MANOR WATER-CROOK INN. 49 Queensberry; and has descended from | Broughton Burn and Holms Water, has him to the Earl of Wemyss. The castle was garrisoned for the service of Charles II., and resisted a siege, in 1650, by the troops of Cromwell. A grand wood formerly surrounded it, but was destroyed by the last Douglas Duke of Queensberry; and the destruction of it is indignantly bewailed in a well-known sonnet of Wordsworth. 146. MANOR WATER runs 10 miles northward to the Tweed, 1 mile above Peebles. Its vale commences among high mountains, is all narrow and hillscreened, and contains an ancient obelisk; a tumulus called the Giant's Grave; a Druidical monument popularly called Macbeth's Castle; vestiges of five ancient camps; a Border peel; sites of five other peels; a mountain path of the Border freebooters, still called the Thief's Road; and, about 4 miles from Peebles, the cottage of the "Black Dwarf" of Sir Walter Scott's novel. The waters of the stream are full of trout, and lie well in pools and runs for angling. The Sheriff Moor, a heathy tabular peninsula, at the confluence of the Lyne and the Tweed, along the left side of the road, 3 miles above Peebles, shows some vestiges of a Druidical temple and of ancient strengths, and commands an interesting view up and down the Tweed, and up three other vales. 147. STOBO KIRK is a fine old Norman edifice, still in use as a parish church. Stobo Castle, three-quarters of a mile further up the river, is a modern Gothic edifice, a seat of Sir Graham G. Montgomery, Bart. Dawick, or New Posso, on the opposite bank, is the seat of Sir John M. Nasmyth, Bart. Biggar Water, which enters the left side of the Tweed, 3 miles above Stobo Castle, has a run of 4 miles southward to Biggar, and thence 5 miles eastward to the Tweed, flows through rich alluvial land, and contains large trout, with reddish flesh of a fine quality. Rachan Mill, on its right bank, about a mile from the Tweed, near the influx to Biggar Water of D a post office under Biggar, and an inn, and is a central point for anglers. Drummelzier Castle, on the right bank of the Tweed, 12 mile above the mouth of Biggar Water, is a fragment of the old baronial fortalice of the powerful family of Tweedie, noticed in the introduction to Sir Walter Scott's story of “The Betrothed." Tinnis Castle, on the other bank, nearly opposite, is the fragment of a very ancient and very strong fortalice which probably belonged to the Frasers of Neidpath. 148. CROOK INN has a post office under Biggar, and is a resort of anglers for the head-streams of the Tweed. A rising ground now crowned with trees, adjacent to the plain modern mansion of Oliver, overlooking the road and the river 12 mile above Crook Inn, was the site of the baronial fortalice of Oliver Castle, the earliest seat of the Frasers of Neidpath, afterwards the property of the Tweedies of Drummelzier. This was the remotest of a line of strong towers which stood at intervals, on alternate sides of the Tweed, each within view of the next, all the way down to Berwick. Some of the towers belonged to the Crown, some to the Barons; all were built for the defence of the country in the insecure times of the Border forays; and, besides serving individually as local fortalices, they served collectively as a chain of beacon-posts, and communicated, in this capacity, with other towers in the lateral glens. A signal-fire on any of them was promptly answered by signal-fires on all; and the flame by night, or the smoke by day, summoned the whole fighting population to rush to arms for repelling any irruption. The kindling of the beaconfires is graphically described by Sir Walter Scott in his "Lay of the Last Minstrel." Talla Water, which enters the Tweed nearly opposite Oliver, issues from Gameshope Loch, and has a northnorth-westerly run of about 7 miles; and both it and the loch abound with trout. 50 THE DEIL'S BEEF TUB-INNERLEITHEN. Fruid Water, which enters on the same | 5 miles from Moffat. It is described in 150. KING'S MEADOWS, on the right | of Kailzie, with lawn and mansion, the bank of the Tweed, immediately below seat of James Giles, Esq., fleck the skirts Peebles, is the seat of Sir Adam Hay, of the hills, on the right side of the river, Bart. Its grounds are accessible from opposite Horsburgh. The ruins of the the left bank by an iron pedestrian bridge, ancient church of Kailzie, the church of and are always open to strangers. The a suppressed parish, stand further down. sequestered vale of Soonhope Burn, 4 The modern mansion of Cardrona, Wilmiles long, descends nearly opposite; and liam Robertson, Esq., and the ruin of a has the tall ruin of Shieldgreen Castle peel house on a hill above it, occur about near the head, and the mansion and a mile below Kailzie Church. The grounds pleasure-grounds of Kerfield, Anthony of Glenormiston, the seat of William Nicholl, Esq., at the foot. Hayston Chambers, Esq., with wooded braes and pleasure-grounds, with a mansion of the a pleasant mansion, lie opposite Caryear 1660, occupied by the factor of Sir drona. The course of the Tweed, for Adam Hay, and watered by Glensax about 3 miles in this neighbourhood, till Burn, occupy a recess among the hills met by the confronting vales of Innerbelow King's Meadows. Glensax Burn leithen and Traquair, moves in bold has a total run of about 6 miles to the curves, overhung by lofty peaked hills. Tweed, and is one of the best trouting 151. streams in Peebles-shire. The old riven peel tower of Horsburgh crowns a green knoll 1 mile below Kerfield. The woods INNERLEITHEN stands on Leithen Water, about half a mile from its influx to the Tweed. Leithen Water has a total course of about 10 miles, all TRAQUAIR-ETTRICK WATER. 51 153. MINCHMOOR is a broad-based, lumpish, ridgy mountain, nearly 2300 feet high, on the watershed between the Quair, the Tweed, and the Yarrow. An within a narrow hill-screened vale, and is rich in trout. Innerleithen was a mere church hamlet so late as the latter part of last century, and was known in that character so early as the time of Mal-old, wild, rough road, communicating colm IV.; but now, besides having about 1000 of a stated population employed chiefly in woollen factories, it is a favourite summer resort of invalids, rusticators, and anglers. It has a medicinal spring, the "St. Ronan's Well" of Sir Walter Scott's novel; a post office under Peebles; two banking-offices; a subscription library; several places of worship; and two hotels, the St. Ronan's and the Salmon. A delightful drive or walk, for scenery or for angling, may be taken from it, 16 miles, across the Tweed, up Quair Water, and south-westward up the Yarrow, to the head of St. Mary's Loch. See 180-184. 152. TRAQUAIR, on the right side of the Tweed, opposite Innerleithen, is an estate and a parish bisected by Quair Water. This stream is formed by four fine trouting burns, and has a total course of about 7 miles. Its vale has been noted in song for the "wild wimpling" of its waters "down a wooded glen," but is much more remarkable for chasmus, precipices, and other features of close romantic scenery, of very rare occurrence in the lands of the Tweed. Traquair House, the seat of the Earl of Traquair, near the mouth of the vale, consists partly of a very ancient tower, and partly of edifices of the reign of Charles I. A gateway, decorated with sculptures of the bear, at the entrance of an ancient but disused avenue leading to the house, is believed to have suggested to Sir Walter Scott his description in "Waverley" of the approach to the mansion of the Baron of Bradwardine. Some modern trees, within an enclosure on a knoll overlooking the Quair, represent a famous extinct grove of natural birches, visited by many poets, and associated all over Scotland with song and melody-the "Bush aboon Traquair." between Peebles and Selkirk, goes right over it, and was long travelled by the mail. A spring called the Cheese Well, at a dismal part of the road, was popularly believed in the old times to be under the government of the fairies, and received its name from the practice of travellers dropping into it bits of cheese as fairy-offerings. A stretch of 9 miles along the Tweed, from Traquair to Yair, is narrow vale, chiefly pastoral, extremely bleak and wild, yet marked with spots of beauty, at Holylee, Elibank, Ashiestiel, and Yair. Elibank, nearly at the middle part of it, on the right side, is the ancestral property of the noble family of Murray, and was the birth-place of the historian Russel. Ashiestiel, 13 mile further down on the same side, was the residence of Sir Walter Scott during the ten years prior to his removal to Abbotsford. Caddon Water, entering on the left side, 11⁄2 mile below Ashiestiel, has a run of 8 miles along a pleasant pastoral vale, and is celebrated in song. An inn on it at Clovenford, about a mile above its mouth, is a good central station for anglers. The decayed mansion of Fernilee, a mile below the Caddon, was once the seat of Robert Rutherford, Esq.; and here Miss Alison Rutherford wrote her version of the "Flowers of the Forest." Yair House, the seat of Alexander Pringle, Esq., amid charming grounds, stands opposite Fernilee. The Tweed, over a stretch below Yair, is beset with rocks and forced into rapids within the limits of a hill-pass, as sung by Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion :" "From Yair, which hills so closely bind, 154. ETTRICK WATER rises on Ettrick Pen, a mountain 2258 feet high, 7 miles east of Moffat, and runs 28 miles | century as if going fast to decay; but it north-eastward to the Tweed, 2 miles suddenly revived, and became spruce, below Abbotsford. The upper part of prosperous, and energetic. It now conits basin is a dense assemblage of high, tains a spacious central old market-place, bleak hill; the middle part admits a many new edifices, some new lines of pleasant pastoral vale; and the lower thoroughfare, and a number of elegant part, though continuing to be hilly, private residences. The Town Hall is a softens in character, and displays con- neat modern structure, with a handsome siderable embellishment. The chief tri-spire 110 feet high. A monument to Sir butaries are Timah Water and Rankle Burn on the right; and Yarrow Water, nearly equal to the Ettrick itself, on the left. The old song of "Ettrick Banks" commemorates some part of the vale which has ceased to be identified; and many ballads and legends make mention generally of "Ettrick Forest." The forest is sometimes regarded as identical with the basin of the Ettrick or with Selkirkshire, but includes also some tracts to the north. It now contains no natural wood, except some solitary birches and a few straggling thorns; but it anciently, till the wars of the Succession, and, in a degree, till the time of James V., was all literally a forest, swarming with deer, and used as a hunting-ground by the Scottish kings. Many spots in it contain memorials of the royal sports. 155. SELKIRK is a post and market town, and an ancient royal burgh. It stands above a bank, contiguous to a haugh, on the right side of Ettrick Water. It looked at the beginning of the present A Walter Scott, comprising a statue of 7} feet on a pedestal of 20 feet, was erected in 1839; and a handsome monument to Mungo Park was erected in 1859. The pleasure-grounds of Haining, the charming residence of Mrs. Douglas of Adderstone, fill the southern environs. Selkirk sprang from a hunting-seat of the ScotoSaxon kings, made some figure in the wars of the Succession, and lost about 100 of its men, "the Flowers of the Forest," on the field of Flodden. standard was borne away from Flodden by a handful of survivors, and is preserved as a rare relic by the dean of guild. The predominant craftsmen for centuries were shoemakers, and are celebrated in song as "the sutors that sewed the single-soled shoon." The town now carries on extensive woollen manufactures, offers good facilities for making the tour of the "Forest," and has two banking-offices and two principal inns, the County Hotel and the Fleece. Its population in 1851 was 3314. 158. GOREBRIDGE village, on Gore Water, has a post office under Edinburgh, a subscription library, and about 250 inhabitants. Stobs Mills village, with a gunpowder manufactory, stands near it on the other side of the stream; and the ruins of Newbyres Castle stand a little to the north-west. Gore Water 156. NEWBATTLE village is a small | way across it, to the south of the Dalold place, on the South Esk, in the housie Station, has a length of nearly a neighbourhood of Dalhousie Station. quarter of a mile, and a height of about Newbattle Abbey, adjacent to it, a seat 100 feet, and is prolonged at the ends by of the Marquis of Lothian, is a large high embankments. modern edifice of imposing appearance, and contains some valuable paintings and curious old manuscripts. King George IV. and Queen Victoria visited it when sojourning at Dalkeith. It occupies the site of a Cistercian monastery, which was founded in 1140, and acquired great wealth, but has disappeared. The encompassing park boasts some fine "an-is formed by two fine trouting burns decestral trees," and is open to the public. The summit of a broad-based hill to the south of it, 686 feet high, bears traces of a Roman camp, and was used for ages as a beacon-post. 157. DALHOUSIE CASTLE, the seat of the Marquis of Dalhousie, on the left side of the South Esk, about a mile south of Dalhousie Station, is partly a structure of the 12th century, and partly an elegant castellated mass of modern additions. The site of Cockpen House, the mansion of the "Laird of Cockpen' of Scottish song, about a furlong east of Dalhousie Castle, is a romantic spot. The vale of the South Esk, for several miles in the neighbourhood, is replete with beauty. The viaduct of the rail scending from the Moorfoot Hills, and has a total course of about 8 miles northwestward to the South Esk, about a mile below Gorebridge, at the picturesque locality of Shank Point. 159. PATHHEAD village stands on Tyne Water, 5 miles south-east of Dalkeith. It has a post office of the name of Ford under Edinburgh, a banking office, and about 950 inhabitants. The reach of the Tyne's vale in its neighbourhood possesses considerable beauty, and is crossed by a lofty bridge. Oxenford Castle, an elegant seat of the Earl of Stair, and Prestonhall, the handsome residence of Callander of Crichton, stand about 1 mile and 11⁄2 mile further down the stream. |