The First Statistical Account refers to the recent demolition of a "druidical temple" in the parish, the finding of a "Pictish crown", and the presence of numerous stone cairns.

[15] Monastic records give some support to the tradition of a Culdee religious house or "college" in Arbirlot, that was suppressed sometime after the founding of Arbroath Abbey in the late 12th century.

[4] The First Statistical Account of 1792 relates the demolition of the ruins of a long revered religious house,[1] and early Ordnance Survey maps show the location of the "college"[17] by the Rottonrow Burn.

Prior to the founding of Arbroath Abbey, the church of Arbirlot belonged to the diocese of St Andrews, and the bishops held lands lying to the east of the Elliot Water.

[4] The parish suffered from the effects of the First War of Scottish Independence in the late 13th and early 14th centuries as evidenced by the relief granted to the vicar of Arbirlot in March 1323 who was then twenty years in arrears in paying the two merks[b] due annually to the Abbot of Arbroath Abbey.

[19]: 486  In 1679 Alexander Irvine, who had built up unsustainable debts during his support for the Royalist cause during the Civil Wars, sold the barony to George Maule, 2nd Earl of Panmure, for £11,000 sterling.

[20] In 1830, Thomas Guthrie, later to become a well-known theologian, social reformer and a founder of the Ragged School movement, was appointed to the charge of Arbirlot by the heritor the Hon William Maule.

[21]: 46 The parish is believed[2]: 147  to be the original home of Clan Elliot, which was transplanted in the Scottish Borders to defend the newly crowned Robert the Bruce's Scotland from English invaders, through an intricate network of peel towers.