January 14, 2015
Why Grantown is so happy
250 years ago John Grant, a weaver from Rothiemurchas, started a new business venture in what was to become the highland town of Grantown. The historian and academic, TC Smout described Grantown as among the best preserved and most interesting of all Scotland’s planned towns and villages. Plans to celebrate this landmark anniversary are being coordinated by the Grantown Society culminating in a week of events in June. In the meantime, the locals couldn’t resist letting the rest of us know just how ‘happy’ they are to be living there. With apologies to Pharell Williams.
14/1/15
To view the video showing how ‘happy’ people are to be living in Grantown click here
This June, Grantown will be celebrating the laying of the first stone of the first building (a linen manufactory) of what is a unique Scottish Eighteenth Century planned settlement.
On 28th June 1765, John Grant, a weaver from Rothiemurchus, watched the start of his new business venture which within that summer was to be one of several new buildings in James Grant of Grant’s new town.
Exactly two hundred and fifty years later Grantown will be marking this event and highlighting all that this vibrant community has since become. Few places, better than Grantown, can illustrate the changes in Highland life in the second half of the Eighteenth Century. The project will thus also tell something of this little known story. During the week ending twenty- eighth of June 2015 the town will host a wide diversity of related events, the planning for which has already begun.
This project, Grantown 250, is being co-ordinated by The Grantown Society.