Fewchaw, the cold or wooded water. Glenblaith, the flowery glen. Glendouren, the glen of the oaks. Garrion gill, garrion a thicket, and gill a water-course. Glengonar, the glen of the gold sand. Glendyne, the deep glen. Glenim, the butter glen. Glenkill, the kirk glen. Garple, the rough or short stream. Glaspen, the grey hill. Glenae, the glen of the ac. Glenquhary, the sheep glen. Glenquhargen, the crooked glen. Greenock, the sandy hill. Glenluce, the sunny vale. Garrioch fell, the rocky height. Glencrosh, the red glen. Glenmuir, the moor glen, or the great glen. Glenmead, the wooded glen. Glenmaddie, the fox or the wolf glen. Glenkens, the glen of the Ken. Glasgow, glas dark, gau a valley. Irvine, the green margin. Iona, the isle of waves. Knochallach, the cattle height. Knochenhair, the green hill. Kirkmaho, the kirk or the field by the river. Kenmore, can a lake, and more great. Kyle, the forest. Keir, a fort. Kelliecranky, decayed wood. Kilmarnock, the cell of Marnock. Ken, the fair stream. Kells, the woods, or the cells. Knees, probably cneas, the breast, the bosom. Kinloch, lochead. Lochgoin, lwch gwyn, the white loch. Lennox, lin a stream, and knack a hill. Lag, a hollow. Logan, a little hollow. Largmore, the great shark. Linfearn, lin a stream, and fearn alder bushes. Lesmahago, lis a habitation, magh of field, and aga the bottom. Lane, a stream. Laight, a grave. London, probably lon a stream, and don dark. Lugar, the bursting stream. Lochbruin, the loch of the boar or rushes. Lagminnean, the hollow of the kids. Marburn, the great burn. Mauchline, the field by the stream. Mennock, the ore hill. Meaul, a hill. Moredrogat, the great ridge. Morton, moredun, the great fort. Nypes, the heights. Nith, the whirling stream. Nethan, the little Nith. Ocheltre, the high town. Ochels, the height. Polkemmet, the stream by the crooked field. Polkelly, the wooded stream. Polgown, the stream of the smiths. Penyvenie, the milky height. Penpont, pen the head, and pant a valley, Pamphy lins, pemfau the great cave. Penneil, the head of the wall. Powtrail, the head stream. Penycuick, the hill of the cuckoo. Peebles, pybil, sheilings, huts. the north-west has been the remote origin both of the town and its name. On the north of this low hill fort, at the distance of a few yards, was the famed well of St Bride, a monkish fountain, which sent forth its limpid waters from the sunny slope of a verdant bank. In the days of Romish superstition this sacred well was doubtless visited by many a devotee who had faith in the virtue of its consecrated waters, and many a holy requiem would be chanted by the saintly pilgrims, as they reclined by the gurgling spring under the shade of the scented hawthorn, or the palmy willow that loves to guard the fountains and the brooks. Whether any miracle was ever wrought at this well, by the influence of its presiding saint, tradition does not say; its fame, however, has long since died away, and now at last its waters are dried up, by means of the mining excavations which have been carried on around it; and the identical spot from which welled the stream so hallowed in the eyes of former generations, will, ere long, be entirely unknown. The The old church of Sanquhar, which was lately demolished to make room for the present structure, which occupies its site, was a building of great antiquity. Tradition says it was coeval with the High Church of Glasgow, and was reared by the same architect. From some sculp tured stones that were found in its walls, it is obvious that it must have been very ancient, whether its date be what tradition has assigned it or not. There were originally several altars in this church, one of which was known by the name of the altar of the haly bluid. "Sir John Logan, vicar of Colven, granted certain lands and rents of houses within the burgh of Dumfries, for the support of a chaplain to celebrate divine service at the altar sacri cruoris domini, in the church of Sanchar. This was confirmed by the king in November, 1539. patronage of the church of Sanquhar was an appendage to the barony, which was acquired by the family of Crichton. In the fifteenth century, the rectory of Sanquhar was constituted a prebend of the cathedral church of Glasgow, with the consent of the patron, whose right still continued. The benefice was usually conferred on a younger son or other relative of the family. Mr Ninian Crichton was patron of Sanchar in 1494, and Mr William Crichton was rector during the reign of James V. In Bagimont's Roll, the rectory of Sanchar, then a prebend of the chapter of Glasgow, was taxed at £10. After the Reformation the patronage was continued with Lord Sanchar till 1630, when it was sold, with the barony, to Sir William Douglas of Drumlanrig." If a conjecture may be hazarded, we may suppose that the church at the west end of Sanchar took its rise in the Celtic times, and was built in the neighbourhood of the fortification; and that the church at its east end, of which nothing now remains, originated with the family of Ross, on whose lands it was reared. There was recently discovered in the gardens adjoining the wall of the church-yard, the foundation of an ancient structure, deep in the soil, and running nearly in a line with the south side of the church. The thickness of this wall is about four feet, and the stones are strongly cemented with mortar, and in the heart of it were found carved stones of a still older edifice. There can be little doubt that this foundation points out the site of the ancient monastic buildings connected with the church of Sanquhar. This supposition seems to receive confirmation from the fact that this wall, at its eastern extremity, turns at a right angle pointing towards the church, to which, in all likelihood, it was formerly joined. 66 "Between six and seven hundred years ago," says the author of the Caledonia," ," "Godfrey de Ross obtained from Richard Moreville, the constable of Scotland, the lands of Stewarton, wherein he was succeeded by his son James de Ross, who granted some lands in this manner to the monks of Paisley. Such were the progenitors of the Rosses of Hawkhill, of Ross of Sanquhar in Nithsdale, and other families." The manner in which our Saxon and Norman ancestors, in colonizing the country, settled themselves in their different localities, was the following: A baron obtained a grant of lands, on which he sat down with his followers, and built a castle, and a church, and a mill, and a brew-house, and in this way founded a hamlet, which, according to the custom of the times, was denominated the ton, or town of the baron. It was in this manner that many of the inland towns and villages in Scotland sprang up. The retainers of the baron built their huts, which were generally constructed of turfs or of twigs, near his castle, for the sake of mutual defence; and as the importance and strength of a baron consisted chiefly in the number of his vassals, every encouragement would be given to settlers, so that in a short time the hamlet, growing up under the walls of the castle, would increase into a town. The circumstance, also, of the barons always connecting a church with a castle, accounts for the great number of places throughout the landward parts of the country to which the name of chapel is attached, though there may not now be the least vestige either of the church or of the castle remaining. Many of these baronial chapels, in all probability, became, in process of time, parish churches; and this accounts both for the irregular distribution of many of the parish churches, and for the inconvenience of their situation. In the vicinity of Ryehill, the seat of the ancient Rosses of Sanquhar, is a small but beautiful green moat, the meeting-place of the feudal barons, who held their courts for judicial purposes in the open air; and many a hapless wight, convicted of capital offences, was, in those precarious times, with little ceremony and brief warning, suspended on the gallows-tree, in the presence of the folk-mote or public assembly of the people, who were convened to witness his monitory execution. But to the "lovers of hoar antiquity," perhaps, the monuments and relics of ancient buildings will be chiefly interesting. The author of the "Statistical Account of the Parish of Sanquhar," published in 1793, says, "A stone was found some time ago with the following inscription: Here lies the good Sir John Ross of Ryehill; here lies the good, good Sir John Ross of Ryehill; here also lies the good, good, good Sir John Ross of Ryehill. Near the residence of the Rosses there seems to have been a large pile of building, perhaps the hospital of Senewar, a religious foundation, though this cannot be ascertained. Several of the stones, of a Gothic figure, are built into the walls and windows of houses where this edifice once stood. There is also a large font, or rock basin. Human bones have been found in digging and ploughing up the field in which it stands, and a key of an enormous size was found not above twenty years ago, much consumed with rust, and is now lost." mation till the present day. At the Restoration, John Carmichael, who was at the time minister of Sanquhar and Kirkconnel, was ejected for his nonconformity and attachment to the principles of the Reformation; and since the termination of the reign of Prelatic usurpation in 1688, the parish has been supplied with a succession of worthy ministers in the Establishment. The Secession Church has had a congregation in this place for nearly a hundred years, and which now enjoys the ministrations of the fifth ordained pastor. The first of the series, a young man of the name of Ballantine, was ordained in the time of the Erskines, and is still mentioned as having been a youth of great piety and promise, but was removed in the flower of his days, and just as his early graces and endowments were beginning to expand themselves. He was buried in the church-yard of Sanquhar, and the following epitaph, said to be composed by Ralph Erskine, is engraven on his tomb stone: This sacred herald, whose sweet mouth Like Timothy, was but a youth, And yet a man of God. Soon did the young and ready scribe A friend for Christ appear, And was among the associate tribe He for the Reformation cause His zealous soul with hasty pace To feed the lambs around the place There is also in the town another congregation of the same denomination, of little more than twenty years' standing. The Baptists have a small association here; and the Reformed Presbytery have a preaching place, which is occasionally occupied. The locality is well supplied with the means of grace; and the inhabitants seem, on the whole, to avail themselves of their religious advantages, and also to profit by them, at least. if we may judge from the manner in which the different places of worship are attended. The people generally come well out to hear the Gospel, and there is to be witnessed on the Sabbath-days, at the dismission of the various congregations, the animating spectacle of the streets of the little burgh literally crowded with retiring worshippers. THE END. |