On 24th October 1894 the Kirk Session of Kemnay Parish Church resolved to raise money to provide funding to augment the stipend of the minister.

To this end a bazaar was held on 26th and 27th June 1896, in conjunction with which, a small booklet entitled 'Kemnay Bazaar Book' was produced. The following article entitled 'Recollections of Kemnay fifty years ago' appeared in the booklet.

'Perhaps few country villages in this quarter have undergone, greater changes in fifty years than the vi1lage of Kemnay. The opening of the quarries led to a considerable addition to the population; and the amenity of the situation, along with the laying down of the iron-way, recommended it as a pleasant place for retired folks to plant themselves down in. Snug cottages with leafy and flowery surroundings sprang up, and by degrees what might have been called an "auld warld" hamlet, when it came in touch with a railway station, was soon transformed into a considerable, really pretty village.

Fifty years ago it had a retired and primitive appearance. Then the passenger communication with Aberdeen was chiefly by a stage coach, the "Banks of Don" which ran between the City and Inverurie, passing within about four miles of Kemnay village while the goods traffic was conducted by an old carrier who crept slowly along with his little cart by Kinellar, Blackburn, and "o'er the hill of Tyrebagger, and on to Aberdeen." This carrier, by the way, was rather a "character." with his cord knee-breeches, home-spun clothing, broad blue bonnet and "boothose," he had quite an up-country look. He could not read hand-writing, but by the help of a good memory, and the setting of the goods he carried in methodical order in his cart, he managed to execute his commissions with wonderful correctness. But to return. Leaving the coach at the junction of the Inverurie and Alford roads, you were soon off the track of business, and among quiet country folks, employed at their various field work - the ploughing, the sowing, or the reaping, as the season dictated, and those operations all carried on in the old-fashioned ways, before machinery usurped hand-labour as it does now. Walking leisurely along, you came to a gentle height, near a belting of firs, from which you had a pleasant peep of Kemnay in all its rural peace and beauty. There it lay "girt by its amphitheatre of hills "Corrennie, Cairnwilliam, and Benachie - while the river Don was seen to wind for miles through richly-wooded banks, and castle and mansion looked out from masses of deep green foliage, as if to tone down the rugged barriers of which they clothed the bases.' (to be continued)