Towie is a small hamlet and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
in
Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland.
It takes its name from the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire, which had substantial ...
, Scotland, close to
Alford and
Lumsden, on the
River Don.
One of the most notable features of Towie is its small primary school with nursery, which is located in the village itself. As of September 2011, it had 22 pupils, before moving up to attend the
Alford Academy.
In 1979 the telephone exchange at Glenkindie, just north of Towie, became the UK's first digital
telephone exchange
A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a central component of a telecommunications system in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It facilitates the establishment of communication circuits ...
.
As part of general developments towards
digital telephony
Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunications services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is ...
, small rural exchanges of this size were seen as candidates for solid-state exchanges as they might be more reliable than the previous electromechanical
Strowger exchanges.
Notable persons
*
William Augustine Duncan (1811–1885), journalist, and Antipodean colonial official.
* Major
James Leith (VC) (1826–1869), buried in the churchyard.
* Sir
William MacGregor
Sir William MacGregor, (20 October 1846 – 3 July 1919)R. B. Joyce,', ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 5, Melbourne University Press, 1974, pp 158–160. Retrieved 29 September 2009 was a Scottish colonial administrator who was ...
(1846–1919), a medical doctor, and the governor of several British colonies including Newfoundland (1904–1909) and Queensland (1909–1914). He was born at Hillockhead in the parish, and after his death, buried with his parents in the village's churchyard.
See also
*
List of listed buildings in Towie
References
Villages in Aberdeenshire
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