Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

BONAR-BRIDGE
80), professor of economic science in the University of
Edinburgh.
Bonar-Bridge, a village in Creich parish, SE Suther-
land, at a strait towards the head of Dornoch Firth, 1
mile NE of Ardgat, 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 40 years up to 1881 ; and has a
post office (Bonar village) under Ardgay, an office of the
Caledonian Bank, an hotel, a police station, and a public
school. The bridge across the Firth here, from which
the village takes its name, was constructed (1811-12) by
Telford at a cost of £13,971. It consists of an iron
arch of 150 feet span, and of two stone arches of 60 and
50 feet respectively, presenting a water-way of 260 feet.
—Of?. Sur., sh. 102, 1881.
Bonawe. See Bunawe.
Boncastle. See Douglas.
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.
Eonerbo. See Carnbee.
Bo'ness. See Borrowstotjnness.
Bonessan, a village in Eilfinichen and Kilviceuen
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 Oban, with
money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments,
the parish church (1804 ; 350 sittings), 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 li
mile SE of Borrowstounness, and is now occupied by a
farmer. Coal and iron have been worked on the estate,
the former from a comparatively remote period.
Bonhard, a farm on the E side of Scone parish, Perth-
shire. 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 J miles N of Dumbarton, 19J WNW
of Glasgow, 1J S by E of Balloch pier on Loch Lomond,
and 31J WSW of Stirling. Like Alexandria hardly
a century old, Bonhill consists of one long well-built
street, and has a post and telegraph office, a branch of
the Commercial Bank, a local savings' bank, a hand-
some Gothic parish church (1836 ; 1150 sittings) with
a square clock-tower, a Free church (1S44) of red free-
stone, with a spire, and a UP. church (1830). A horse-
fair is held on the first Thursday of February. Pop.
(1841) 2041, (1861) 2768, (1871) 2510, (1881) 29S3.
The parish contains also the town of Alexandria 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
has an extreme length from E to W of 5f miles, a width
from N to S of from 2 to 3J miles, and an area of 9191J
BONHILL
acres, of which 818A are water. The foot of Loch Lo-
mond (23 feet above sea-level) belongs, for 2 miles on
the western and § mile on the eastern shore, to Bonhill ;
aud 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, Word-
sworth, 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, as if they might have been off-sets from
Glasgow' (Tour in Scotland, ed. by Princ. Shairp, 1874,
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
26J 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 {Trails. Sighl. and Ag. Soc, 18S0, p. 132).
Bleaching was started on the banks of the Leven in
172S, 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 5 calico printing
and Turkey-red dye works — at Dalmonach near Bonhill
town, Leven Bank near Balloch, Alexandria, etc., —
together employing between 3000 and 4000 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, only
whose fosse 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 (Dumb. 1859). At present the principal man-
sions, 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-J
miles NW of Balloch station (Jas. Lumsden, 1447 acres,
£923) ; Cameron House, 1J mile WNW of same (Patrick
Smollett, 1733 ac, £3360); Lennoxbank, near same
(Arch. Orr Ewing, MP. for Dumbartonshire since 1S6S,
201 ac, £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
(Jas. Hill Kippen, 733 ac, £S6S) ; Tullichewan Castle,
1 mile N by W of Alexandria (Jas. Campbell, 1112 ac,
£1821); Bonhill Place, 1 mile S of same (Stewart
Turnbull), and Darleith House, 3 miles N by W of
Cardross (Arch. Yuille). In the presbytery of Dum-
barton and synod of Glasgow and Ayr, Bonhill, as
enlarged in 1650 by annexations from Luss and Kilmaro-
nock, is divided into the quoad sacra parishes of Bonhill
and Alexandria, the stipend of the former being £410.
A cemetery, 5 acres in extent, was formed for the whole
parish at Alexandria in 1881, at a cost of £2000. Be-
sides 2 schools at Alexandria, there are 2 public
schools, at Bonhill town and South Jamestown, which ,
with respective accommodation for 466 and 309 children,
had (1879) an average attendance of 203 and 239 day,
and 48 and 68 evening, scholars, with grants for the'
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