Welcome to Forfar

Forfar, the county town of Angus, is located in the Vale of Strathmore, approximately 472 miles north of London and 12 miles north of Dundee.

The town has a population of around 13,500. Administratively it is within the district of Angus which covers an area of approximately 2,182 sq kms.

A busy market town, it is the administrative centre for Angus Council and a tourist centre offering a range of outdoor sports including golf, angling and sailing. It has an ancient heritage and there are some notable historic buildings in the vicinity, including the remains of the 12th-century Restenneth Priory where an infant son of Robert the Bruce is buried. It is a good base from which to explore the Grampians, the Vale of Strathmore and Sidlaw Hills.

There was an ancient settlement here at the time of the Picts, when  Pictish  chiefs met at a castle here to decide how to repel the Romans. King Malcolm III and Queen Margaret lived  here during the 11th century. The town was popular with Scottish Kings, being visited by Malcolm III and IV, Alexander II and II, and Robert the Bruce for the local hunting. David I made the town a Royal Burgh in the 12th century . During the 1660's the town gained a reputation for the burning of witches; there is an area of the town still known as The Witches' Hollow. Royalist during the Civil Wars, the town had its charter destroyed by Oliver Cromwell, but it was reissued by Charles II. The Industrial Revolution brought industry to the town. Cotton weaving, and later jute, as well as the manufacture of flax, prospered.

Economically, the town became largely dependant on the textile industry in the 1700s, and this has continued today with a major industrial textile plant operating in the town. Because of Forfar's fertile location, agriculture is an important factor in the local economy and farmers gather in the town on a weekly basis for the cattle mart.

The name Forfar may derive from the Gaelic 'for fuar' meaning a cold pace.