Sanquhar, a small town and a parish of Upper Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire. A royal and parliamentary burgh, the town stands 440 feet above sea-level, within 3 furlongs of the Nith's left bank. By road it is 32 miles ESE of Ayr, 18¾ SW of Abington station, and 56 SW of Edinburgh; whilst its own station on the Glasgow and South-Western railway (1850) is 26 ¼ miles NNW of Dumfries and 16 ¼ ESE of Cumnock. The main street runs 5 furlongs south-eastward along the Glasgow and Dumfries highroad (l777); and on a rising-ground, at its upper end, stands the parish church (1824; 960 sittings), a handsome edifice with a square tower. This succeeded a building which was remarkable for its size and disproportion, and which, from some sculptured stones in its walls, was supposed to be of great antiquity. At an expansion of the High Street, a short way from its head, is the town-hall, built at the expense of the last Duke of Queensberry, and having a tower and clock. On a steep bank, overlooking the Nith, about 1 furlong from the foot of the town, stands the picturesque ruin of Sanquhar Castle. This seems to have been a strong quadrangular structure, with towers at the angles. On the N side was a deep fosse with a drawbridge; on the W were gardens, whose site retains traces of a fish pond; on another side was a spacious deer park; and a little way to the SE is the ancient mote of Ryehill. Either the castle, or some fortified predecessor on its site, seems to have given origin, as it certainly gave name, to the town; for ` Sanquhar,' originally and for centuries spelt ` Sancher ' or ` Sanchar, ' is simply the Celtic seann-caer, `an old fort.' The earliest proprietors of the castle and circumjacent lands, or Lords of Sanquhar, were the Roos, Roose, or Ross family, cadets of the Earls of Ross, Lords of the Isles. Isabel de Ross, daughter and heiress of Robert de Ross, the last of the line, married William de Crichton, who died in 1360; and Sir Robert de Crichton, their great-grandson, was, in 1485, created Lord Crichton of Sanquhar. The sixth Lord, Robert, was hanged at Westminster in 1612 for the murder of a fencing master; and his kinsman and successor, William, first Earl of Dumfries, who in 1617 welcomed James VI. to the ` Peel' of Sanquhar, in 1630 disposed of lands, lordship, and castle to William Douglas, Viscount of Drumlanrig. The castle became now the seat of the proud Drumlanrig Douglases. Even after William, first Duke of Queensberry (163795), had built the magnificent palace of Drumlanrig, he spent but one night within its walls, and retired for the remainder of his days to Sanquhar Castle. The old pile was forsaken, however, by the second Duke, and abandoned to utter neglect. Plunderers speedily thronged upon it, first to divest it of its leaden roof, next to use it as a quarry, until they left not a vestige of its ancient magnificence except its gaunt but venerable ruin. Excavations carried -out in 1876 brought to light several human skeletons and a very deep well with a bucket suspended in it.
Sanquhar rose into considerable prosperity under the fostering care of the third Duke of Queensberry, who, at a cost of £1500, formed for at least 21 miles across his estate, the great line of road which passes through the burgh between Dumfries and the West of Scotland. He also cut, at an expense of £600, a cross road running up Minnick Water to Wanlockhead, and at a cost of £300, a road in the neighbouring parish of Kirkconnel, leading up to a lime-work at Whitecleugh; whilst, jointly with the trustees for the encouragement of manufactures, he gave £40 a year to be distributed among stocking-makers and other manufacturing artificers in the town and its vicinity. The knitting of stockings and mittens, mostly parti-coloured and very various in pattern, long formed a staple manufacture, and afforded a large number of the lower classes a comfortable support; but this industry was extinguished by the outbreak of the American War in 1775, the principal market having till then been Virginia. The weaving of carpets has also greatly declined; and brick and tile making, coal-mining, and the manufacture of shovels now constitute the leading industries. Sanquhar has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, branches of the British Linen Co. and Royal Banks, a local savings' bank (1819), 10 insurance agencies, 2 hotels, gas and water companies, a public library, a bowling green (1871), a curling club (1774), and fairs on the first Fridays of February, May, August, and November (all old style), and on 17 July if a Friday, otherwise on the first Friday following. Places of worship, besides the parish church, are a Free church (1845; 500 sittings), the North U.P. church (1849; 550 sittings), of which the Rev. Robert Simpson, D.D. (1792-1867), author of Traditions of the Covenanters, etc., was 48 years minister; the South U.P. church (1742; 500 sittings), an Evangelical Union church (1864; 300 sittings), and a small Baptist chapel. The `Corda' of Ptolemy, a town of the Selgovæ, Sanquhar was a burgh of barony from time immemorial, and was re-erected in 1484. In 1598, at the instance of Robert, sixth Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, it was, by charter of James VI., constituted a royal burgh. The town council consists of a provost, 2 bailies, a dean of guild, a treasurer, and 4 councillors. A grey granite monument, erected in 1860, marks the site of the old town cross, to which were affixed the two famous Sanquhar ` Declarations,-the first on 22 June 1680 by Richard Cameron, disowning allegiance to Charles II.; the second on 29 May 1685 by the Rev. James Renwick, witnessing against the usurpation of the government by James VII. Sanquhar unites with Dumfries, Annan, Kirkcudbright, and Lochmaben in returning a member to parliament. Parliamentary constituency (1885) 210; municipal, 217. Corporation revenue (1832) £66, (1865) £354, (1884) £280. Valuation (1855) £2163, (1885) £4120. Pop. (1831) 1527, (1841) 1719, (1851) 2381 (1861) 1754, (1871) 1324, (1881) 1339, of whom 715 were females, and 1299 were in the royal burgh. Houses (1881) 350 inhabited, 31 vacant. The parish, containing also the village of Wanlockhead and part of Crawick Mill, since 1727 bas comprehended great part of the ancient parish of Kilbride or Kirkbride. It is bounded NW by Kirkconnel, NE and E by Crawfordjohn and Crawford in Lanarkshire, SE by Durisdeer, S by Penpont and by Dalry in Kirkcudbrightshire, and W by New Cumnock in Ayrshire. Its utmost length, from ENE to WSW, is 15 3/8 miles; its utmost breadth is 7¼ miles; and its area is 64 1/5 square miles or 41,077¾ acres, of which 231½ are water. The Nith flows 2 miles east-south-eastward along the Kirkconnel border, then 5¼ miles through the interior: and amongst its numerous affluents the chief are Kello Water, running 8 5/8 miles north-eastward along the New Cumnock and Kirkconnel boundary; Crawick Water, running 8 miles south-south-westward along the Kirkconnel boundary; Euchan Water, running 9 ¼ miles east-north-eastward through the south-western interior; and Minnick Water, running 6 7/8 miles west-south-westward through the north-eastern interior. Declining along the Nith, at the point where it quits the parish, to 347 feet above the sea, the surface is everywhere hilly or mountainous. Chief elevations to the NE of the Nith are Dalpedder Hill (1291 feet), *Cairn Hill (1471), *Threehope Height (1802), Brown Hill (1544), Willowgrain Hill (1686), *Lowther Hill (2377), Stood Hill (1925), *Wanlock Dod (1808), and Conrig Hill (1591); to the SW *Heathery Hill (1669), Whiteside H ill (1695), Mid Hill (1695), *Corse Hill (1902), and *Blacklarg Hill (2231), where asterisks mark those summits that culminate on or close to the confines of the parish. The vale of the Nith is here a mimic strath of considerable beauty, flanked by hill-screens which are cleft by little transverse vales, each bringing down its tribute rivulet to the Nith. The rest of the surface is hilly, partly green and partly heathy, exhibiting great diversity of upland character and mountain contour. The rocks of the uplands are nearly all of Silurian formation. - A coalfield, extending along the Nith, is supposed to be a wing of the great field of Ayrshire. Extensive lead mines are worked at Wanlockhead; and coal mines, as also quarries of sandstone and limestone, are worked in the carboniferous region. The soil in the vale of the Nith, and in the lower parts of some of the lateral vales, is in general dry and gravelly, and in .some places loamy; but that in the other districts is for the most part clayey or mossy, much of it very wet, yet generally deep and well adapted for grazing. Rather less than one-seventh of the entire area is in tillage; nearly 800 acres are under wood; and almost all the rest is pastoral or waste. Castle-Gilmour stood near the right bank of Minnick Water, Kemps Castle on the left bank of Euchan Water; and other antiquities are part of the Dell's Dyke running S of the Nith, a crannoge in Black or Sanquhar Loch, and remains of barrows, .stone circles, etc. The glens and moors were the frequent retreat of the persecuted Covenanters. The Rev. Andrew Thomson, D.D. (1779-1831), an eminent Edinburgh minister, was born in the former manse; and a yet more illustrious native, the ` Admirable ' Crichton (1560-83), was born in Elliock House. The Duke of Buccleuch holds more than five-sixths of the entire rental, Mr Veitch about one-ninth, and the rest is mostly divided among three. Since 1861 giving off the quoad sacra parish of Wanlockhead, Sanqubar is in the presbytery of Penpont and the synod of Dumfries; the living is worth £490. Four schools-Sanquhar public, the Crichton (founded 1821), Minnick Bridge, and Wanlockhead-with respective accommodation for 258, 160, 66, and 136 children, had (1884) an average attendance of 130, 147, 29, and 144, and grants of £106, 6s., £130, 7s., £25, 0s. 6d., and £120, 11s. Valuation (1860) £14,135, (1885) £15, 044. Pop. (1801) 2350, (1831) 3268, (1851) 4071, (1861) 3569, (1871) 3038, (1881) 3109, of whom 2255 were in the ecclesiastical parish.—Ord. Sur., sh. 15, 1864. See the Rev. Dr J. Moir Porteous' God's Treasure-House in Scotland (Lond. 1876).
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
