Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

KELSO
claimed, amid shouts of ' No union ! no malt tax ! no
salt tax ! '
The gas company was started in 1831; but on 5 Feb.
1818 a shop in Bridge Street, formerly office of the Kelso
Chronicle, and tenanted then by an ingenious copper-
smith, was lighted with gas, this being its earliest intro-
duction to Scotland. In 1866, under the direction of
Mr Brunlees, C.E., a native of Kelso, the town was
drained, and a gravitation water supply pumped by steam
from the Tweed, at a cost of £7000. The Town Hall,
on the E side of the Market Place, is a tetrastyle Ionic
edifice of 1816, with a piazza basement and a cupola.
The Corn Exchange, in the Wood Market, was built by
subscription at a cost of £3000 in 1856 from designs by
Mr Cousins. Tudor in style, it measures 124 by 57 feet,
contains 71 stalls, and is sometimes used for lectures,
concerts, and balls. The parish church, near the abbey,
built in 1773, and much altered in 1823 and 1833, is an
octagonal structure, containing over 1000 sittings, and
has ' the peculiarity of being without exception the
ugliest of all the parish churches in Scotland, but an
excellent model for a circus.' The North quoad sacra,
parish church, a Gothic building, with a conspicuous
tower and an organ (1892), was erected in 1837 at a cost
of £3460 for the Establishment, to which it reverted in
1866, after having for twenty-three years belonged to
the Free Church. The present Free church, on the E
side of Roxburgh Street, facing the Tweed, was built in
1865-67 at a cost of £6000 for Horatius Bonar, D.D.,
the well-known hymn-writer, who, ordained at Kelso in
1837, was a minister there for upwards of thirty years.
Decorated in style, with 750 sittings and a lofty spire,
it is not unlike the Barclay Church at Edinburgh, and
forms a striking feature in the landscape. Other places
of worship are East Free church (1844, remodelled in
1883), the First U.P. church (1788), the East U.P.
church (1793, remodelled in 1877), the Baptist chapel
(1878), StAndrew'sEpiscopalchurch(1868; 314 sittings),
and the Roman Catholic church of the Immaculate Con-
ception (1858; 230 sittings). The last succeeded a cot-
tage chapel, burned by a mob on 6 Aug. 1856; while St
Andrew's, a Geometric Gothic structure, near the Tweed's
bank above the bridge, superseded a chapel of 1757,
whose congregation dated from the Revolution. Kelso
High School, at the E end of the town, is a handsome
red sandstone edifice of 1877-78, and comprises a large
hall 70 feet long, with class-rooms attached, and dormi-
tories above for boarders. It has higher-class, middle,
and elementary departments, and is conducted by a
rector and assistants. At the old grammar school,
adjoining the abbey, Sir Walter Scott in 1783 was the
six months' school-fellow of James and John Ballantyne ;
its site is now occupied by a fine new public school
(1879). There is also a high school for girls, a young
ladies' seminary, and two public schools under the
parish school board.
Shedden Park, at the E end of the town, was pre-
sented to the inhabitants in 1851 by the late Mrs
Robertson of Ednam House, and took its name in memory
of her nephew, Robert Shedden (1820-49), who perished
in the search for Sir John Franklin. Comprising an
area of fully 8 acres, it adds greatly to the attractions
and amenity of Kelso; is maintained from the rental of
a number of dwelling-houses and gardens, given by Mrs
Robertson for that and for other benevolent purposes;
and has a handsome entrance gateway, erected by public
subscription, in gratitude for the gift. Immediately
beyond is the beautiful cemetery, the ground for which
was gifted to the town by the sixth Duke of Roxburghe.
Kelso Library, a handsome edifice in Chalkheugh Ter-
race, overlooking the Tweed, and commanding a very
beautiful view, contains a valuable collection of books,
first formed in 1750, and now comprising over 7000
volumes, the most interesting of which is the identical
copy of Percy's Reliques that entranced the boyhood of
Sir Walter Scott. The adjoining Tweedside Physical
and Antiquarian Society's Museum (1834), with frontage
towards Roxburgh Street, is a massive two-story build-
ing; contains a fine collection of stuffed birds of the dis-
904
KELSO
trict, some portraits, relics of Sir Walter Scott, etc.
The Dispensary, occupying a healthy and airy site in
Roxburgh Street, was founded in 1777, and enlarged
and provided with baths in 1818. This institution
maintains a staff of nurses for the treatment of poor
persons either within doors or at their own homes. The
Union Poorhouse (1853), which has had on an average of
10 years 20 inmates, is a neat and spacious building,
with accommodation for 70 inmates, and is situated in
the ' Tannage ' field, to the N of the North Parish church.
The Parochial Board offices are in Bowmont Street, to
the W of the Poorhouse. Amongst other institutions
are the Billiard and Reading-room (1855), the New
Billiard and Reading-room (1852), the Mechanics' Insti-
tute (1866), Subscription Library ; the Border Union
Agricultural Society, established as the Border Society
in 1812, united with the Tweedside Society in 1820, and
yearly holding a stock and sheep show on 5 Aug. , a bull
show in spring, and a great sale of Border Leicester and
Cheviot rams in September; an Association for the Ana-
lysing of Manures and the Testing of Seeds (among the
first of the kind instituted in Scotland); the Horticul-
tural Society, under the patronage of the Duke of Rox-
burghe, and holding a great show in September; the
Poultry Exhibition (1881), a Dog Society (1883), a
Cycling Club (1883), the Total Abstinence Society (1862),
Good Templar lodges, and a Rechabite tent; lodges of
Freemasons (1815), Foresters (1845), and Oddfellows
(1841); the Choral Union (1864), the Cricket Club (1850),
the Border Cricket Club (1854), the Bowling Club (1818),
the Quoiting Club (1851), the Curling Club (1790), the
Angling Association (1859), the Border Racing Club
(1854), and public washhouses. The Kelso races are
held annually for two days in the beginning of October
on a racecourse 9 furlongs N of the town, which, formed
in 1822 out of what was once a morass, is perhaps the
finest in Scotland ; and the Border steeplechases are run
in April partly on the racecourse, which has an excellent
stand on the model of that at Doncaster.
Kelso has a post office, with money order, savings
bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, branches
of the Bank of Scotland, and of the British Linen Co. ,
Commercial, and National banks, a National Security
savings bank (1849), the Cross Keys (1760) and several
other hotels, and 2 weekly newspapers, the AVednesday
Conservative Kelso Mail (1797) and the Liberal Friday
Kelso Chronicle (1832). A weekly general and corn
market is held on Friday; and the following is a list of
the fairs — horses, every Friday of March; wool, second
Friday of July; St James's Fair, of very ancient origin,
and long of very great importance, but now little else
than a pleasure fair, held on the Friar's Haugh, on the
right bank of the Tweed, opposite Floors Castle, 5 Aug. ,
or if a Sunday, the Monday following; tups, second
Friday of September; cattle and ewes, 24 Sept., or if a
Sunday, the previous Saturday ; auction sales of fat
cattle and sheep on the first and third Monday of each
month; hinds and herds hiring, first Friday of March;
young men's and women's hiring, first Friday of May
and November. The sale of corn in the weekly market
is very great, as is also that of Border Leicester rams at
the September fair. Formerly Kelso was famous for its
shoes, its leather, its blue bonnets, and the produce of its
handloom weavers; later itranked second only to Dumfries
in pork-curing; but now the town mainly depends on its
coach-building establishments, fishing-tackle manufac-
tories, cabinet and upholstery works, extensive nursery
gardens, corn, manure, and saw mills, agricultural
machinery, iron foundry, and Wooden woollen-mills,
for the manufacture of tweeds, blankets, and plaidings.
The original Chronicle, published by 'Blackneb' Palmer
from 1783* to 1803, with its antidote, the existing
Mail, started by James Ballantyne in 1797, was among
the earliest Scottish newspapers, its only provincial
senior being the Aberdeen Journal (1748). Palmer was
* Kelso can boast of having had a newspaper published in it at
least weekly for upwards of a hundred years, the centenary of the
founding of the newspaper press in tho town having occurred in
February, 1883.