Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

CAERLANRIG
singly, or seem to surround large open patches covered
with rich natural pasture, on which the famous breed
of native wild white cattle browse. The principal cha-
racteristic of all these trees is their shortness of stature,
combined with great girth of trunk, one of the largest,
with a bole 30 feet long, girthing 26 feet 7 inches at 1
yard from the ground. Most of the trees, even the
healthiest among them, are fast hastening to decay.
No planting, pruning, or felling is allowed within the
forest. Tradition states that these oaks were planted
about 1140 by David, Earl of Huntingdon, afterwards
King of Scotland ; but this cannot be looked upon as a
fact, for their appearance and habit clearly point to
their self-sown existence.' Since this was written, five
of these monarchs of the Chase were levelled by the
great storm of 26 Nov. 1880 ; so huge and weighty were
their fallen trunks, that in June 1881 they had to be
blown up with dynamite. The wild cattle are pure
white save for black muzzles, hoofs, and tips of the
horns ; show their wildness chiefly in their fear of man ;
have only one recognised leader among the bulls ; and
in Nov. 1S80 numbered_16 bulls and 40 cows. Regarded
commonly as survivors of our native wild cattle, they
are held by Dr Jn. Alex. Smith, in his Notes on the
Ancient Cattle of Scotland (185 '3), to be rather 'an ancient
fancy breed of domesticated cattle preserved for their
beauty in the parks of the nobility. ' The ancient parish,
quite or nearly identical with Hamilton parish, was vari-
ously called Cadyhou, Cadyou, and Cadzow ; and it
changed that name to Hamilton in 1445. See Avon and
Hamilton.
Caerlanrig, a hamlet and a quondam chapelry in
Cavers parish, Roxburghshire. The hamlet lies on the
river Teviot, 6 miles NE of that river's source, and 10
miles SW of Hawick ; and was the place where the
famous Border freebooter, John Armstrong of Gilknockie,
and a number of his companions, were hanged on trees
by James V. The chapelry comprised a tract 16 miles
long and 6 miles broad, contiguous to Dumfriesshire,
and down the course of the Teviot ; and is now in-
cluded in the quoad omnia parish of Teviothead.
Caerlaverock, a coast parish of Dumfriesshire, lying
on the Sol way Firth, between the rivers Nith and
Lochar. It has its church on the Lochar, 4J miles W
of Rnthwell station, and 5J SE by S of Dumfries ; it
contains the village of Glencaple on the Nith, of Bank-
end on the Lochar, each with a post office under Dum-
fries, as well as the villages of Greenmill, Glenhowan,
Shearington, and Blackshaw, and part of the village of
Kelton. It is bounded N by Dumfries parish ; E by the
Lochar, separating it from Torthorwald, Mouswald, and
Ruthwell ; S by the Solway Firth, separating it from
England ; W by the river Nith, separating it from Kirk-
cudbrightshire. Its greatest length, from NNW to SSE,
is i% miles ; its breadth, from E to W, varies between
1J and 4 miles ; and its area is 18,320^ acres, of which
12,382J are foreshore, and 274J are water. The coast
along the Solway, from the mouth of the Lochar and
up the Nith to Glencaple, measures about 6 miles ; is
all low and flat ; suffers slow but sure encroachments by
the tide ; has a shore of sandy mud which used to serve
as a kind of manure ; and is subtended, on to the low
water channels of the Solway and the Nith, by the
12,382 acres of foreshore called Blackshaw Bank, which
is swept by the ' bore ' for which the Firth is celebrated,
and, at low water, is left an expanse of naked sand.
The Nith widens from 2 furlongs at Kelton, to 5 at
Glencaple, and to 2§ miles opposite Bowhouse Scar ; and,
while all swept by the same tremendous tide as the
open Solway, deep enough to take sea-borne ships with
a rush up to Kelton, is so very low at neap ebb tides
as, in many parts, to be fordable over to the Galloway
shore. The Lochar, on the contrary, has very little
estuary, is mostly a sluggish stream, and places, on its
Caerlaverock bank, a belt of the great Lochar Moss,
traversable only by pedestrians, and by even them only
in the driest months of summer. The surface rises
in "Wardlaw HD1 to 313, and at Banks Plantation to
300, feet above sea-level, these summit-points cornmand-
14
CAERLAVEROCK
ing extensive views over Dumfriesshire, Galloway, the
Solway, and Cumberland. The views all along the Nith,
as well on the shore as on the higher grounds, are con-
fronted, on the Galloway side, by the woods of Arbig-
land, Newabbey, and Kirkconnel, and by the grand
masses of the Criffel mountains. Much of the scenery
around the Nith's mouth, specially in the neighbour-
hood of Caerlaverock Castle, is graphically described in
Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering ; yet, with poetical
licence, is combined in his pictures of it with salient
features borrowed from still more picturesque tracts on
the Kirkcudbrightshire coast. Caerlaverock Castle itself
is Sir Walter Scott's ' Ellangowan,' and forms by far
the most interesting object, not only in Caerlaverock
parish, but in a great extent of the SW of Scotland.
Old Red sandstone is the predominant rock ; has long
been quarried for building purposes ; is traditionally
said to have been the material for Sweetheart Abbey at
Newabbey village ; and, at one place on the glebe, has
been occasionally worked into excellent grindstones.
The soil, in some parts peaty, in others a poor alluvium,
is mostly a light loam. About 5320 acres are arable,
and 126 under wood. At Wardlaw Hill, with remains of
Roman and native works, Skene places Uxellum, a town of
the Selgovse, mentioned by Ptolemy. Dr John Hutton,
first physician to Queen Anne, was a native of Caerlave-
rock, built a manse for its minister, and bequeathed £1000
for the benefit of its inhabitants. Marmaduke Con-
stable-Maxwell, fourteenth Baron Hemes (b. 1837 ; sue.
1876), of Everingham Park in Yorkshire, is chief pro-
prietor, 1 other holding an annual value of more than
£500, 2 of between £100 and £500, and 5 of from £20
to £50. Caerlaverock is in the presbytery and synod of
Dumfries ; the living is worth £238. The parish church
(17S1 ; 470 sittings) contains in its churchyard the
grave of Robert Paterson (d. 1801), the 'Old Mortality'
of Sir Walter Scott, over which a neat monument was
raised in 1869 by Messrs Black of Edinburgh. There is
also a Free church at Glencaple ; and Glencaple, Hutton
Hall, and Hutton Lodge Female schools, with respec-
tive accommodation for 168, 85, and 69 children, had
(1879) an average attendance of 47, 81, and 37, and
grants of £53, £62, 14s., and £33, 19s. Valuation
(18S1) £9085, 16s. Pop. (1S01) 1014, (1841) 1297, (1861)
1248, (1871) 1151, (1881) 1051.— Ord. Sur., shs. 6, 10,
1863-64.
Caerlaverock Castle stands near the mouth of the
Nith, 7 miles SSE of Dumfries. Its site is low ground,
not many feet above high water mark ; was naturally
surrounded with lakelets and marshes ; and is sometimes
called, by the country folk, the ' Island of Caerlave-
rock.' It naturally possessed considerable military
strength, of the same kind as that of many old fast-
nesses situated on islets or in the midst of great mor-
asses ; it has always possessed also the strong military
defensiveness of near environment by the surging tides
of the Solway and the Nith, and of the impassableness,
by an army of the great Lochar Moss, or of being so
situated that it can be approached, even at many miles
distance, only along the sort of isthmus between the
upper part of Lochar Moss and the Nith ; and it, there-
fore, was in the highest degree, likely to be selected at
an early period as a suitable place for a great artificial
fort. A tradition says that a castle was founded on it
by Lewarch Og, son of Lewarch Hen, about four cen-
turies prior to the time when Ptolemy wrote his Geogra-
phy, and bore the name of Caer-Lewarch-Og ; but that
tradition is utterly unsupported by either record, monu-
ment, or circumstantial evidence. Camden supposes
the site to have been occupied by the Roman Caerban-
torigum, mentioned by Ptolemy ; but his conjecture is
disproved by the very name Caerbantorigum, which
signifies ' the fort on the conspicuous height. ' A Roman
station may have been here — can almost be affirmed,
from the discovery or existence of Roman remains and.
Caledonian forts at no great distance, to have really
been here ; but that station neither was Caerbantorigum,
nor has left any vestiges. The earliest known fort or
castle on the spot comes first into view about the year
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