Other Items of Interest
The town is home to the renowned Forfar bridie, popular with locals and visitors. The Forfar bridie has been featured on many TV programmes. A recipe for the Forfar bridie was also featured in "Maw Broon's Cookbook".
Another feature of the town is the Forfar Loch Country Park, which is popular amongst locals as a walking venue. It is said that the Forfar Loch extended over much more of Forfar in the 1800s, going as far up as Orchardbank and Wellbrae. A drainage project brought the water level down. In about the same time period the loch was used to dump raw sewage; thankfully this practice is no longer continued: it is now treated sewage.
Her Majesty The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited the town and surrounding area in 2004 (the first time in around 30 years)and again in 2011. HRH Prince Charles, the Duke of Rothesay, visited the town in April, 2012 to take the salute of the Black Watch during the regiment's homecoming parade, marking its return from a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.
The town lies in Strathmore and is situated just off the main A90 road between Perth and Aberdeen, with Dundee (the nearest city) being 13 miles (21 km) away. It is approximately five miles (8 km) from Glamis Castle, seat of the Bowes-Lyon family and ancestral home of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and where the late Princess Margaret, younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, was born in 1930.
The town is near to the Angus Glens, including Glen Doll, Glen Clova and Glen Prosen, that are popular with skiers and hill walkers. The area is notable for the beautiful scenery of the mountains and Strathmore.
The town holds many events throughout the year such as the bi-annual Forfar Mara-Fun, which raises money for charity, and the annual Forfar Food Festival highlighting some of the local food. There is also a monthly farmers' market.
Agriculture and tourism are some of the town's major industries. It also acts as an administrative centre for Angus Council, with a new multi-million pound office complex currently on the outskirts of the town.
Forfar is also home to the Strathmore Mineral Water Co., Ltd., a bottled mineral water producer now run by AG Barr. The company's products are shipped worldwide.
Forfar is also known the "coo o Forfar". A householder left a tub of beer in the doorway to cool, and a passing cow drank it. When the owner of the cow was charged for the beer, a baillie ruled that if the beer was drunk at the doorway it was "deoch an doras" or "stirrup cup", to charge for which would be an insult to Scots hospitality. This became a byword: "Be like the coo o Forfar, an tak a stannin drink".
Read more about this topic: Forfar
Famous quotes containing the words items and/or interest:
“In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)