Imperial gazeteer of Scotland, or, Dictionary of Scottish topography > Volume 1

GALASHIELS.
705
GALASHIELS.
Roman Catholics. The salary of the Galashiels
parochial schoolmaster is £50, with £40 fees, and
£10 other emoluments. There are several non-
parochial schools; and two of them, nt Lindean and
Fernilee, have small endowments. The name Gala-
shiels means simply 'the shepherds' huts on the
Gala, ' — the word Gala or Gwala itself signifying
' a full stream.' The terms ' shiels ' and ' shiel-
ings ' were very commonly used by the Northum-
brian Saxons to denote the temporary shelters of
shepherds; and are still currently employed by the
peasantry in pastoral districts, besides forming part
of the compound names of many localities. The two
ancient parishes comprehended in Galashiels were
for a long period perfectly distinct. The church of
Bowside anciently stood in a hamlet of that name,
about half-a-mile" below the junction of the Ettrick
and the Tweed. Lindean derived its name from the
British Lyn, signifying, secondarily, ' a river pool,'
and the Anglo-Saxon Dene, 'a valley;' and seems
to have been a very ancient parish. The body of
William Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, lay in
Lindean church the first night after his assassination
in 1353. The monks of Dryburgh probably obtained
possession of this church, and had it served by a
vicar; and, in Bagimont's roll, it figures as the
vicarage of Lindean, in the deanery of Teviotdale,
and diocese of Glasgow. But before the year 1640
it had ceased to be the parish-church, and become
supplanted by that of Galashiels.
GALASHIELS, a post-town, a centre of traffic,
and a seat of manufacture, partly in the parish of
Galashiels, and partly in that of Melrose, partly in
Selkirkshire, and partly in Roxburghshire. It
stands on the river Gala, 4 miles west-north-west
of Melrose, 6 north of Selkirk, 18 east-south-east of
Peebles, and 28 south-south-east of Edinburgh by
road, but 33i by railway. The original of it was a
village on the adjacent brae on the south side of the
Gala, and was simply an appendage of the baronial
seat of Gala; but, though still partially standing,
and even slightly renovated with new buildings, this
has, for a considerable period, been sinking gradually
into decay. The present town originated about 75
years ago, when the spirit of manufactures alighted
on the villagers, and brought them down to the margin
of the stream to avail themselves of its water-
power ; and it stands in not very unequal parts in
Selkirkshire and Roxburghshire, — the former part
being the more ancient, the latter the more modern.
The town, on the south side of the river, comprising
all Galashiels Proper, and a considerable portion of
the Roxburghshire section, consists chiefly of one
long bent street, and two shorter and newer streets,
the whole dotted round with detached buildings,
winged with drying and bleaching grounds, and
stretching along a narrow stripe of plain between
the river and the neighbouring heights. On the
north side the town is both more irregular in form
and less advantageous in site, ascending in clusters
or lines of building, from the margin of the river to
the transit of the Edinburgh and Jedburgh road, a
little distance up the face of the acclivity; and this
division has of late years undergone great exten-
sion, so that it now constitutes the larger part of
the entire town, and presents an appearance of much
spruceness and prosperity. The opening of the
Edinburgh and Hawick railway, also, with a con-
spicuous station-house here, has added new features,
and given a new impetus to extension and improve-
ment. The branch railway from Galashiels to Sel-
kirk, which was opened in 1856, was likewise an
important accession; and the railway from Gala-
shiels to Peebles, which was authorised in 1861,
will also be of much value.
The two divisions of the town were early united
by a stone bridge, an iron suspension bridge, and
an ingeniously constructed timber bridge, — the first
for vehicles and the other two for foot passengers.
But toward the end of 1853, the stone bridge was
found to be already becoming inadequate for the
traffic brought to it by the railway ; and a resolu-
tion was then taken to adopt measures for construct-
ing another, of much wider capacity and with bet-
ter levels. All the houses of the town arc built of
blue whinstone and slated. Though quite a manu
facturing-place, Galashiels partakes not a jot of the
dinginess, and the confusion, and the concentration
of character upon mere labour and gain, which so
generally belong to places of its class; but is lively
and mirthful in its appearance, heedful of the adorn-
ings of taste and beauty, and seems to reciprocate
smiles of gladness with the charming scenery amid
which it is embosomed. The spirit of manufacture
is no doubt here, and walks abroad in an energy
which contrasts strongly with the sickliness of its
nature and the feebleness of its movements in many
other localities ; but it breathes a mountain air, and
has the dress and the habits far more of rural than
of city life. The factories being worked for the
most part by water-power, — the grounds attached
to them being painted over with the many coloured
fabrics which are hung out to complete the process
for the market, — the dispersedness of the seats of
stir and activity at considerable intervals along the
banks of a pastoral stream, — the beauty and light-
ness of the materials with which the town is con-
structed, — and the picturesqueness and pastoral tone
of the landscape which sweeps around, — all contri-
bute to protect Galashiels from being defiled with
the sootiness, or wasted down into the cadaverous-
ness, of most other seats of manufacture. In 1832
there were here ten large cloth factories, some of
them of considerable date, and two of them quite
new ; and at present there are twelve factories,-
all propelled by water, except two, which employ
steam as an auxiliary power.
Galashiels has a brewery and establishments for
the tanning of leather, the dressing of skins, and the
construction of machinery for woollen manufacture.
It also conducts considerable trade in the produc-
tion and sale of hosiery. But its grand staple is
the manufacture of woollen cloth. Though inferior
in population or in amount of produce to Hawick, it
is second to no town in Scotland in the excellence
of its woollen fabrics, or in the ingenuity and suc-
cess of effort to improve the quality and extend the
range of its staple. For a considerable series oi
years, it was known for the production of woollen
cloths of only the coarser kinds, fabricated from
home-grown woollen ; but, for a number of years
past, it has run an increasingly successful course of
effort to produce, from foreign wool, cloth of the
finer qualities, and has even commenced a rivalry
with the choice broad-cloth manufactories of Eng-
land. By the mixation of home and foreign wool, it
also produces flannels which the board of Trustees,
a number of years ago, pronounced finer than any
made elsewhere in Scotland, and equal if not supe-
rior to the best .made in AVales. A large proportion
of the home-grown wool is smeared, in order to be
fabricated into an improved coarse cloth. Yarns,
blankets, shawls, plaids, narrow cloths, grey or
mixed coloured crumb-cloths, and blanket-shawls of
many hues and changeful patterns, are the forms
into which home-grown wool alone, or in mixture
more or less with foreign wool, is made to assume.
In 1833, according to the statement in the New
Statistical Account, the annual consumption of wool
amounted to 21,500 stones at 24 lbs. imperial to the
2 Y