Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

BONAR-BRIDGE
80), professor of economic science in the University of
Edinburgh.
Bonax-Bridge, a village in Creich parish, SE Suther-
land, at a strait towards the head of Dornoch Firth, 1
mile NE of Aedgay, where is Bonar-Bridge station, 13|
miles WNW of Tain. It comprises a line of houses
overlooking the water; is a thriving place, more than
doubled in size in the last fifty years; and has a post
office (Bonar village) under Ardgay, with money order,
savings bank, and telegraph departments, a branch of
the Caledonian Bank, two hotels, a drill hall, and a
public school. The bridge across the Firth here, from
which the village took its name, was constructed (1811-
12) by Telford at a cost of £13,971, and was washed
away on the 29 Jan., 1S92, its pillars and abutments
undermined by an extraordinary flood. A new iron-
girder bridge has since been erected by Sir William
Arrol. Pop. (1891) 356.— Ord. Sur., sh. 102, 1881.
Bonawe. See Buna we.
Bonchester, a hill and a hamlet in Hobkirk parish,
Roxburghshire. The hill rises to the E of the hamlet;
is a beautiful, verdant, round-shouldered eminence, at-
taining an altitude of 1059 feet above sea-level; shows
remains of ancient fortifications; and is believed to have
been occupied by the Romans under the name of Bona
Castra ('good camp'). The hamlet lies on the left
bank of Rule Water, 8 miles SSW of Jedburgh; bears
the name Bonchester-Bridge; and has a post office under
Hawick, with money order, savings bank, and tele-
graph departments.
Bonerbo. See Cabnbee.
Bo'ness. See Boekowstotjness.
Bonessan, a village in Kilfinichen and Kilvickeon
parish, Mull island, Argyllshire, at the head of Loch
Sloch, near the mouth of Loch Scriden, 6 miles E of the
western extremity of the Ross of Mull, and 27 miles
WSW of Oban. It has a post office under Auchnacraig,
with money order, savings bank, and telegraph depart-
ments, the parish church, and a public school.
Bongate, a suburban village in Jedburgh parish, Rox-
burghshire, on the right side of the river Jed, contiguous
to Jedburgh town, and straggling upwards of 500 yards,
from near the E end of Townfoot-Bridge, along the road
to Kelso. An ancient cross stood at it, and probably is
represented by a large extant stone, covered with in-
distinct characters, and with representations of animals.
Upwards of 90 Saxon silver coins were exhumed, in
1827, from a neighbouring field; they belonged to three
different reigns, but chiefly to that of Ethelred.
Bonhard, an estate, with an ancient mansion, in Car-
riden parish, Linlithgowshire. The mansion stands 1J
mile SE of Borrowstouness. Coal and iron have been
worked on the estate, the former from a comparatively
remote period.
Bonhard, a farm formerly in Scone parish, Perth-
shire. Along with other subjects it was transferred by
the Boundary Commissioners in 1S91 to the parish of
Kinnoull. Two ancient Caledonian stone circles are on
it, each about 21 feet in diameter, and comprising 9 stones.
Bonhill (Gael, bogh n'uill, 'foot of the rivulet'), a
town and a parish of Dumbartonshire. The former
stands on the left bank of the Leven, which here is
crossed by an iron suspension bridge (1836) of 438 feet
span, leading to the town and station of Alexandria,
that station being 3$ miles N of Dumbarton, 19J WNW
of Glasgow, If S by E of Balloch pier on Loch Lomond,
and 314 WSW of Stirling. Like Alexandria hardly
a century old, Bonhill consists of one long well-built
street, and has a money order and savings bank post
office, a branch of the Commercial Bank, a local savings
bank, a handsome Gothic parish church with a square
clock-tower, a Free church of red freestone, with a spire,
and a U.P. church. A horse-fair is held on the first
Thursday of February. Pop. (1881) 2983, (1891) 3843.
The parish contains also the town of Alexandeia and
the villages and stations of Jamestown and Balloch,
1 mile N and 1J N by W of Bonhill town. Bounded
N by Loch Lomond, NE by Kilmaronock, SE by Dum-
barton, SW by Cardross, and W and NW by Luss, it
BONHILL
has an extreme length from E to W of 5| miles, a width
from N to S of from 2 to 3J miles, and an area of 9191i
acres, of which 818$ are water. The foot of Loch
Lomond (23 feet above sea-level) belongs, for 2 miles on
the western and § mile on the eastern shore, to Bonhill;
and Smollett's Leven flows from it 3 miles southward
through the parish, which it divides into two fairly
equal halves. Along it lies the level Vale of Leven,
from 6 to 11 furlongs wide, a pleasant valley still,
though it had lost its Arcadian character so early
even as 24 Aug. 1803, the day when Coleridge, Words-
worth, and his sister Dorothy drove up it from Dum-
barton to Luss, and the last in her journal described it
as ' of no extreme beauty, though prettily wooded ; the
hills on each side not very high, sloping backwards
from the bed of the vale, which is neither very narrow
nor very wide; the prospect closed by Ben Lomond and
other mountains. The vale,' she continues, 'is popu-
lous, but looks as if it were not inhabited by cultivators
of the earth; the houses are chiefly of stone, often in
rows by the river side; they stand pleasantly, but have
a tradish look ' (Tour in Scotland, edited by Princ. Shairp,
p. 62). Right of this valley the surface rises westward
to 901 feet on Auchindennan Muir, 714 on Darleith
Muir, 995 on Bromley Muir, and 940 on Overton Muir;
left of it, eastward, to 297 feet near Over Balloch, 691
near Auchcarroch, and 843 on the Dumbarton border.
The leading formations are Old Red sandstone in the W.
and elsewhere Lower Silurian; the soil of the arable
lands is mostly a fertile loam, resting on a clay subsoil.
More than 300 acres are planted with larches and Scotch
pines ; but the two famous ash-trees have wholly or
almost disappeared, that in the churchyard (girthing
26$ feet at 3 from the ground, and 113 high) having
been blown down by the gale of 1 Nov. 1845, whilst
the other at Bonhill Place (at 3 feet girthing 34) is
represented only by the shell, 12 by 3 feet, of one side
of the trunk {Trans. HigM. and Ag. Soc, 1880, p. 132).
Bleaching was started on the banks of the Leven in
1728, and the first print-field 40 years afterwards, break-
ing up the valley's pastoral solitude, but greatly im-
proving the rental; to-day there are some half a dozen
calico printing and Turkey -red dye works — at Dalmonach
near Bonhill town, Leven Bank, Alexandria, etc. — to-
gether employing between 4000 and 5000 hands. The
Lennox and Lindsay families were anciently connected
with this parish, the former in the 15th century hold-
ing the whole of it, along with old Balloch Castle, whose
fosse only remains; and the latter in the 17th owning
the lands of Bonhill, which after the Restoration passed
to Sir James Smollett, grandfather of the celebrated
novelist, and founder of a house whose fortunes are
traced in Irving's Account of the Family of Smollett of
Bonhill. At present the principal mansions, with the
owners or occupiers, and the extent and annual value
of their estates within the shire, are — Arden House, on
the W shore of Loch Lomond, 3| miles NW of Balloch
station (Jas. Lumsden, 1447 acres, £923) ; Cameron
House, li mile WNW of same (Patrick Smollett, 1733
acres, £3360) ; Lennoxbank, near same (Sir A. Orr
Ewing, Bart., M.P. for Dumbartonshire for many years,
201 acres, £4340); modern Balloch Castle, on the E shore
of Loch Lomond, 1 mile N of same (A. J. D. Brown,
893 ac, £1274); Westerton House, 2J miles NE of same
(William Kippen, 733 ac, £868); Tullichewan Castle,
1 mile N by W of Alexandria (Jas. Campbell, 1112 ac,
£1821); Bonhill Place, 1 mile S of same, and Darleith
House, 3 miles N by W of Cardross. In the presbytery
of Dumbarton and synod of Glasgow and Ayr, Bonhill,
as enlarged in 1650 by annexations from Luss and Kil-
maronock, is divided into the quoad sacra parishes of
Bonhill and Alexandria, the stipend of the former being
£278. A cemetery, 5 acres in extent, was formed for
the whole parish at Alexandria in 1881, at a cost of £2000.
Besides 3 schools at Alexandbia, there are 2 public
schools, at Bonhill town and South Jamestown, which,
with respective accommodation for 465 and 477 children,
had (1891) an average attendance of 321 and 353 day,
and 42 and 32 evening scholars, with grants for the
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