Towie, Aberdeenshire
Towie ([ˈtaʊ̯wiː]; "hole place") is a small hamlet in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, close to Alford and Lumsden, on the River Don. One of the most notable features of Towie is its small primary school with nursery, which is located in the village itself. As of September 2011, it had 22 pupils, before moving up to attend the Alford Academy. Towie also has a bowling club and a beautiful church with historic graveyard. It is part of West Aberdeenshire (UK Parliament constituency). The village was the seat of the branch of Clan Barclay named Barclay de Tolly. In 1979 the  telephone exchange at Glenkindie, just north of Towie, became the UK's first digital telephone exchange. As part of general developments towards digital telephony, small rural exchanges of this size were seen as candidates for solid-state exchanges as they might be more reliable than the previous electromechanical Strowger exchanges.