Gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 2

774
MOFF A T.
The arable and pasture lands of the parish, it
is presumed, may be nearly equal in extent. Im-
provements of different descriptions have been
instituted by the proprietors. Merton-house,
the residence of Sir W. Maxwell of Monreith,
is situated on the banks of a fine lake, and
commands an extensive prospect of the Bay of
Luce, the shores of Galloway, the Isle of
Man, and the shores of Cumberland. Near it
stands an old castle, surrounded by lofty trees.
The castle, or old place of Mochrum, surround-
ed by lakes, is a very ancient picturesque
building, in an inland part of the parish. It
was formerly the seat of the Dunbars, Knights
of Mochrum, but has for many years been the
property of the Earl of Galloway — Popula-
tion in 1821, 1871.
MOFFAT, a parish and town at the head
of Annandale in Dumfries-shire, (two farms
lying within Lanarkshire). The parish is large
and mountainous, extending at its greatest
length from east to west fifteen miles, and in
breadth about nine, being bounded on the south
by Wamphray and Kirkpatrick Juxta, on the
east by Et trick and Meggat, respectively in
the shires of Selkirk and Peebles, (the latter
annexed to Lyne,) on the north by Tweeds-
muir and Crawford, in the shires of Peebles
and Lanark, and on the west by Crawford ; and
containing in all 56| square miles, or 28,865
Scots acres. The parish may be described as
occupying that part of the Southern Highlands
where the river Annan leaves its native hills,
and debouches upon the great plain of Dum-
fries-shire. Two considerable vallies, though
of a wild character, open in the midst of the
generally hilly scene ; one being formed by the
Annan, and the other by its tributary the
Moffat : they meet at the opening of the plain
of Annandale, where, in a most delightful si-
tuation, lies the town of Moffat. The name
of this parish, though said in Gaelic to signify
the Long holm, is rather, as we apprehend, a
mere corruption of the phrase Moor-foot, being
situated at one extremity of the great moor
which extends athwart nearly the whole of the
south of Scotland, from Coldingbam to Ayr-
shire. Some individuals of that range of hills,
within the parish of Moffat, rise to a great
height. Hartfell, the highest, is 2629 feet
above the level of the sea. This hill is
said to have been the first in Britain of
which the height was ascertained by the barome-
ter. The measurement was made by Professor
Sinclair of Glasgow in the seventeenth century.
There is a large and beautiful plain upon the
top of Hartfell, of extent large enough for a
horse race. The prospect from the top is, on
a clear day, very extensive. Westmoreland,
Cumberland, and Northumberland, are seen to
the south ; the ocean both east and west ; and
to the north, the view is terminated by the High-
land hills. The remaining hills in the parish
are mostly green, though some are darkened
by heath, and broken by rocks. One called
the Yoke has a top exactly opposite in charac-
ter to Hartfell, being so narrow that a person
can sit astride, as upon a saddle, and see to
the bottom on both sides, in each of which a
beautiful rivulet flows. The Johnstone fami-
ly, who latterly were Marquisses of Annan-
dale, took their first title of Earl of Hartfell,
or Hartfield, which was borne by two genera-
tions in the seventeenth century, from the
above remarkable hill. The vale of the Mof-
fat water forms the entrance of an important
pass into Selkirkshire, the remainder being
formed by the Yarrow water, which flows in a
different direction, though between the two
water-sheds there is hardly any rise in the
ground. In the bosom of the hill at the east-
ern extremity of the parish, lies Loch Skene,
a lonely desolate tarn, about half a mile long,
with a rock in the centre, where, from year to
year, the eagles bring forth their young undis-
turbed. The outlet of this lake is a small
stream, which dashes over a precipice of about
four hundred feet, and then joins the Moffat
water. The cascade is styled the Grey Mare's
Tail, from its peculiar appearance. In the
time of the persecution under the last Stuarts,
this region was selected as a place of secure
retreat by the unhappy presbyterians, and the
wilds are still rife with legends of their hair-
breadth escapes from Claverhouse and his dra-
goons, whom no difficulty seems to have deter-
red from the pursuit of their prey. A hill
where a party used to be stationed, to give no-
tice to the congregations in the ravines below of
the approach of danger, is still called the Watch
Hill. This terrific desert, which no future cir-
cumstances can be expected materially to alter,
will ever continue to afford a striking com-
mentary on the history of the reigns of Charles
II. and James II. It would appear that at
some earlier period of history this pass must
have been appreciated as a defensible point
against the aggression of some enemy from ths