Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 3

HALMYEE HOUSE
Eobert Stewart Menzies, Esq. of Pitcur (b. 1856 ; sue.
1880), whose father houglit the estate from the Marquis
of Huntly in 1879.— Oed. Sur , sh. 48, 1863.
Halmyre House, a 16th century mansion, handsomely
renovated in 1858, in Newlands parish, Peeblesshire, 3
miles SW of Leadburn station. Purchased in 1808 for
ill6,000, the estate is now the property of Charles
Terrier Gordon, Esq., who holds 4827 acres in the shire,
valued at £2049 per annum.
Haltstanedean. See Hassendean.
K Halyburton. See Hallybukton.
Halyhill. See Forteviot.
Hamer. See Whitekikk.
Hamilton, a royal, parliamentary, and police burgh,
and a parish in the middle ward of Lanarkshire. The
town is situated in the midst of a pleasantly diversified
region, sloping on the whole to the east-north-eastward,
and about 1 mUe WSW of the junction of the Avon and
the Clyde. It stands adjacent to the Glasgow, Hamil-
ton, and Strathaven railway, 2 miles WSW of the rail-
way junction at Motherwell, 9| miles by railway and
lOi by road SE of Glasgow, and 36 by road WSW of
Edinburgh. The environs present a pretty undulating
landscape, with fine woods and picturesque dells through
which three burns run to the Clyde and six to the Avon.
The outskirts are extensive, and comprise numerous
handsome villas and mansions, besides remains of older
historical houses. The original town occupied a site
within the Duke of Hamilton's park, to the ENE of the
present position, and bore the name of Netherton. The
oldest parts of the present town stand near the public
green, and date from the early part of the 15th century,
but they have undergone considerable improvement in
more modern times. The main thoroughfare of the
newer part, a street about 700 yards long, was laid out in
1835, and is carried 60 feet above the bed of Cadzow
Burn by Cadzow bridge, which is supported on 3 spans
of 60 feet each. The suburbs, though well-built, are
somewhat straggling and irregular in plan. The Burgh
Buildings were erected near the centre of the town in
1861-63. They are buUt in the modernised Scotch
Baronial style, with a clock-tower nearly 130 feet high ;
and they contain a public hall 63 feet long by 36
wide, besides smaller halls and olficial apartments. The
County Buildings, classical in style, stand upon high
ground towards the W end of the tovra. Originally
founded in June 1834, they have been subsequently en-
larged ; and they contain a county hall besides various
county ofiices. Immediately adjacent is the prison (dis-
used since 1882), which, with an airing ground of half an
acre, is surrounded by a high wall. Erected at the
same time as the County Buildings, it superseded the
older prison, which stood in the lower part of the town,
now included in the ducal park. This old prison is
adorned with a steeple, and dates from the time of
Charles I. ; it was dismantled about 1834, but in 1S61
was repaired by the Duke of Hamilton. The Trades' Hall
was built in 1816 ; became prior to 1865 the property
of the Young Men's Christian Association ; and is now
used for meetings and as a reading-room. The barracks,
formerly used for cavalry, but now solely for infantry,
stand near the County BuUdings, and occupy a large
space of ground enclosed by a high wall. The railway
from Glasgow and Strathaven has its terminus at Hamil-
ton in the new Central station, from which also runs
the Lesmahagow line ; and the Bothwell and Hamilton
station occupies a spacious site nearly opposite the
Roman Catholic church. The corporation gas-work
was erected in 1831 at a cost of £2400, and is on an
elegant plan. A water supply by gravitation was in-
troduced into the town, under authority of Act of Par-
liament in 1853.
The parish church occupies a site upon high ground,
and, though originally beyond the town to the S, is now
embraced by the town extension. It was bmlt in 1732
from designs by the elder Adam, and consists of a cir-
cular body with four cross aisles, and has a fine stained
glass window by the Messrs BaUantine, representing oirr
Lord and Martha and Mary, placed there in 1876 in
HAMILTON
memory of Mrs James Stevenson. It contains about 800
sittings. Auchingramont Established church was built
in 1860, has 900 sittings, and ranks as a collegiate
charge with the parish church, the two ministers preach-
ing alternately in the two churches. The stipends of these
two churches are the same, viz., £412 ; but the former
has a glebe of 36 acres, valued at £82, and the latter a
manse, valued at £30. Cadzow quoad sacra church, con-
taining 800 sittings, was built in 1876-77 at a cost con-
siderably exceeding the estimate, £4000. St John's Free
church is a modem edifice with 1000 sittings. Burnbank
Free church, erected in 1875 at a cost of nearly £3000,
contained 600 sittings, and was built for the use of the
mining population of Greenfield and other villages. It
was, however, pulled down, and its site occupied by the
new West Free church, which was opened in May 1882,
and provides accommodation for 660, at a cost of £4000.
Its style is 14th century Gothic, and the spire is 100
feet high. There are four United Presbyterian churches
in Hamilton, containing respectively 1105, 940, 700,
and 582 sittings. The memorial-stone of a fifth was
laid at Burnbank on 2 Dec. 1882. Built at a cost of
over £3000, and seating 562, this is an Early Gothic
edifice with a spire 127 feet high. The Congregational
chapel, a neat Gothic building with 362 sittings, was
built in 1872 at a cost of £1400, to supersede a former
chapel in Campbell Street. The Evangelical Union
chapel contains 250 sittings, and St Mary's Roman
Catholic church, buUt in 1846, has 500. The Episcopal
church, dedicated to St Mary, is an Early Pointed struc-
ture of 1849, and can accommodate 330 hearers. The
burgh school board consists of a chairman and eight
members. In Sept. 1881 the following were the five
schools under the burgh school board, with accommoda-
tion, average attendance, and government grant : — Beck-
ford Street public (350, 336, £300, 19s. ) ; Townhead public
(400, 362, £316, 15s.); Orphan and Charity (365, 312,
£262) ; St John's Free church (618, 586, £605, 4s. ) ; and
St Mary's Roman Catholic (304, 409, £327, 4s.). The
academy is an old foundation, and till 1714 stood near the
old churchyard adjoining the palace. It was rebuilt by
Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, in Grammar Square, and
again in 1848 removed to a new site. It includes a
rector's residence, with room for 10 or 12 boarders.
Other schools are St John's grammar school for boys, a
boarding-school for girls, and several adventure schools.
The Mechanics' Institute was founded in 1846, and has
a library. The Subscription Library, estabUslied in
1808 chiefly through the exertions of Dr John Hume,
is now extinct. The Duke's Hospital is an old buUd
ing, with a belfry and bell, situated at the Cross, and
erected in lieu of the former one, which stood in the
Netherton. The pensioners do not now reside here ;
but it contributes to the support of a dozen old men, at
the rate of £8, 18s. yearly, with a suit of clothes
biennially. Aikman's Hospital in Muir Street, was
built and endowed in 1775, by Mr Aikman, a proprietor
in the parish, and formerly a merchant in Leghorn.
Four old men are here lodged, have £4 per annum, and
a suit of clothes every two years. Rae's, Robertson's,
and Lyon's, and Miss Christian Allan's mortifications
also produce considerable sums for the support of the
poor, and some other funds have been placed at the
disposal of the kirk-session for similar purposes. Other
institutions are a choral union, an agricultural society,
an auxiliary Bible society, and a variety of economical,
philanthropic, religious, and other associations. Besides
a savings' bank at the post office, Hamilton contains
branches of the Bank of Scotland, British Linen Com-
pany's Bank, the Clydesdale, Commercial, Royal, and
Union Banks, and 29 insurance companies are repre-
sented by agents or ofiices within the town. The Hamil-
ton Advertiser (1856) is published every Saturday.
Hamilton, though it carries on a large amount of
local trade, has no manufactures of importance. A
manufacture of lace was early introduced by one of
the duchesses of Hamilton, afterwards Ducbess of
Argyll, who brought over a native of France to teacb
it ; and, as it was esteemed, in the circumstances,
243