Counties > Moray (Elgin) and Nairn Shires > 1863 - Black's Morayshire directory, including the upper district of Banffshire

90
High. Street has been completely changed. Antiquated houses have
given place to new ones four storeys in height, with large shops on the
ground floor (some of them very elegant), or places of business, as in
the case of banks. Within forty years, Bishopmill has risen from a
few thatched cottages to a village with 1100 of a population. There
are many fine villas in it, with hanging gardens towards Lossie,
whose wooded and serpentine course forms a beautiful feature in the
landscape. On the south side of Elgin whole streets have been
built within a few years, and here, as on the north, many villas have
been erected, making a stringer passing Elgin by railway almost believe
that it is a town of villas and churches alone he is seeing.
The pleasantness of the scenery and salubrity of the climate have
induced many retired military and naval officers to settle in Elgin.
The Academy has also been an attraction, as well as private boarding
and day schools for young ladies and young gentlemen. The prosperity
of the town has, however, depended upon other things besides these.
A railway to Lossiemouth, and now one also to Burghead, gives Elgin
all the advantages of a seaport town, the harbour of Lossiemouth being
only fifteen minutes' drive from the High Street. To this must be
added the privileges Elgin enjoys of being a county town in the fair
and fertile "land of Moray." Nor must the important fact be omitted
that exhaustless quarries of freestone are close at hand, with, no diffi-
culty in getting ground to feu, either on the north or south side of
the town. A place with so many advantages can prosper without large
textile manufactories. Elgin has, however, some public works— a
woollen manufactory and a foundry at Newmill ; two tanworks and a
foundry within the town ; two breweries, four sawmills, several meal
and flour mills, two coach works, <fec, &c, besides extensive nurseries,
quarries, limeworks, and a brick and tile work in the immediate vici-
nity. These employ hundreds of men and women ; but many of the
labouring population, of both sexes, work as day labourers in the
fields.
Strangers are often surprised bow Elgin can support so many fine
shops, and afford employment to so many masons, house carpenters,
plumbers, coachmakers, and others ; but the secret lies in the fact that
all these are required for a wide district of country, embracing not
only Morayshire, but, to a great extent, the adjacent counties of Banff,
Nairn, and Inverness ; while many of them have extensive business
connections with Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness. Elgin has also a
large number of professional men. Besides those connected with the
church, the bar, and the medical profession, it bas landsurveyors,
architects, artists, and a sculptor, who are employed extensively in all
the counties north of the river Dee. (Population, see page 65.)
TOWN COUNCIL OF ELGIN.
By the Act 3d and 4th. Will. IV., cap. 76, the Council consists of seventeen bur-
gesses, Avho must be Parliamentary electors of the burgh, one-third, as near as may
be, of whom go out every year by rotation, and the election of their successors takes
place on the first Tuesday of November, by the votes of the Parliamentary electors
registered on premises situated within the royalty. The poll opens at eight a.m., and
closes at four p.m., at which hour the candidates having the greatest number of votes