Ardler is a small village in

Perth and Kinross Perth and Kinross ( sco, Pairth an Kinross; gd, Peairt agus Ceann Rois) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and a Lieutenancy Area. It borders onto the Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Fife, Highland and S ...

, Scotland. It is situated approximately east of Coupar Angus, and approximately equidistant between the latter and Meigle.

History

The present village evolved from a planned railway village called Washington, planned in 1835 in connection with the

Dundee and Newtyle Railway The Dundee and Newtyle Railway opened in 1831 and was the first railway in the north of Scotland. It was built to carry goods between Dundee and the fertile area known as Strathmore; this involved crossing the Sidlaw Hills, and was accomplish ...

. After initial building works Washington failed to expand as had been expected. In his history of the village Christopher H. Dingwall attributed this to the decline of the rural textile industry and the rapid expansion of railways meaning that Washington quickly lost its advantage of being one of the few settlements in the area connected to a railway. Railway rebuilding as part of the construction of the

Scottish Midland Junction Railway The Scottish Midland Junction Railway was authorised in 1845 to build a line from Perth to Forfar. Other companies obtained authorisation in the same year, and together they formed a route from central Scotland to Aberdeen. The SMJR opened its ...

led to the removal of the station at Washington village and its replacement with a station called Ardler slightly further away from the village. Following the establishment of a church and the foundation of the Parish of Ardler in 1885, the name Ardler superseded that of Washington. The church at Ardler was erected in memory of James Drummond Carmichael (1849-1881) by his father Peter Carmichael, a

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

textile mill Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...

manager and senior partner in Baxter Brothers & Co Ltd. Peter Carmichael family had purchased the nearby Arthurstone estate in 1869 and expanded it to include other nearby farms including East and West Ardler. The village primary school, which dates from the 1830s, closed in the late 1980s. In 2020, a plan to convert the school into two homes was given the go-ahead.FORMER ARDLER PRIMARY SCHOOL, WALLACE STREET, ARDLER, PERTHSHIRE, PH12 8SS
- Perth & Kinross Council

References

Villages in Perth and Kinross {{PerthKinross-geo-stub