peeblesshire-1967-vol-1/03_037

Transcription

INTRODUCTION
to the Inventory of the Ancient and Historical
Monuments of Peeblesshire

PART I. GENERAL

1. THE LAND AND ITS RESOURCES

Peeblesshire comprises the whole basin of the upper Tweed, upstream from the
Thornylee narrows. The curving course of the main stream, combined with disposi-
tion of two considerable tributaries on the convex side of the curve, gives to the county the
shape of a very irregular triangle, its apex pointing south-west and its base aligned approxi-
mately from north-west to south-east. Its dimensions along these axes are 28 miles and 23 miles
respectively, and its area amounts to 222,240 acres or 347 square miles. The apex of the triangle
rests on the northern edge of Dumfriesshire, at the head of Annandale, while the Upper Ward
of Lanarkshire (the upper Clyde valley) and the western portion of Selkirkshire (St. Mary's
Loch and the Yarrow) flank it respectively on the west and south-east. The base abuts on the
southern margin of Midlothian. The county thus occupies a position in the heart of the South-
ern Uplands, being distant, on the west, about 44 miles from the Firth of Clyde at Ayr, and, on
the east, about 38 miles from the North Sea at Berwick. Its northern margin is less than a dozen
miles from the Firth of Forth.
The land is almost everywhere hilly or mountainous, just over sixty per cent of the area of
the county lying at more than 1000 ft. above sea level. Its lowest point, about 400 ft. O.D., is
on the Tweed just downstream from Thornylee. From here towards the west the Tweed
valley is narrow and rather winding for about 9 miles, being hemmed in on the north by the
steep, broken country of the Moorfoot Hills and on the south by the ridge of the Tweed-
Yarrow watershed. At Innerleithen a long and narrow side-valley brings in the Leithen Water
from the north, and on the south bank, at and near Traquair, there is a small area of open
ground at the foot of the Quair Water. Between Cardrona and Lyne, a stretch of some 7 miles,
there is a larger area of low-lying, open ground, divided into two parts by a contraction of the
valley at the Neidpath gorge. In the lower part the town of Peebles stands at the junction
of the Tweed and the Eddleston Water, while the upper part includes the lower reaches of both
the Manor and Lyne Waters. Most of the hinterland, however, is still mountainous, and espe-
cially the parish of Manor - the Manor Water itself rising under Dollar Law (2680 ft.) and
being closely overlooked by a series of other heights which exceed two thousand feet. The
Eddleston Water, bordered on the east by the Moorfoots and on the west by the lower but not
inconsiderable Cloich hills, together with the Lyne Water to the west of it, give access to a

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