000 yards (460,000 metres) of cloth annually. Second only to agriculture, linen manufacture was a major Scottish industry in the late 18th century — linen then became less important with the introduction of cotton.^[9]

Sport

The village is home to the football club Luncarty F.C., who play in the East of Scotland League First Division.

Notable persons

• Christopher Bowes, musician
• Jimmy Guthrie, footballer
• Jim Patterson, footballer
• George Turnbull, civil engineer