Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

SHOTTS
prior to 1450. It was a dependency of the Collegiate
church of Bothwell, and the site was about the
E end of the present churchyard. It was repaired
and partly rebuilt in 1640-48, and again in 1691,
but having become unsafe it was removed and the
present church erected in 1819-21 at a cost of nearly
£3000. The spire was struck by lightning and destroyed
in 1876, but a new one was at once erected and other
repairs executed. After the Reformation, Bothwell,
Shotts, and Monkland were all attended to by the
minister of Bothwell, and afterwards this grouping was
altered to Shotts, Bothwell, Cambusnethan, and Dalziel,
while from 1571 to 1591 the parish had a ' reader.' In
1588 the Synod of Glasgow ordered a minister to be
appointed, and this was done in 1591. Distinguished
natives have been John Miller (1735-1801), miscellaneous
writer and professor of civil law in Glasgow University,
whose father was minister of the parish ; Dr Matthew
Baillie (1761-1823), the famous London physician, whose
father was minister of the parish, his mother being a
sister of the celebrated anatomist, Dr William Hunter ;
Dr Baillie's sister, the well-known Joanna Baillie, was
born at Bothwell only 9 days after her father's trans-
lation from Shotts to that parish ; Janet Hamilton
(1795-1873), the poetess ; while Gavin Hamilton, the
historical painter (1717 to 1776 or 1796), seems to have
sprung from a Shotts family, but he was probably born
in Edinburgh. Dr Cullen, the eminent Edinburgh
physician, had his first practice at Shotts. The parish
is traversed by one of the main roads from Edinburgh
to Glasgow, which passes for 7 miles through the
centre ; another by Bathgate, Airdrie, and Coatbridge
passes for 3{ miles just inside the northern border, and
there are, except in the moorland, good district roads.
The northern border of the parish is traversed by the
Coatbridge and Bathgate section of the North British
railway system, with stations at Westcraigs and Forrest-
field, while others farther W at Caldercruix and Clark-
ston are close to the parish boundary. The first is 23J
miles W by S of Edinburgh, and the second 26J, and
from Westcraigs a branch passes through the eastern
part of the parish, quitting it at Shotts Ironworks
on its way to join the Bathgate and Morningside
section at Blackball. The Edinburgh and Glasgow
section of the Caledonian railway passes along the
S side, and has stations at Shotts Ironworks, 25J
miles from Edinburgh and 16-J from Glasgow ; Omoa,
30 from Edinburgh and 12 from Glasgow ; and Cleland,
30 from Edinburgh and 12 from Glasgow, the last
being on a branch line from Newarthill to Morning-
side. There are also several mineral loops and branches.
The lands of Hartwood and Bowhouse Bog, about 2
miles E of Omoa station, with two small adjoining
properties, extending in all to about 600 acres, were, in
1883, acquired by the Lanarkshire Lunacy Board at a
price of £26,500 as a site for a new district asylum,
which is to be built with accommodation for about 1000
patients, at a total coast of over £150,000.
The village, including Kirk of Shotts and Shottsbum,
is about 2| miles NNW of Shotts station. It has a
post office, with money order, savings' bank, and tele-
graph departments, and a branch office of the Commercial
Bank. The Duke of Hamilton obtained in 1685 'Ml
power, liberty, and privilege to hold two free fairs yearly
at the Church of Shotts. The one upon the . . . day
of June, the second upon the . . . day of August, with
a weekly mercat at the said Church of Shotts ; ' and
annual fairs are still held on the third Tuesday of June
and the last Tuesday of November — both o. s. — the
latter having probably superseded the August fair,
which was given up early in the present century. It
was a yarn fair where home-spun cloth and yarn were
disposed of. The balance on which the material was
weighed hung at the Tron Knowe to the E of the
present school. The parish also includes the villages of
Dikehead (SE), Greenhill (SW), Harthill (E), Muir-
head (SE), and Salsburgh (W), and the greater part of
the villages of Cleland and Shotts Ironworks, all of
which are separately noticed.
SIBBALDBIE
Shotts is in the presbytery of Hamilton and synod of
Glasgow and Ayr, and the living is worth £593. The
church, which has been already noticed, contains 1200
sittings. The parish contains also the quoad sacra
churches of Calderhead, Harthill and Benhar, and
Cleland, and embraces part of the quoad sacra parish of
Clarkston. The Free church, built in 1848 and rebuilt in
1S78, is at Dikehead ; and there are also Free churches
at Harthill and Cleland. The United Original Secession
church at Shottsburn originated in an Associate Congre-
gation formed in 1738 in consequence of the forced settle-
ment of Rev. David Orr in that year, and afterwards
greatly strengthened by the forced settlement of Rev.
Laurence Wells in 1768. The church was erected in
1771, but has since been repaired. There is a Roman
Catholic church at Cleland. Under the school board
Cleland, Greenhill, Greens, Harthill, and Shotts public
schools, with accommodation for 300, 250, 63, 230, and
207 pupils respectively, had in 1884 attendances of 211,
116, 26, 268, and 129, and grants of £180, 12s., £105,
12s., £33, 12s., £208, 7s., and £115, 7s. Not under
the school board Benhar Colliery and Cleland Roman
Catholic schools, with accommodation for 373 and 254,
had at the same date attendances of 290 and 116, and
grants of £264, 13s. and £109, lis. The mansions are
Murdoston and Easter Moffat. Nineteen proprietors
hold each an annual value of £500 or upwards, 25 hold,
each between £500 and £100, 22 between £100 and £50,
and there are a number of smaller amount. Valuation
(1860) £27,266, (1885) £76,494, 18s. Pop. (1801) 2127,
(1831) 3220, (1861) 7343, (1871) 8353, (1881) 11,214, of
whom 6045 were males and 5169 females, while 4294
were in the ecclesiastical parish. Houses (1881) 2014
inhabited, 277 uninhabited, and 12 being built. See
also Grossart's Historic Notices of the Parish of Shotts
(Glasgow, 1880).— Ord. Sur., shs. 31, 23, 1867-65.
Shotts Ironworks, a village on the border of Shotts
and Cambusnethan parishes, Lanarkshire, near Shotts
railway station, and 9£ miles E of Holytown. It has
pig-iron works with six furnaces. Pop. (1861) 1335,
(1871) 120S, (1881) 969, of whom 543 were males and
426 females, while 740 were in the Shotts portion of the
village.
Shuna, a Hebridean island in Kilbrandon and Eil-
chattan parish, Argyllshire, lying 1 mile SW of the
entrance of Loch Melfort, and separated from the main-
land on the E by a sound 1 to 2 miles broad, from the
island of Luing on the W by the Sound of Shuna, \ to
| mile broad. Its length, from N to S, is 2J miles ;
its greatest breadth is 1J mile ; and its area is 1173^
acres, of which 57f are foreshore. The surface is all
rolling, tumulated, and broken ground, whose tiny
summits nowhere rise higher than 200 feet above sea-
level. It possesses much of that intricate mixture of
land and rock which, with the aid of wood and cul-
ture, abounds in mild soft pictures of rural beauty ;
it derives picturesqueness from its encincturement with
intricate bands of sea, overhung by the lofty hard-
featured heights of island and mainland; and it has
everywhere such a profuse and curious interspersiou of
natural woods, with rocks and cultivated fields and pas-
ture lands, as to look, from end to end, like a large sea-girt
park. Though topographically grouped with the Slate
Islands, it possesses little or none of the clay-slate so
prevalent in Luing and Seil, Easdale, Lunga, and
Scarba ; yet it presents interesting objects of study to a
geologist, and at each end it has a bed of dark blue
crystalline limestone, which has long been wrought for
economical purposes. Shuna belongs to the City of
Glasgow. Pop. (1861) 43, (1871) 15, (1881) 14.
Shuna, an island of Lismore and Appin parish,
Argyllshire, in Loch Linnhe, nearly opposite Portna-
croish village, amd 14 miles NNE of Oban. Measuring
10J by 5£ furlongs, it rises to a height of 233 feet, and
contains the ruins of Castle-Shuna. Pop. (1871) 14,
(1881) 8.— Ord. Sur., sh. 53, 1877.
Shurrery, Loch. See Reat.
Shurroch Hill. See Kingoldrum.
Sibbaldbie. See Applegarth.
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