198 THE WESTERN LOWLANDS. EIGHTH DIVISION. THE WESTERN LOWLANDS. THE district which we designate the Western Lowlands is bounded by the Clyde, westward and southward, from Glasgow to Ayr; by the right side of the basin of the Doon, south-eastward, from Ayr to the nearest point of the Southern Highlands; by an imaginary line eastward thence to Sanquhar ; and by another imaginary line north-north-westward, from Sanquhar to Glasgow. Its surface comprises much plain, much undulated ground, much hill, in great diversity of arrangement, often with picturesque effect; and its scenery in the west borrows much beauty and grandeur from the contiguity of the Islands and Highlands of the Frith of Clyde. Its travelling facilities consist chiefly of the westward branches of the Caledonian Railway, and the main trunk and ramifications of the Glasgow and South-Western; but include also steamers on the Clyde and some public coaches. We shall trace all the main routes, and indicate the minor ones. XLIV. FROM GLASGOW, BY WATER, TO GREENOCK. Two routes lie from Glasgow to Greenock, the one by water, the other by railway; the former desirable for comfort, the latter preferable for speed; each commanding good scenery, run many times a-day, and crowdedly frequented. We shall trace the water-route here, and the railway one in XLV. The steamers, for the water-route, all start from the top of the Broomielaw; and they leave at all hours, sometimes at intervals of half or quarter of an hour, from 6 A. M. to 5 P. M. The trains, for the railway route, start from the Glasgow and South-Western Terminus, near the south end of Glasgow Bridge; and and left; foot of Go- Paragraph ...589 .590 tick, and Gartnavel, right............431, 567, 566 Scotstown, right; Elderslie House, left; Renfrew, 6 miles........................ ....... Yoker, right...... Blythswood, left.... .591 Canal cut, to the Forth and Clyde Canal, right....... Mouth of Cart Water, left...... Vista view up Cart Water to Inchinnan Church, Paisley, and the Braes of Gleniffer, left......593, 601, 623 Dalmuir shore, right; Auchentoshan, Mountblow, and Duntocher Mills, on the skirts of the hills to the right....... Erskine Ferry, right and left.. ..415 .592 ..452 ..594 Old Kilpatrick, right.....453 588. GOVAN extends about a mile slie, Archibald A. Speirs, Esq., stand along the road to Renfrew. Its ends near the Clyde, between Govan and Renadjoin the Clyde; while its middle part frew; and those of Scotstown, Miss Osis at some distance, in consequence of an wald, and Jordan Hill, James Smith, outward bend in the river. Its lower Esq., stand on the opposite bank. end lies opposite the mouth of Kelvin 589. RENFREW comprises a small Water, and presents a pretty appearance. modern suburb on the left bank of the Much of the town consists of thatched Clyde, and a small ancient town nearly cottages, and looks old and dingy; while half a mile inland. The town consists other parts are new and handsome, or of a main street and several lanes, and borrow beauty from the vicinity of nu- has a mean, antiquated appearance. Its merous neat villas. The parish church, only noticeable buildings are the Town built in 1826, is a capacious edifice with House, with a small old spire, and the battlements and lancet windows, adjoined Blythswood Testimonial, an elegant edi to an elegant steeple, modelled after that fice, erected by subscription in 1842, as of Stratford-upon-Avon. The town dates a public school, in honour of the late from the Culdee times; appears to have Archibald Campbell, Esq., of Blythsnearly or altogether rivalled ancient wood. The modern suburb contains a Glasgow, in both size and promise; and row of neat houses, an extensive shipcontinued to rank, in the 16th century, building yard, and the northern Termias one of the largest villages of Scotland. nus of the Paisley and Renfrew RailIts church, from about 1147 till the Re-way; has a range of wharves for passformation, was a prebend of Glasgow ing steamers and for local shipping; and Cathedral; and afterwards became the maintains a carriage ferry across the property of Glasgow College, and was Clyde. Renfrew is a royal burgh, served, for some time, by Andrew Mel-grouped in the franchise with Dumville. A house in the town, long used as an inn, contains the chair of the poet Burns, and a number of other curiosities. Govan has a post office under Glasgow, an office of the City of Glasgow Bank, and a public library; and it communicates many times a day with Glasgow by omnibus, and maintains a ferry for constant communication with Partick, and with passing steamers. Its population in 1851 was 3131. The residences of Fairfield, John Anderson, Esq.; Lint House, Michael Rowan, Esq.; and Elder barton and Kilmarnock; and it has a post office under Paisley, an Athenæum, and two inns, the Railway and the Black Bull. Trains run every hour to Paisley; and omnibuses run eight times a day to Glasgow. The population in 1851 was 2977. The tract around Renfrew belonged from the time of David I. to the High Stewards of Scotland; and a spot of it, still called the Castle Hill. between the town and the Clyde, contained their chief residence till their accession to the throne. An isolated eminence, called the Knock, nearly midway between Renfrew and Paisley, is said to have been the death-place of the mother of Robert II., by a throw from her palfrey; and it was crowned, till 1779, by an octagonal column, about 10 feet high, believed to have been monumental of her death. This eminence, with some lands around it, passed from the royal Stewarts to the Knoxes of Ranfurly, the family of Knox the reformer, and is supposed to have given them their name of Knox. A great battle, originating in the ambition of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, but which cost him his life, was fought at Renfrew, in 1164, between him and Malcolm IV. 590. YOKER is a small village on the right bank of the Clyde, opposite Renfrew. The dock-yard establishment for the improvement of the river, extensive distilleries, and the residences of Yoker House and Yoker Lodge are adjacent. 591. BLYTHSWOOD estate, the property of Archibald Campbell, Esq., occupies the eastern peninsula between the Clyde and the Cart. The mansion is a neat, large, modern edifice, in a flat, wellwooded park. A large stone on the estate, close to the road from Renfrew to Inchinnan, marks the spot where the Earl of Argyle was wounded and captured at his defeat in 1685. 592. CART WATER is formed by the confluence of the Black Cart and the White Cart, and runs thence about a mile to the Clyde at Blythswood. The Black Cart issues from Castle Semple Loch; has a north-easterly run of about 9 miles; and is a dark, sluggish stream. The White Cart rises in the moors of Eaglesham, runs 9 miles northward, 7 miles westward, and again 2 miles northward; drives a vast amount of machinery, particularly at Pollockshaws and at Paisley; and is stemmed to the latter place by the tide. The Cart, in all its parts, was at one time a noble angling water for trout, perch, and braise; but it has suffered severe diminution of its finny treasures by the foul discharges of public works. The upper and central reaches of the White Cart show pleasing scenery, and have been sung by Burns and Campbell. 593. INCHINNAN is a parish extending 33 miles along the Clyde downward from the Cart. Its lands belonged to the High Stewards of Scotland; and a portion of them remained, till the beginning of the 18th century, in the possession of the Earls of Lennox. Inchinnan House, built in 1506, was a noble pile, usually designated a palace, but has disappeared. Inchinnan Church rose on the site of a Culdee cell, and belonged successively to the Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John. The present church is an elegant Gothic edifice of 1828, with a massive square tower; and the ancient church-yard around it contains four grave-stones of the Knights Templars. A bridge over the Black Cart and the White Cart, 35 yards above their confluence, in the vicinity of the church, is a unique and handsome structure, built in 1812. at a cost of £17,000. The parish contains Park, the seat of John Henderson, Esq., and South Barr, the seat of Boyd Alexander, Esq.-the latter a splendid edifice of 1827; and it formerly contained also the grim old baronial fortalice of North Barr, a seat of the Lords Sempill. 594. ERSKINE estate lies along the left side of the Clyde, opposite Old Kilpatrick and Bowling Bay. It belonged anciently to the family of Erskine, who became Lords Erskine and Earls of Mar; but passed in 1638 to Sir John Hamilton of Orbiston, and in 1703 to the noble family of Blantyre. The mansion is a splendid edifice in the Tudor style, built in 1828, after a design by Sir Robert Smirke. An obelisk, 80 feet high, to the memory of the eleventh Lord Blantyre, surmounts a swell of the hill-ridge in the west. Erskine Ferry, half a mile above the LANGBANK-PORT-GLASGOW. mansion, serves all the purposes of a carriage-bridge. Erskine Church, in the southern neighbourhood of the ferry, is a handsome Gothic structure of 1813. Erskine parish extends along the river to Finlayston, with a mean breadth of 2 miles, and contains the villages of Bishopton and Rossland, the mansions of Dargavel, John Hall Maxwell, Esq.; Rossland, Matthew Rodger, Esq.; Eastbank, D. J. Bannatyne, Esq.; and several very handsome villas. Bargarran was the scene of a notorious prosecution for alleged sorcery, narrated in Arnot's "Collection of Criminal Trials," and in a volume entitled "The Witches of Renfrewshire. Dargavel is partly an edifice of the 16th century, partly a recent structure in the French style. See 604. 595. LANGBANK village comprises a short chain of neat, new, ornate cottages; and has a post office under Port-Glasgow, and a commodious new school. Finlayston House, in its neighbourhood, now the seat of William C. Bontine, Esq., is partly an edifice of the latter part of the 15th century, and was long a residence of the Earls of Glencairn, and notable as the scene of a remarkable celebration of the Lord's Supper by John Knox. Alexander Montgomery, a court poet of the time of James VI., the author of “The Cherry and the Slae," resided some time on the estate of Finlayston. Broadfield, 3 miles west of Langbank, is the seat of Andrew Wingate, Esq. 201 which makes two pretty cascades; and flanked near the head by a giddy precipice, which is fabled to have been leaped by Sir William Wallace on horseback, and bears the name of Wallace's Leap. The site of the town is part of the ancient barony of Newark. This belonged for ages to the Denistouns, but passed successively to the Maxwells, to the Cochranes, and to the Hamiltons, and is now the property of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart. The baronial castle, in a tolerably entire state, still stands on a projecting point of land a little east of the town. Most parts of it were erected about the year 1597, but some are of older date. It is a massive pile, of good proportions, in three principal rectangular compartments, and forms a striking feature in the view from the Frith. Its windows are elegantly carved; its lintels and walls bear the initials and the arms of the Maxwells; and its upper parts are adorned with corbelled round turrets. A small ancient village, of the name of Newark, stood adjacent to the castle, and rose to the dignity of a burgh of barony, but was absorbed and superseded by Port-Glasgow. The town was founded in 1668, to serve as the port of Glasgow, and it rose rapidly to importance, but suffered a permanent check by the deepening of the river upward from Dumbarton. It forms a kind of ellipse round the docks and quays. Its streets are regularly aligned, well built, and airy, and its general appearance is neat and urban. The Town Hall is a handsome edifice, with a tetrastyle Doric portico, sur 596. PORT-GLASGOW is a sea-port town and a parliamentary burgh. It stands on a belt of low, flat ground, about 300 yards broad, overhung by two successive ridges of hill rising to a sum-mounted by an elegant spire, 150 feet mit altitude of about 400 feet, at a distance of three-quarters of a mile, or less, from the shore. The lower environs are studded with villas or disposed in gardens, and the overhanging heights are clothed with wood or verdure, and command a gorgeous view. Devol's Glen, in the western vicinity, is a rocky, bosky, romantic dell, traversed by a brook, high. The Episcopalian Chapel is a neat structure, built in 1856, at a cost of nearly £4000. The harbour has large capacities, and so late as 1834 received an addition, at a cost of £40,000. Much trade is done with America, and considerable industry is carried on in connection with the commerce. The town has a key post office, three banking offices, a public library, and two chief the name of the Mansion-House, is still standing. The lands of Easter Greenock, including those of Cartsburn, belonged to the Crawfords of Kilbirnie; and those of Easter Greenock proper were purchased in 1669 by the Schaws, while those of Cartsburn passed, about the same time, to Malcolm Crawford of Glasgow, and are still in possession of his descendants. The Stewarts of Ardgowan succeeded, in 1755, to the estates of the Schaws, and took then the name of Shaw Stewart. Two villages arose in connection with the castles-Cartsdyke with the eastern one, Greenock with the western one inns-the Black Bull and the Buck's Head. It is governed by a provost, two bailies, and seven councillors; and it unites with Dumbarton and three other burghs in sending a member to Parliament. Its population in 1851 was 6986. 597. GREENOCK stands partly on a belt of plain, partly on a series of slopes and braes, between a curving reach of shore and a cloven range of hill. The flat part of the site has a mean breadth of about a quarter of a mile, lies but slightly above high-water level, and is all occupied by either the docks, the principal streets, or long lines of out--and maintained for some time a sharp skirts or villas. The ground behind rises in some parts slowly, in other parts steeply; then ascends with diversity of terrace, undulation, and acclivity, till it reaches the hills; and all, to the extent of nearly a mile in length and about half a mile in breadth, is disposed variously in streets, parks, villa-plots, factories, garden-areas, and rural openings. The hills, at their highest point, have an altitude of about 800 feet above the level of the sea, and attain it at a distance of about 11⁄2 mile from the shore; a vale which cleaves them strikes transversely, on a line from about the middle of the town; and the general expression of hill and vale, sky-line and declivity, | is a fine mixture of force and beauty. The view from the quays, from some of the streets, and especially from the high grounds above, is one of the noblest commanded by any town in Britain. competition for trade and power. Cartsdyke at first was the more successful of the two, and served as the port for fitting out the Clyde portion of the expedition to Darien; but after the union of the baronies, it became dependent on the other, and began to sink to the condition of a suburb. Greenock, so late as the beginning of the 17th century, consisted of only a row of thatched cottages, inhabited by fishermen ; and till about 1684 it did not begin to attain any noticeable trade beyond fishing. But in 1733-4 it acquired an artificial harbour of greater extent than any other which then existed in Scotland, constructed at a cost of about £5600, and it thenceforth went so rapidly into prosperity as to become in about sixty-five years the greatest port in the kingdom. It sustained a severe check by the deepening of the Clyde above Dumbarton, with the effect of removing The lands of Easter Greenock belonged, much of its commerce to Glasgow ; but at the accession of Robert III., to a fa- it has received some counteracting admily of the name of Galbraith, but pass-vantages, and will continue to prosper. ed, in his reign, to the family of Schaw. A castle belonging to them then stood at the place now called Bridgend, and did not become extinct till 1806. A new castle was soon erected by the Schaws, on an elevated terrace, now directly above the railway station; and part of it, with successive additions, forming altogether a stately, weather-worn edifice, under The town comprises a large compact centre around the original village of Greenock; a great eastern suburb, produced by extension of the original village of Cartsdyke; a considerable amount of modern southerly outskirts; and a great extent of modern westerly streets and lines of villas. Its compact average breadth is not much above two furlongs ; |