Campbeltown

Campbeltown, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and seaport of Argyllshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 8286. It is situated on a fine bay, towards the S.E. extremity of the peninsula of Kintyre, 11 m. N.E. of the Mull and 83 m. S.W. of Glasgow by water. The seat of the Dalriad monarchy in the 6th or 7th century, its importance declined when the capital was transferred to Forteviot. No memorial of its antiquity has survived, but the finely sculptured granite cross standing on a pedestal in the market-place belongs to the 12th century, and there are ruins of some venerable chapels and churches. Through the interest of the Campbells, who are still the overlords and from whom it takes its name, it became a royal burgh in 1700. It was the birthplace of the Rev. Dr Norman Macleod (1812). The chief public buildings are the churches (one of which occupies the site of a castle of the Macdonalds), the town house, the Academy and the Athenaeum. The staple industry is whisky distilling, of which the annual output is 2,000,000 gallons, more than half for export. The port is the head of a fishery district and does a thriving trade. Shipbuilding, net and rope-making, and woollen manufacturing are other industries, and coal is mined in the vicinity. There are three piers and a safe and capacious harbour, the bay, called Campbeltown Loch, measuring 2 m. in length by 1 in breadth. At its entrance stands a lighthouse on the island of Davaar. On the Atlantic shore is the splendid golf-course of Machrihanish, 5 m. distant. Machrihanish is connected with Campbeltown by a light railway. Near the village of Southend is Machrireoch, the duke of Argyll’s shooting-lodge, an old structure modernized, commanding superb views of the Firth of Clyde and its islands, and of Ireland. On the rock of Dunaverty stood the castle of Macdonald of the Isles, who was dispossessed by the Campbells in the beginning of the 17th century. At this place in 1647 General David Leslie is said to have ordered 300 of the Macdonalds to be slain after their surrender. Of the ancient church founded here by Columba, only the walls remain. Campbeltown unites with Ayr, Inveraray, Irvine and Oban in sending one member (for the “Ayr Burghs”) to parliament.

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