Sprouston, a Border village and parish of NE Roxburghshire. The village, a decayed place, stands near the right bank of the Tweed, and close to Sprouston station on the North-Eastern railway, this being 20 ¾ miles SW of Berwick-on-Tweed, 13 ¾ E by N of St Boswells, and 2 ¼ NE of Kelso, under which there is a post office.
The parish, containing also Lempitlaw hamlet, 6 miles ESE of Kelso, is bounded N by Eccles in Berwickshire, E by Northumberland, SE and S by Linton, SW by Eckford and Kelso, W by Kelso, and NW by Ednam. Its utmost length, from NE to SW, is 5 1/8 miles; its utmost breadth is 3 5/8 miles; and its area is 8731 ½ acres, of which 96 are water. The Tweed, here a glorious salmon river, sweeps 35/8 miles north-eastward along all the Ednam and Eccles boundary; and the lands beside it are low and flat, sinking little below and little exceeding 100 feet above sea-level. The interior is partly a ridgy swell called Hadden Rig (541 feet), which flanks the low grounds, and partly a parallel vale, which here and there is marshy; whilst the southern district is comparatively high, attaining 690 feet near Greenhead, but largely subject to the plough. The soil, a rich loam near the Tweed, degenerates towards Hadden Rig, and improves again towards the S. Trap, sandstone, and limestone have been quarried. Nearly 130 acres are under wood, plantations mostly of fir; 550 acres are waste; and all the rest of the parish is in tillage. Hadden Stank and Redden Burn were frequent meeting-places of Scotch and English commissioners for settling Border disputes; and Hadden Rig, about the year 1540, was the scene of a defeat of 3000 English horsemen by a body of Scottish troops. One pre-Reformation chapel stood at Hadden, another stood on Sprouston manor; and the burying-ground which surrounded the church of the ancient parish of Lempitlaw is still in use. The Duke of Roxburghe is chief proprietor, 3 others holding each an annual value of more than £500. Sprouston is in the presbytery of Kelso and the synod of Merse and Teviotdale; the living is worth £419. The parish church, on a gravelly eminence in the middle of the village, was built in 1781, and contains 420 sittings. Two public schools, Lempitlaw and Sprouston, with respective accommodation for 90 and 87 children, had (1884) an average attendance of 61 and 73, and grants of £54, 13s. 6d. and £55, 8s. 6d. Valuation (1860) £12, 533, (1884) £13,509, 13s. 8d. Pop. (1801) 1105, (1841) 1439, (1861) 1305, (1871) 1294, (1881) 1026.—Ord. Sur., shs. 25, 26, 1865-64.
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