The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
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Glamis celebrates creator of world’s most successful beef breed
The creator of the world’s most successful beef breed has been honoured with a memorial in the grounds of Glamis Castle.
Hugh Watson began farming Aberdeen-Angus near Newtyle in the 19th Century, starting a bloodline with a reputation for quality and character.
The Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society revealed a memorial to Watson, which was designed by Roddy Mathieson, in the shadow of the 14th Century castle on Saturday.
The unveiling was the centrepiece of the Aberdeen-Angus World Forum during a private reception by the 19th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Simon Bowes Lyon, and his grandmother, Mary, Dowager Countess of Strathmore.
Alex Sanger, chairman of the forum organising committee, said: “We are delighted to welcome our international visitors to Angus and to let them have the first chance to see the memorial.
“Glamis is the ideal location for this as not only was Hugh Watson a local farmer, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, whose childhood home was Glamis, is a past patron of the AberdeenAngus Cattle Society and was a big supporter of the breed.”
Guests enjoyed local food and drink from the likes of Hamish’s Hogs and M&G’s on the Road fish and chips, Park Brew beer, Forfar bridies and Arbroath smokies, strawberries from East Scryne Farm and Mackays jam.
WatsonwasafarmerontheStrathmore estate and his legacy has a connection with Glamis, the earls and countesses of Strathmore and farming in the area.
The stone sits at the start of the nature walk from the castle to the Dean Water, with early sketches commissioned from Duncan of Jordanstone graduate Mr Mathieson of Mobile Foundry.
The castle, where the late Queen Mother spent much of her childhood, was home to the 13th and 14th earls of Strathmore when the breed first became known.
Watson became the tenant of Keillor Farm in 1808 and gathered stock widely from the polled, black cattle of north-east Scotland, called “doddies” and “hummlies”. The breed’s reputation was cemented by the close breeding of Keillor bloodlines by William McCombie at Tillyfour, Aberdeenshire, from 1824.
Sir George Macpherson-Grant returned to his inherited estate at Ballindalloch on the River Spey from Oxford in 1861 and began refining the breed that was to be his life’s work for the next 50 years.