Lanark

Lanark, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and county town of Lanarkshire, Scotland, standing on high ground about half a mile from the right bank of the Clyde, 31 m. S.E. of Glasgow by the Caledonian railway. Pop. (1901) 6440. It is a favourite holiday resort, being the point from which the falls of the Clyde are usually visited. The principal buildings are the town hall, the county buildings, the assembly rooms, occupying the site of an old Franciscan monastery, three hospitals, a convalescent home, the Smyllum orphanage and the Queen Victoria Jubilee fountain. The industries include cotton-spinning, weaving, nail-making and oilworks, and there are frequent markets for cattle and sheep. Lanark is a place of considerable antiquity. Kenneth II. held a parliament here in 978, and it was sometimes the residence of the Scottish kings, one of whom, William the Lion (d. 1214), granted it a charter. Several of the earlier exploits of William Wallace were achieved in the neighbourhood. He burned the town and slew the English sheriff William Hezelrig. About 1 m. N.W. are Cartland Craigs, where Mouse Water runs through a precipitous red sandstone ravine, the sides of which are about 400 ft. high. The stream is crossed by a bridge of single span, supposed to be Roman, and by a three-arched bridge, designed by Thomas Telford and erected in 1823. On the right bank, near this bridge, is the cave in which Wallace concealed himself after killing Hezelrig and which still bears his name. Lanark was the centre of much activity in the days of the Covenanters. William Lithgow (1582-1645), the traveller, William Smellie (1697-1763), the obstetrician and Gavin Hamilton (1730-1797), the painter, were born at Lanark. The town is one of the Falkirk district group of parliamentary burghs, the other constituents being Airdrie, Hamilton, Falkirk and Linlithgow.

New Lanark (pop. 795), 1 m. S., is famous in connexion with the socialist experiments of Robert Owen. The village was founded by David Dale (1739-1806) in 1785, with the support of Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning-frame, who thought the spot might be made the Manchester of Scotland. In ten years four cotton mills were running, employing nearly 1400 hands. They were sold in 1799 to a Manchester company, who appointed Owen manager. In the same year he married Dale’s daughter. For many years the mills were successfully conducted, but friction ultimately arose and Owen retired in 1828\. The mills, however, are still carried on.

There are several interesting places near Lanark. Braxfield, on the Clyde, gave the title of Lord Braxfield to Robert Macqueen (1722-1799), who was born in the mansion and acquired on the bench the character of the Scottish Jeffreys. Robert Baillie, the patriot who was executed for conscience’ sake (1684), belonged to Jerviswood, an estate on the Mouse. Lee House, the home of the Lockharts, is 3 m. N.W. The old castle was largely rebuilt in the 19th century. It contains some fine tapestry and portraits, and the Lee Penny—familiar to readers of Sir Walter Scott’s Talisman—which was brought from Palestine in the 14th century by the Crusading knight, Sir Simon Lockhart. It is described as a cornelian encased in a silver coin. Craignethan Castle on the Nethan, a left-hand tributary joining the Clyde at Crossford, is said to be the original of the “Tillietudiem” of Scott’s Old Mortality.