Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

TIBBERS
the quoad sacra parish of St Leonard, Tibbermore is in
the presbytery of Perth and the synod of Perth and
Stirling ; the living is worth £304. The parish church,
2 miles SW of Alraondbank station, is a pre-Reformation
building ; and the dates 1632 and 1808 on the belfry —
which is a curious structure, much admired by some eccle-
siologists — are those of repairs, and not of its erection.
As enlarged by a N aisle in 1810, it contains 600 sit-
tings. Two public schools, Ruthvenfield and Tibbermore,
with respective accommodation for 218 and 153 children,
had (1884) an average attendance of 74 and 65, and
grants of £61, 18s. and £57, 17s. 6d. Valuation (1865)
£9810, (1885) £11,617, 17s. lid. Pop. (1801) 1306,
(1831) 1223, (1841) 1651, (1861) 1296, (1871) 1563,
(1881) 1883, of whom 752 were in the parliamentary
burgh of Perth, and 1832 in the ecclesiastical parish. —
Ord. Sur., sh. 48, 1868.
Tibbers, an ancient castle adjacent to the mutual
boundary of Penpont and Durisdeer parishes, Dumfries-
shire, at the influx of Park Burn to the river Nith,
opposite Carronbridge and 2J miles NNW of Thornhill.
Supposed to have been built by the Romans, and named
in honour of Tiberius Caesar, it was garrisoned by the
English in the early part of the Wars of the Succession,
and surprised and captured by Sir William Wallace ;
and it is now represented by only slight vestiges. — Ord.
Sur., sh. 9, 1863.
Tibbie Shiels. See St Maey's Loch.
Tifty. See Ftvie.
Tighnabruaich (Gael, 'house on the edge of the
'bank '), a recent watering-place in Eilfinan parish,
Argyllshire, on the Eyles of Bute, 2J miles SW of the
mouth of Loch Riddon and 9J (by water) NW of Rothe-
say. It has a post office under Greenock, with money
order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a
branch of the Royal Bank, 2 hotels, a steamboat pier,
an Established church (made quoad sacra in 1882), a
Free church, and a new public school. Pop. (1871) 404,
(1881) in.— Ord. Sur., sh. 29, 1873.
Tillery House. See Foveran.
Tillichewan Castle. See Bonhill.
Tillicoultry, a town and a parish of Clackmannan-
shire. The town lies at the southern base of the Ochils,
on Tillicoultry Burn, and within \ mile of the right
bank of the Devon, 2 miles E of Alva, 8| NNE of Alloa,
3| W by S of Dollar ; whilst its station, on the Devon
Valley section (1851-71) of the North British railway,
is 10 miles ENE of Stirling, and 13J WSW of Kinross.
The Queen, who passed it by train on 20 June 1879,
just after receiving the news of the death of the Prince
Imperial, describes its 'situation, in a wooded green
valley at the foot of the hills,' as ' beautiful, reminding
me of Italy and Switzerland.' In the course of the last
half century, Tillicoultry has grown from a village to a
thriving town, such growth being due to the great ex-
tension of its woollen manufactures. These date, indeed,
from the days of Queen Mary, and long made Tilli-
coultry serges and blankets famous throughout Scotland ;
but the weaving of tartans and shawls was not intro-
duced till 1824, and the manufacture of tweeds and silk
fabrics is of still later origin. There now are no fewer
than eighteen factories ; and the larger of these employ
several hundreds of hands. The town has a post office,
with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph depart-
ments, branches of the Clydesdale and Union Banks, 2
hotels, gasworks, a police station, a cemetery, and a
Wednesday Liberal paper, the Tillicoultry News (1879).
The Popular Institute and Library, with accommoda-
tion for 1000 people, was erected in 1860 ; in 1862 an
Academy was gifted to the townsfolk by David Paton,
Esq., at a cost of nearly £1200 ; and in 1875 handsome
board schools were built at a cost of £5500. The parish
church (1829 ; 650 sittings) stands 4£ furlongs E by S
of the centre of the town. The Free church was built
soon after the Disruption ; and other places of worship
are the U. P., the Evangelical Union, and the Congre-
gational church, the last erected in 1876 at a cost
of £3000. The town, having in 1871 adopted part of
the General Police and Improvement (Scot.) Act of
440
TILLICOULTRY
1862, is governed by nine police commissioners. Its
municipal constituency numbered 550 in 1885, when
the annual value of real property within the burgh
amounted to £10,000, whilst the revenue, including
assessments, was £550. Pop. of town (1851) 3217,
(1861) 3684, (1871) 3745, (1881) 3732, of whom 1999
were females. Houses (1881) 847 inhabited, 80 vacant.
The parish, containing also the villages of Coals-
nattghton and Devonside, is bounded N and NE by
Blackford in Perthshire, E by Dollar, S by Clackman-
nan and Alloa, SW by the detached section of Clack-
mannan, and W by Alva in Stirlingshire (detached).
Its utmost length, from NNW to SSE, is 6J miles ; its
breadth varies between 7f furlongs and 2 j miles ; and
its area is 69764 acres, of which 30£ are water. The
Devon first, a little below its source, flows 1J mile
east-by-northward along the northern border, and then,
much lower down, winds 3f miles west-south-westward,
partly along or close to the Clackmannan boundary, but
mainly across the southern interior. Gloomingside or
Gannel Burn, rising at 1650, and Daiglen Burn, rising
at 1500, feet above sea-level, run If mile south-south-
westward and 1§ mile south-south-eastward, until, at
an altitude of 1650 feet, they unite to form Tillicoultry
Burn, which itself flows 1J mile south-by-westward
to the Devon at Glenfoot. Greenhorn and Broieh
Burns run northward along the Alva and Blackford
boundaries to the Devon, four others of whose affluents
have a southerly course, either through the interior or
along the eastern and western borders. The scenery of
these little mountain rivulets, with their pools, cascades,
and wooded banks, is almost as fair to-day as it was in
that olden time when the wife of the miller of Menstrie
was sprited away by the fairies. In the valley of the
Devon the surface declines to less than 50 feet above
sea-level ; and thence it rises southward to 327 feet near
Shannockhill, northward to 1000 at Wester Kirk Craig,
2094 at the Law, 2111 at King's Seat Hill on the Dollar
boundary, 2363 at Bencleugh (the loftiest summit of
the Oohil Hills), and 1724 at Burnfoot Hill, from
which it again declines to close on 1000 feet at the
northern border. The entire landscape, whether we
view the hills or the plain, is pleasant and beautiful.
A rising ground, called the Kirk Craig and the Cuning-
har, which closes a fine plain stretching out to it from
the Abbey Craig near Stirling, has a strikingly romantic
appearance as approached from either the E or the W,
and is supposed to be ' the mount at the back of the
country, ' the tulaick-cid-tir, whence the parish derived
its name. The rocks are mainly eruptive in the hills,
carboniferous in the plain. Red and grey porphyries
compose the summits of the central and loftiest heights ;
and they exhibit some very fine varieties, and contain
large crystals of black schorl. Clay-slate is a prevailing
rock in the King's Seat chain ; and basaltic rocks, in
some instances containing curious decomposed masses,
occur in the lower heights. Micaceous schist, too, is
found, containing numerous garnets. Some veins of
copper ore were worked towards the middle of last
century ; but, after the expenditure upon them of a very
great sum of money, were abandoned as not defraying
the cost of mining. Silver, lead, cobalt, arsenic, and
sulphur seem also to exist, but in small quantities. A
rich variety of ironstone, and rich veins of iron ore of
the kidney kind, are in sufficient quantity to have been
an object of marked attention to the Devon Company.
A stratum of dark-blue clay, suitable for fire-bricks,
occurs ; and on the banks of the Devon are singular
concretions of hardened clay in a great variety of fan-
tastic shapes. Sandstone, of good quality, occurs on
the skirts of the hills and in the plain, and has been
largely quarried. Coal, in four workable seams, and of
various quality, occurs in the same district as the sand-
stone, and is the object of extensive mining and traffic.
The soil, at the foot of the hills, is a fine quick loam, of
no great depth ; on the haughs of the Devon is a deep
loam mixed with sand ; and in other parts is now loamy,
now argillaceous, on a variety of subsoils. Much of the
ground is stony ; but in many fields where littlo soil can