Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 4

LASSWADE
mile from the SW extremity, runs along the W boundary
for about J mile, and then turning NNE cuts the rest
of the parish into nearly equal parts. The bed and
gorge of this river form a beautifully romantic and
picturesque glen, with lofty precipitous sides, thickly
wooded banks, and are thus referred to in Scott's ballad
fragment of The Grey Brother : — •
' Sweet are the paths, O passing; sweet
By Esk's fair streams that run
O'er airy steep, through copsewood deep,
Impervious to the sun.
' "Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,
And Roslin's rocky glen ;
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And classic Hawthornden.'
The hills in the NW are eruptive, in the S Silurian,
while the great bulk of the lowland rocks are car-
boniferous. Limestone, sandstone, and clay are worked,
but the chief mineral of the parish is coal, which is
mined chiefly near Loanhead and Rosewell. In the
barony of Loanhead alone there are some 25 coal seams,
from 2 to 10 feet thick, and in some workings the depth
of 270 feet has been attained. It is calculated that
Lasswade sends annually about 30,000 tons of coal to
Edinburgh, besides supplying local wants. The dip of
the coal on the E side of the Esk is so small that they are
called ' flat broad coal, ' in contrast to the edge-coals on
the W side. A coal-mine was accidentally set on fire
in 1770 near the Liberton boundary of the parish, and,
in spite of all efforts to put out the fire, it burned for
more than twenty years.
The other industries of the parish are noted under the
various towns and villages. It was long noted for its
oat-meal, and a miller in Lasswade used to supply that
article to the royal nursery, during the childhood of
George III.'s family, Lord Melville having recommended
the meal to the king. The chief proprietors in the
parish are Lieut. -Col. Gibsone of Pentland, Viscount
Melville, Drummond of Hawthornden, Sir Geo. Clerk
of Penicuik, and Mrs Durham of Polton. The chief
seats along both banks of the Esk are Mavisbank (now
a private asylum for lunatics), Dryden Bank, Dryden,
and Rosebank on the left ; and Eldin, Polton, Spring-
field, Glenesk, Hawthornden, Gorton, and Auehendinny
(residence of Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling),
on the right. Ehlin was the residence of John Clerk,
F.R.S. (1736-1S12), inventor of the naval tactic of
breaking the enemy's line. Numerous villas have been
built near Roslin and Lasswade. But the grandest
county seat is Melville Castle, about a mile below
Lasswade. The parish includes the villages of Lass-
wade, Roslin, Loanhead, and Rosewell, a small suburb
of Penicuik, and part of Bonnyrigg. It is traversed by
the Peebles branch of the North British railway.
Lasswade parish is in the presb3'tery of Dalkeith and
the synod of Lothian and Tweeddale. The parish of
Melville was incorporated with it in 1633, and a con-
siderable part of the ancient parish of Pentland is also
included. The stipend, including glebe and manse, is
£371. The civil parish embraces the quoad saera parishes
of Roslin and Rosewell. There are a Free church and
an Episcopal chapel at Roslin village, a U.P. church
at Bridgend, and a Free and a Reformed Presbyterian
church at Loanhead. The schools in the parish with
their respective accommodation, average attendance,
and government grant in 1881 were Lasswade (23S, 348,
£337, 9s.), Loanhead (260, 307, £243, 10s.), Rosewell
(260, 203, £153, 18s.), and Roslin (160, 201, £166, Is.).
Valuation (1S71) £37,493, (1883) £56,251, plus £9811
for railways and waterworks. Pop. (1S01) 3348, (1841)
5025, (1861) 5688, (1871) 7098, (1881) 8872, of whom
5267 were in the ecclesiastical parish.
Lasswade parish church, with its pertinents, became,
in the 12th century, a mensal church of the Bishop of
St Andrews ; it was later a prebend of St Salvator's
College, St Andrews ; and in the reign of James III. it
was transferred, by the Pope's authority, to the dean
of the collegiate church of Restalrig. The vicinity of
Roslin was the scene of a battle, or rather three battles
67
LATHERON
in one day (24 Feb. 1303), in which the Scottish army
is said to have successively overcome three divisions of
the English army, each more numerous than the victors'
whole force. Among the antiquities, the chief are the
castle and chapel at Roslin, and the mansion and caves
at Hawthornden. Of the Maiden Castle that stood at
Lasswade, nothing is now visible but some massive
foundations. Wallace's cave, on the Esk, is calculated
to hold 70 men ; Wallace's camp, a curious crescent-
shaped formation, is at Bilston Burn ; near Mavisbank
House is a supposed Roman station, the chief feature
of which is a circular earthen mound, girt with ramparts,
now cut into terraces, where various relics have been
found. From a tumulus, in a neighbouring farm, urns
filled with calcined bones have been dug. One mile E of
Melville Castle — itself an interesting historic building —
is Sheriffhall, where some green mounds are held to
mark the site of an ancient camp, and where stood an
old house in which George Buchanan is said to have
written his History of Scotland. — Orel. Sur., sh. 32,
1857.
Lathallan House, a mansion in Kilconquhar parish,
Fife, 2J miles NNW of Colinsburgh. The estate—
1151 acres, of £2585 annual value — belongs to the
Lumsdaine familj'.
Latheron, a coast village and parish of S Caithness.
The village of Latheron, Janetstown, or Latheronwheel,
stands near the mouth of Latheronwheel Burn, 18J
miles SW of Wick and ,19 NE of Helmsdale station.
It has an hotel and a post office under Wick, with
money order and savings' bank departments. Other
fishing villages in the parish, with their distance from
Latheron, are Bekriedale (9 miles SSW), Dunbeath
(3-J SW), Forse (2i ENE), Lybster (5 ENE), and
Clyth (7 ENE), all of them being noticed separately.
The parish is bounded N by Watten and Wick, SE
by the German Ocean, SW and W by Kildonan in
Sutherland, and NW by Halkirk. Its utmost length,
from NE to SW, is 21§ miles ; its breadth varies
between 1| and 14| miles ; and its land area is 186J
square miles or 119,539 acres. The coast, which all
along — for 25J miles — is followed pretty closely by the
high-road to Wick, rises so steeply from the sea that the
road has an altitude of 700 feet above sea-level at the
Oud of Caithness, 500 beyond Berriedale, 254 beyond
Dunbeath, 262 beyond Latheron, and 252 beyond Clyth.
It projects no prominent headland, and is indented only
by tiny inlets ; but its lofty cliffs are pierced, at high-
water mark, by numerous caves, the haunts of seals,
and some of them 300 to 360 feet long. Of several
streams that drain the interior to the sea, the largest
are Langwell Water (running 12 J miles east-by-south-
ward to Berriedale Water, 3 furlongs above its mouth),
Berriedale Water (21| miles east-south-eastward),
Dunbeath Water (14J miles east-by-southward), and
Reisgill Burn (4j miles south-by-eastward) ; whilst of
thirteen lakes the principal — all near the Halkirk
border — are Lochs Stemster (2| x 2 furl. ; 469 feet),
Rangag (5J x 2J furl. ; 375 feet), Ruard (SJ x 3 furl. ;
495 feet), and Dubh (4| x If furl. ; 698 feet). Chief
elevations are the *Ord of Caithness (1078 feet), Braigh
na h-Eaglaise (13S7), and *Scalabsdale (1819), to the S
of Langwell Water ; Scaraben (2054), Morven (2313),
and the *Knockfin Heights (1416), between Langwell
and Berriedale Waters ; Beinn Choireach (891), and
Orschaige Hill (969), between Berriedale and Dunbeath
Waters ; and Cnocan Con na Craige (867), Coire na
Beinne (740), and *Cnoc an Earranaiche (693), to the N
of Dunbeath Water — where asterisks mark those sum-
mits that culminate on the confines of the parish. Thus
the interior is charmingly diversified, especially in the
SW, presenting a continued succession of vale and hill,
of glen and mountain, sometimes in rapid alternation,
and generally with bold features in striking contrast to
the tame flat aspect of most other parts of the county.
The south-western district, indeed, is everywhere upland,
with mountains nearly as lofty, and glens quite as
picturesque, as many of those most famous in the High-
lands. The rocks are variously granite, clay flag-
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