Enterkin Burn

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Enterkin, a troutful burn in Durisdeer parish, NW Dumfriesshire, rising, close to the Lanarkshire border, on the western slope of Lowther Hill (2377 feet), at an altitude of 2000 feet above sea-level, and 2¾ miles S of Leadhills. Thence it runs 5¼ miles south-south-westward, till at Enterkinfoot (280 feet), midway between Sanquhar and Thornhill, it falls into the Nith. It is followed along all its course by the old Leadhill bridle-path from Clydesdale into Nithsdale, that famous Enterkin Pass, of which the author of Rab and his Friends has written: ` A few steps and you are on its edge, looking down giddy and amazed into its sudden and immense depths. We have seen many of our most remarkable glens and mountain gorges-Glencroe and Glencoe; Glen Nevis (the noblest of them all); the Sma' Glen, Wordsworth's Glen Almain (Glenalmond), where Ossian sleeps; the lower part of Glen Lyon; and many others of all kinds of sublimity and beauty-but we know nothing more noticeable, more unlike any other place, more impressive, than this short, deep, narrow, and sudden glen. There is only room for its own stream at the bottom, and the sides rise in one smooth and all but perpendicular ascenito the height, on the left, of 1895 feet in Thirstane Hill, and, on the right, of 1875 feet in the exquisitely moulded Stey Gail, or Steep Gable, so steep that it is no easy matter keeping your feet, and if you slip you might just as well go over a bona fide mural precipice. "Commodore Rogers" would feel quite at home here; we all know his merits.

"Commodore Rogers was a man-exceedingly brave-particular;
He climbed up very high rocks-exceedingly high-perpendicular;
And what made this more inexpressible,
These same rocks were quite inaccessible."

Defoe, in his Memoirs of the Church of Scotland, gives a vivid description of the rescue here by twelve countrymen of a minister and five other Covenanters whom a company of dragoons was taking prisoners to Edinburgh, July or August 1684. The fall of their commanding officer, shot through the head, so daunted the soldiers that without striking a blow - after firing one volley, however, according to Wodrow - they yielded their prisoners to the rescuing party, whose leaders were James and Thomas Harkness, of Locherben, in Closeburn.—Ord. Sur., sh. 15, 1864. See Dr Craufurd Tait Ramage's Drumlanrig Castle and Durisdeer (Dumf. 1876), and Dr John Brown's John Leeeh and other Papers (Edinb. 1882).

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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