Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 2

DOLLAR
Dollar (Celt, dal-aird, 'vale amid the hills'), a small
town and a parish of Clackmannanshire. The town
stands at the foot of the Ochils, ISO feet above sea-
level, and 5 furlongs N of the right hank of the Devon ;
and by the Devon Valley section (1851-71) of the North
British it is 6 J miles NE by E of Alloa, 41 J NW of Edin-
burgh, 12f ENE of Stirling, and lOf WSW of Kinross.
Traversed by Dollar Burn, whose glen, followed up-
wards, leads to the noble ruins of Castle-Campbell,
it has been greatly improved and extended in recent
years, and presents a pleasant picturesque appearance ;
at it are a post office, with money order, savings' bank,
and telegraph departments, a branch of the Clydesdale
Bank, the Castle-Campbell hotel, gas-works, the Dollar
club, a working men's reading-room, ableachfield (1787),
and two brick and tile works. Fairs are held on the
second Monday in May and the third Monday in Octo-
ber. Places of worship are the parish church (1841 ;
700 sittings), an imposing Gothic structure, with a con-
spicuous tower ; a neat Free church (1858 ; 600 sittings) ;
a TJ.P. church (1876 ; 360 sittings), built at a cost of
£4500, and adorned with a spire 70 feet high ; and the
new Episcopal church of St James the Greater (1882),
Early English in style, with apsidal chancel, 7 rose
windows, 8 lancets, etc. John M'Nab (1732-1802), a
Dollar herd-boy, who as a sea-captain had risen to wealth
and settled at Mile-end, London, left £55,110 Three per
Cents, the half of his fortune, ' for the endowment of a
charity or school for the poor of the parish of Dollar. '
With this bequest, which by the end of 1825 had accum-
ulated to £74,236, was founded in 1818 Dollar Institu-
tion or Academy, whose board of trustees comprises 15
ex officio members under an Act of 1S47, and which,
with a principal and 20 other teachers, gives (1S82)
instruction to 402 paying and 110 free scholars in classics,
French, German, English, history, mathematics, mecha-
nics, science, drawing, singing, and other branches of a
liberal education ; whilst its lower and infant depart-
ments, with accommodation for 597 children, had (1880)
an average attendance of 373, and a grant of £323. The
building, erected in 1819 after designs by W. Playfair,
of Edinburgh, and greatly extended in 1867, is a Grecian
edifice, 186 feet long and 63 wide, with a hexastyle
portico ; a dome, upborne by fluted columns ; a library,
45 feet square and 45 high, containing 5000 volumes ; a
splendid upper hall, 60 feet long, 42 wide, and 24 high ;
and a well-kept garden of 5 acres. The Institution has
drawn, on the one hand, many families to Dollar ; and,
on the other, a number of its scholars board with the
principal or under masters : its former alumni include
James Dewar, since 1875 Jacksonian professor of natural
and experimental philosophy at Cambridge, and a goodly
list besides of distinguished ministers, engineers, mer-
chants, and others. Its income in 1881 comprised
£2235 from endowment, £1750 from school fees and
£739 from other sources ; whilst the expenditure
amounted to £4605, of which £3075 was for salaries.
Pop. of town (1841) 1131, (1851) 1079, (1861) 1540,
(1871) 2090, (1881) 2120.
The parish, containing also Sheardale village, If mile
to the SSW, is bounded NW by Blackford, and N by
Glendevon, in Perthshire ; E by Muckhart and Fossoway,
both also in Perthshire ; S by Clackmannan ; and W by
Tillicoultry. Its utmost length, from N to S, is 3f miles ;
its breadth, from E to W, varies between lg and 3^ miles ;
and its area is 4795-J acres, of which 22 are water. The
Devon, entering from Muckhart, winds 3| miles west-
ward, across the southern interior and on or close to
the Tillicoultry border, and receives on the way Dollar
Burn, which, itself hurrying 1J mile south-by-eastward
past the town, is formed just below Castle-Campbell by
the Burns of Sorrow and Care, running 1\ miles east-
south-eastward, and 1J mile south-south-eastward and
southward, from the northern confines of the parish.
Westward along the Devon the surface declines to close
upon 50 feet above sea-level, thence rising southward to
353 feet near Sheardale, and northward to 538 near
Hillfoot House, 2111 at King's Seat on the western
border, and 2110 at Whitewisp Hill in the N — smooth
DOLPHINTON
summits these of the green pastoral Ochils, that com-
mand magnificent views. A spongy morass, Maddy
Moss, on the NW border, lying at an altitude of from
1500 to 1750 feet, and covering upwards of 150 acres,
occasionally bursts its barrier, and sends down a muddy
torrent, by the Burn of Sorrow, to the Devon. The rocks
of the hills are eruptive, those of the valley carbonifer-
ous. Coal and sandstone are plentiful ; copper, iron,
and lead were formerly wrought in the Ochils, a little
above the town ; and beautiful agates have been found
on the top of Whitewisp ; whilst a chalybeate spring,
powerfully astringent and of medicinal efficacy both ex-
ternally and internally, was discovered in 1830 at Vicar's
Bridge. The soil is argillaceous along the Devon, and
on the lands thence to the hills is light and gravelly —
about 1740 acres being either arable or grass land, 230
under wood, and all the rest either hill-pasture or waste.
In 877 the Danes, expelled by the Norwegians from
Ireland, entered the Firth of Clyde, and, passing through
the region watered by the Teith and Forth, attacked the
province of Fife. A battle fought by them at Dollar
went against the Scots, who, fleeing north-eastward to
Inverdovet in Forgan, were there a second time routed,
King Constantin mac Kenneth being among the multi-
tude of the slain (Skene's Celtic Scotland, i. 327, 1876).
The other chief episode in Dollar's history is the burning
of its vicar, Thomas Forret, for heresy, at Edinburgh,
in 1538. From 1493 to 1605 most of the parish belonged
to the Earls of Argyll ; at present 4 proprietors hold each
an annual value of £500 and upwards, 10 of between
£100 and £500, 18 of from £50 to £100, and 44 of from
£20 to £50. Dollar is in the presbytery of Stirling and
synod of Perth and Stirling ; the living is worth £243.
Valuation (1866) £6049, (1882) £12,641, 15s. Pop.
(1801) 693, (1831) 1447, (1861) 1776, (1871) 2524.
(1S81) 2499. —Od. Sur., sh. 39, 1867.
Dollar Law, a mountain on the mutual bor er of
Manor and Drummelzier parishes, Peeblesshire, 4j miles
SE of Drummelzier village, and 9$ miles SW by S of
Peebles. Rising 2680 feet above sea-level, it commands
a view over the Lothians, and away over Berwickshire,
to Northumberland.
Dollars, an estate, with a mansion, in Riccarton parish,
Ayrshire, on the left bank of Cessnock Water, 4J miles
SE of Kilmarnock.
Dollas. See Dallas.
Dollerie, a mansion in Madderty parish, Perthshire,
2f miles E by S of Crieff. Its owner, Anthony Murray-
Esq, (b. 1802 ; sue. 1838), holds 1104 acres in the shire',
valued at £176S per annum.
Dolls. See Glenochil.
Dolphingston, a hamlet in Prestonpans parish, Had-
dingtonshire, 14 mile W of Tranent. It contains several
broken walls and gables, evidently of great antiquity,
and probably monastic.
Dolphinton, a post-office hamlet and a parish on the
eastern border of the upper ward of Lanarkshire. The
hamlet stands 7 furlongs SSW of Dolphinton station,
which, as the junction of two branches of the Caledonian
and North British, is 11 miles E by N of Carstairs, 1C
WSW of Leadburn, and 27J SW of Edinburgh.
The parish is bounded NE and E by Linton, and SE
by Kirkurd, in Peeblesshire , SW by Walston ; and ITW
by Dunsyre. In shape a triangle, with southward apex,
it has an utmost length from N by E to S by W of 3J
miles, an utmost breadth from E to W of 2J miles, and
an area of 3581J acres, of which 7J are water. The
drainage belongs partly to the Clyde, partly to the
Tweed, inasmuch as South Medwin Water runs 2J
miles south-westward along all the boundary with Dun-
syre, Tarth Water 1 mile southward along that with Lin-
ton ; and Back Burn, rising in the S of the parish, flows
3 miles north-eastward to the Tarth through the interior.
In the W along the Medwin the surface declines to a little
more, in the E along the Tarth to a little less, than 700
feet above sea-level ; and the ' divide ' between the two
river systems is marked by White Hill (1437 feet) and
Black Mount (1689). The rocks, over nine-tenths of
the entire area, are eruptive ; the soil, in most parts, is
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