1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tain

TAIN, a royal and police burgh of the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Pop. (1001) 2076. It is situated on rising ground within a mile of the southern shore of Dornoch Firth, 2 ss m. N.E. of Dingwall by the Highland Railway. The name, of which the Tene, Tayne and Thane are older forms, is derived from the Icelandic thing, " assembly " or " court." Among the principal buildings are the town hall, court house, public hall, Easter Ross combination poorhouse, and the academy (opened in 1812). The industries include distilling, the making of aerated waters, and woollen manufactures, and the town is important as a market and distributing centre. The rainfall is one of the lowest in the kingdom. Duthac (locally called Duthus), a saint of the 1 ith century, is believed to have been a native, and the old ruined chapel near the station is supposed to have been his shrine. To the collegiate church of St Duthus, a Decorated building, founded by James III. in 147 1, James IV. made several pilgrimages in penance for his father's death. The building was used as the parish church till 1815, when it fell into disrepair, but it was restored between 1871 and 1876. It has monuments to Patrick Hamilton, the martyr, and Thomas Hog (1628-1602), the Scottish divine, for some time a prisoner on the Bass. Three and a half miles S.E. are the remains of the Early English abbey of Fearn, founded at Edderton in 1230 by Farquhar, 1st earl of Ross, and transferred hither in 1338. The chancel, nave and two side chapels exist, and it still serves as the parish church. Patrick Hamilton became titular abbot in 1517, and after his martyr- dom the abbey was added to the bishopric of Ross.