Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 4

LESMAHAGOW
the interior is comfortable, and the principal rooms are
fine. Notably so is the picture gallery, hung with
family portraits, and 3 feet longer than the gallery at
Holyrood. The grounds around Leslie House are most
picturesque. Strathendry House is separately noticed.
This parish is in the presbytery of Kirkcaldy and
synod of Fife. The living is worth £325, lis. 2d.,
made up of £257, Is. 2d. for stipend, £35 for manse,
£27 for glebe, and £6, 10s. for communion elements.
A mission church, under the control of the Established
church, has been organised, and an old school adapted
to serve as a place of worship. Valuation (1865)
£14,3S6, ISs. 2d., (1883) £19,251, lis. 2d. Pop. (1801)
1609, (1831) 2749, (1861) 4332, (1871) 4294, (1881)
4345. — Ord. Sur., sh. 40, 1S67.
Lesmahagow (anc. Lcsmachulc or LesmaJiagu, 'the
green (lis) or court (lys) of St Machutus or Maclou '), a
parish iu the NW of the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire,
containing the town of Abbey Green or Lesmahagow,
6 miles S W of Lanark, llf SSE of Hamilton, 22J SE of
Glasgow, and 38 SW of Edinburgh.
The parish is bounded NW by Stonehouse and Dalserf,
NE by Carluke and Lanark, SE by Carmichael and
Douglas, SW by Muirkirk in Ayrshire, and W by Avon-
dale. The boundaries with Avondale, Douglas, and Car-
michael are traced respectively by Kype Water, Peniel
Water, and Douglas Water ; and the Clyde flows 10 miles
north-north-westward along all the Lanark and Carluke
boundary. From NNE to SSW Lesmahagow has an
utmost length of 10i miles ; its utmost breadth, from
E to W, is 9J miles ; and its area is 41,533J acres, of
which 234£ are water. Besides Abbey Green, it con-
tains the thriving villages of Auchenheath (3J miles N
of Abbey Green), Bankend, Boghead, Crossford (5J
miles NE of Abbey Green), Hazelbank, Kirkfieldbank,
Kirkmuirhill (2| miles NNW of Abbey Green), Nethan-
foot, New Trows, and Turfholm. The Nethan, rising
close to the Ayrshire border at an altitude of 1550 feet,
winds 13 miles north-north-eastward through the in-
terior to the Clyde at Crossford, and itself is joined by
Logan Water. The Falls of Clyde, though generally
viewed from the Lanark side of the river, can be also
seen from the Lesmahagow side. Corra Linn is opposite
Corehouse ; Bonnington Linn is \ mile above ; and
Stonebyres Linn 4 miles below. The scenery on the
banks of the Clyde and its tributaries is among the
finest in Scotland, its chief charm being its great
variety of wood and water, hill and valley. In the
extreme N the surface declines along the Clyde to 190
feet above sea-level ; and thence it rises to 624 feet near
Dratfan, 1017 at Dillar Hill, 1075 near Boreland, 110S
at Auchrobert Snout, 1254 at Tod Law, 1712 at Nut-
berry Hill, and 1609 at Meikle Auchinstilloch. The
parish is traversed by a branch line (1856-57) of the
Caledonian railway, which has stations at Lesmahagow,
Blackwood, and Auchenheath ; and by Telford's great
highway (1S24) from Glasgow to Carlisle. Cross roads
intersect it in all directions, and are commonly narrow
and hilly.
Lesmahagow is chiefly a mining parish. Coal is
found in large quantities, but irregularly disposed. A
fine kind of cannel coal is worked. Sandstone, lime-
stone, and ironstone are also found. Lead ore has been
discovered, but not in sufficient quantities to repay
working. The predominant rocks are trap, and, from
their variety and the fine fossils found in them, are of
an interesting character. Near the streams the soil is
commonly alluvial. In other places, however, it is
either a yellow clay resting sometimes on white sand-
stone, or a light friable mould resting on trap, or a
damp, mossy, or sandy gravel. About 23, 887 J acres
are regularly or occasionally in tillage ; 27144 are under
wood or plantation ; and 48S9^ are pastoral or waste.
Fruit-growing is carried on to an extent which almost
raises it to an industry. Large fields are covered with
strawberry plants, and in the summer and autumn the
pear and apple harvest demands the whole labour of the
villagers to secure it. The chief landowners are the
Duke of Hamilton and J. C. Hope Vere, Esq. of Black -
LESMAHAGOW
wood. Mansions in the parish, noticed separately, are
Auchenheath, Auchlochan, Birkwood, Blackwood, Core-
house, Harperfield, Kerse, Kirkfield, and Stonebyres.
This parish is in the presbytery of Lanark and synod
of Glasgow and Ayr. The charge is collegiate, the
stipend of the minister of the first charge being £477,
and that of the minister of the second charge £454.
The parish church, built in 1804, contains 1500 sittings,
and in 1S72 was adorned with a fine stained-glass win-
dow by Messrs Ballantine. A chapel of ease at Kirk-
fieldbank will soon, it is expected, be raised to quoad
sacra status ; and other places of worship are Lesma-
hagow Free church, Crossford Free church, Lesmahagow
U. P. church, Crossford U.P. church, Kirkmuirhill U.P.
church, and a Boman Catholic church at Blackwood,
Our Lady and St John (1880 ; 200 sittings). Thirteen
schools — all of them public but two, with total accom-
modation for 2289 children, had (1882) an average
attendance of 1553, and grants amounting to £1465,
18s. Sd. Valuation (1859) £43,475, Is. 8d., (1883)
£67,011. Pop. (1801) 3070, (1821) 5592, (1841) 6902,
(1861) 9266, (1S71) 8709, (1SS1) 9949, of whom 13S6
were in Abbey Green, 963 in Kirkfieldbank, 816 in
Crossford, 612 in Auchenheath, 547 in Kirkmuirhill,
467 in Southfield and Blackwood, and 319 in Hazel-
bank.— Ord. Sur., sh. 23, 1865.
Hiring fairs are held on the second Wednesday of
March and October ; the May fair is held on the first
Wednesday after 11 May ; Lammas fair takes place on
the Wednesday after the Lanark fair and on the Tues-
day before the second Thursday of November ; market
days are the first Wednesday of December and the
second Wednesday of January. There are police sta-
tions at Lesmahagow, Blackwood, Crossford, and Kirk-
fieldbank ; post offices at Abbey Green (or Lesmahagow),
Kirkmuirhill, Kirkfieldbank, and Crossford, the first two
having money order, savings' bank, and telegraph de-
partments. Numerous insurance companies have agents
at Abbey Green, where there are also the headquarters
of clubs for curling, bowling, etc. , and societies of dif-
ferent kiiids. Dr Whyte's mortification for the ' de-
cayed and modest poor ' amounts to £2700, the interest
of which is divided half-yearly as directed. The interest
on the sum of £100, left by Dr Hamilton, is employed
in the education of deserving children living within 3
miles of Abbey Green.
St Machute or Maclou is said to have been a fellow-
voyager with the famed St Brendan in the 6th century ;
and in the 14th Lesmahagow seems to have possessed at
least a portion of his relics. It is likely that be-
tween 1100 and 1120 a colony of Tironensian Bene-
dictines built a church here ; for in 1144 David I.
granted the ' cell of Lesmahagow ' to the monks of
Kelso, and raised it to the dignity of a Tironensian
priory. This priory served as a sanctuary to all those
who, ' in peril of life or limb, ' betook themselves to it
or to the four crosses that stood around it. Various
gifts of land, teinds, and money were presented to it by
David I., Robert, son of Wanebald, Robert the Bruce,
Lord Somerville, etc. Charters of protection and im-
munity were granted it by William the Lyon in 1222
and 1230. The priory suffered very severely in the
invasion of 1335. John of Eltham, brother of Edward
III., and commander of part of the English forces,
burned it to the ground as he passed Lesmahagow on
his way northward. He met the king at Perth, and an
altercation having arisen, John of Eltham — Earl of
Cornwall — was slain by his brother's hand. This, as
Wyntoun points out, was —
' The vengeance tane perfay
Of the burning of that abbey.'
On the Reformation the priory lands passed into secular
hands, and were successively held by James Cunning-
ham, son of the Earl of Glencairn ; Francis Stewart,
son of John Stewart, afterwards Earl of Bothwell ; and
by Lord, afterwards Earl of, Roxburgh, who held them
from 1607 to 1625, when he disposed of them to the
Marquis of Hamilton. The extent of the lands and
501