Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

516
FALKIRK.
tion. The seat of conviviality and busy though
doubtful charity, of many public-houses, of a great
hospital and of a general refuge for the distressed
debtor, the weary traveller, the friendless pauper,
and the afflicted invalid, is now silent and wild, and
utterly abandoned to the lonely visits of the moun-
tain-sheep. Some hardly perceptible tumuli, over-
grown with herbage, faintly indicate the site of pros-
trate dwellings. Sbght irregularities of surface, with
not a tomb-stone or the small tumulus of a grave,
dimly mark the limits of a cemetery. A single aisle
of the chapel, rising amidst a dreary sward of heath,
and conservated from the common trackless ruin by
its enclosing the burial-place of the Maitland of Pog-
bie family, is the sole memorial of Soutra, and the
only monitor on this once-stirring and famous area of
the instability and utter vanity of the institutions
and erections of mortal man. The town of the
pleasant prospect, Soutra, which once looked joyous-
ly down upon the gay and far-spreading landscape of
the Lothians and the Forth, has utterly disappeared :
" Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall."
FALKIRK,* a parish in the eastern part of Stir-
lingshire ■ bounded on the north by Dunipace, Lar-
bert, and Bothkennar ; op the east by Polmont and
Muiravonside ; on the south by Slamannan and
Lanarkshire ; and on the west by Dumbartonshire
and Denny. In figure, it is nearly an oval, stretch-
ing north-east and south-west, but has a small flat-
tened oval attached to its south-east side. Its great-
est length, from Castlecary on the south-west, to
the boundary beyond Grangemouth on the north-east,
is 8^ miles ; and its greatest breadth, from Carron
water opposite Larbert on the north-west, to a bend
in Avon water, at Elrigg on the south-east, is 5|
miles ; but its average breadth is none or little more
than 3 miles. Nearly all its boundaries are traced
by streams. A head-stream of Bonny water rises at
Sauchierigg, on the southern boundary of the south-
west end of the great oval of the parish, and bends
away westward, northward, and north-eastward,
round the limits, receiving from without two streams
which combine with it to form the Bonny, and
everywhere, over a distance of 5J miles, tracing the
boundary till within a mile of the Carron, when it
runs across a small wing to make a confluence with
that river. Carron water touches the boundary 5
furlongs north-west of where the Bonny makes its
detour inward ; and thence, over a geographical dis-
tance of 6 miles, traces, in general, the boundary on
the north ; but, in the lower part of this course, it
becomes somewhat sinuous, and being rivalled in
sinuosity by the capriciousness of the boundary-line,
it intersects three tiny wings, and makes three brief
* The church was formerlycalled Ecclesbrae, or, 'the Church
on the brow,' and according with the descriptiveness of this
name, it and the town around it, stand on an eminence or ris.
iog ground which, on all sides, has a declivity or brae. In the
Gaelic language, it is called an Eglaia bhris, but more common-
ly Eg/ais bhiec. The former of these phrases signifies * the
Broken church;' and, as not inaptly translated, ' Falkirk,' or
1 the fallen,' or ' falling church.' Nor may the name have been
without allusion : the parish place of worship which preceded
the preseut oue, having presented undoubted appearances of
not being all built at one epoch. In 1 IliG, it was given by the
Bishop of St. Andrews to the monks of Holyrood ; and, as it
now became a mere vicarage, and may have suffered neglect,
it possibly fell into ruin, and assumed the properties, and con-
sequently the name, of a 'fallen-kirk.' The other Gaelic de-
signation, eglais b/trec, signifies ' the Spotted church, 1 and is
adopted by Buchanan in the translated name, * Varium Sacel-
lum,' applied by him to Falkirk, and supposed to allude to the
party-coloured appearance of its stones. Another derivation
of the modern name, is from vallum and kirk, easily transrnu-
table into Falkirk, and signifying 'the church upon the wall,'
in allusion, as is alleged, to the near vicinity of the wall of An-
toninus.
recessions, all within If mile of Grangemouth. West
Quarter burn rises at the line of attachment be-
tween the main body or large oval of the parish, and
the small flattened oval, runs to the limit of the for-
mer, and flowing north-eastward and northward, tra-
ces the boundary over a distance of 6 miles, and then
at Grangemouth falls into the Carron. Avon water
rises 3 furlongs south of the source of West Quarter
burn, flows 2j miles westward through the parish, and
thence rims south-westward, south-eastward, and
eastward, tracing, over a distance of H miles, the
boundary with Dumbartonshire, Lanarkshire, and
Slamannan. Four rills rise in the parish, three of which
run northward to the Bonny or the Carron, and one
eastward to West Quarter burn. Near the southern
extremity, Loch Elrigg, a narrow boggy lochlet
about 6 furlongs long, sends off its superfluent wa-
ters in a brief stream to the Avon. In the south-
western part of the great oval, is a tiny lochlet,
called Loch Green At its north-east end, "the parish
approaches within J of a mile of the Forth ; and from
its boundary in that direction, till near the town of
Falkirk, as well as farther inland along the banks of
the Carron, it is a sheet of perfectly level and ex-
ceedingly rich and fertile land. But fame has com-
pletely anticipated any modern topographical writer
in proclaiming through Scotland the opulence and
the peerless agricultural beauty of " the carse of
Falkirk." Behind the carse, the surface slowly
rises, and becoming quite changed in the character
of its soil, belongs, for the most part, to the class
of dryfield. Though it is here materially less fer-
tile, and presents a different picture to the eye, yet
it possesses, in the undulations and softly hilly and
variegated risings of its surface, and in its fine enclo-
sures and thriving woods, its villas and burgh and
multitudinous human dwellings, not a few features
of interest which challenge and fix the attention of
a tourist. But in the small oval of the parish, or the
tract which marches with Slamannan, the whole sur-
face was originally a dull and gloomy bog ; and even
with the aids and results of georgical operation, still
retains a strong dash of its pristine appearance. Yet
nowhere than in this parish as a whole has agricul-
tural skill been more vigorously plied or more suc-
cessful in improvements. Almost every useful novel-
ty in the art of husbandry which appears in other dis-
tricts, is copied or adopted ; and the farmers are con-
spicuous for the enterprising spirit which has won
fame to Stirlingshire as an agricultural county. Coal
is so good and abundant as fully to compensate —
especially in connexion with unusually rich facilities
of water and land communication. — for the absence of
other valuable minerals. Some of the more elevated
parts of the parish — including not only eminences, but
such stretches of territory as permit a tourist or tra-
veller to move along and possess a continuous en-
joyment of the intellectual treat — are hung round by
a panorama of no common beauty. The view from
the manse and churchyard of Falkirk, is noticed by
Sir Walter Scott, as one of the finest in Scotland.
From this point, or from other places northward and
north-westward of the town, a luxuriant country,
12 or 14 miles square, spreads out before the eye, al-
most luscious in the beauties of its vegetation, dotterj
with mansions and rural spires, picturesquely chequer-
ed in its tracery by the tall masts and the intricate
rigging of ships passing along the canal or harboured
at Grangemouth, intersected by the opening estuary
of the frith of Forth bearing along its sail-clad ships
or its smoking steamers, and shut in by the fine out-
line of the Ochil hills, over whose summits look up
in the far distance the cloud- wreathed or snow-cap-
ped tops of some Highland mountains. When this
prospect is mantled in the darkness of night, crimson