Long before there was a town of Kingussie or Newtonmore there was the town that grew up around the castles at Ruthven. Today nothing remains but as late as 1900 the outlines of where the houses stood could still be seen.

      It was a place of some antiquity, being one of the few mentioned by Ptolemy in his account of Britain in 140 AD. The name is from the Gaelic Ruadhainn, the 'red place', referring to its iron deposits. By an act of 1685 the name was ordered to be changed to the Burgh of St. George, and the castle to be St. George's Castle, but the change was never carried out.

     The bulk of the village centred round the crossroads, where the farmhouse and its outbuildings now stand. In the eighteenth century it appears to have been a lively and prosperous place with its economy based on cattle. It had an excellent inn, a tollbooth or jail and enough legal business to support a resident notary. There was at least one tavern, which in those days took the place of the chemist's shop, only one prescription ever being required.

      At Ruthven was the only important school in the whole stretch of country from Speymouth through Strathspey, Badenoch, and Lochaber to Lorn. So famous was the school as a seat of learning that toward the end of the 18th century that many men educated there were specially selected and sent as teachers to all parts of the Highlands by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge. One of the most noted pupils at the school was James Macpherson, the translator of the poems of Ossian who was also a teacher there before gaining fame in the South.

      Sixty men between the ages of sixteen and sixty set out from Ruthven to join Cluny's Regiment in the '45. After Culloden the village was the headquarters of the government troops "occupying" Badenoch, the officer commanding living in one of the two-storey houses, and the troops in a barn in the village. All the time that Cluny was in hiding any movement of troops was reported to those in touch with him, a considerable factor in his success at evading capture for so long. Ensign (later Sir Hector) Munro was well aware of this and on one occasion when secrecy was essential for the success of his plan, said nothing of his intention but climbed out of the window of his upper room in the middle of the night, so that the occupants of the house did not know of his departure. He collected his men from the barn and the attempt was very nearly, but not quite, successful.

      The disappearance of the village was not due to any cataclysm of nature nor a hostile attack. Economic forces alone were responsible. When the bridge across the Spey at Ralia was built in 1765 the road on the north side of the river grew in importance. When the linen industry was introduce to the district in the late 18th century, lint-carding mills were built where the water of the Gynack flowed swiftly enough to power them and Kingussie grew up around these and the drift to the rapidly expanding Kingussie began. Ruthven's deathknell was sounded in 1792 when the Duke of Gordon decided to build a new village at Kingussie near the Parish church of St Columba.