Huntly is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, formerly known as Milton of Strathbogie or simply Strathbogie. It had a population of 4,460 in 2004 and is the site of Huntly Castle. Its neighbouring settlements include Keith and Rothiemay. Both Huntly and the surrounding district of Gordon are named for a town and family that originated in the Border country. Huntly is the historic home of the Gordon Highlanders regiment which traditionally recruited throughout the North-East of Scotland. Huntly has a primary school and a secondary school beside Huntly Castle. It is the home of the Deans bakers, which produce shortbread biscuits. In November 2007, Deans of Huntly opened their new visitor centre. There is also a falconry centre just outside the town which does flying displays in their visitor centre during the season between April and October.
Arts
There is an active award winning art organisation called Deveron Projects, which invites artists from all over the world to come and live and work in the town. Since 1995 it has worked with a 'town is the venue' methodology, connecting artists, communities and places. It hosts artists and projects that explore local, regional and global topics, such as forestry, geology, botany, foraging, anthropology, history, politics and art. Over 100 renowned artists have spent time in the town, including Roman Signer, Hamish Fulton and Christine Borland. Walking is often used as a medium to bring people together for these projects, and Deveron Projects has a that commissions artists to make walks. Their annual started in 2012 in collaboration with Ethiopian artist . Deveron Projects also runs a community kitchen and gardening projects. In 2013 Deveron Projects won Huntly the Creative Place Award. Huntly also has Tin Hut Sessions, which offer open mic folk, blues, and traditional music gigs. Bothy ballads lie at the heart of Huntly and its surrounding areas' traditional music, and musicians Paul Anderson and Shona Donaldson both hail from the town.
Sports
There is salmon and trout fishing on the Rivers Deveron and Bogie, which are administered by the River Deveron Salmon Fisheries Board. Its other principal outdoor activities include golf, Nordic Skiing in Clashindarroch Forest, walking, mountain biking and Rugby. The local football team is Huntly F.C. Nearby is the start point of Scotland's longest horse ride trail, Highland Horseback, which runs 200 miles to the West Coast. The Eastern Tigers martial arts have a kickboxing club in Huntly and currently use the Pensioners Hall and the Stewarts Hall. They have produced national and international champions.
James Legge, scholar and missionary to China, was born in Huntly and educated there and at King's College Aberdeen, before leaving to his first mission post in Malacca in 1839. Across the next 43 years he worked in Hong Kong translating all the classic books of the Confucian canon in a huge series of books, a set still considered to be the gold standard of English translations today. He frequently returned to Huntly across his life in China, bringing three young Chinese lads to live there and get "a good Scottish education" in 1845. By the time they returned to China in 1848 they had all been invited to meet Queen Victoria, then a lively young woman. Legge retired from his mission work in Hong Kong in 1873, was named the first Oxford Professor of Chinese in 1876, and lived there until his death. His father Ebenezer Legge had been Mayor of Huntly, and the Legge family home is still in use, on the main square.
George MacDonald, writer, and influence upon JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. Some of his novels, especially the Robert Falconer and Alec Forbes of Howglen play partly in Huntly, even if the name of the town is changed, and give an introduction to the life in Huntly in the 19th century.
