peeblesshire-1967-vol-1/03_039

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: GENERAL

O.D.) the mean annual rainfall is 83·2 in., June again being the driest month with 4·95 in. and
January the wettest with 10·22 in. Temperature figures for a high-lying station comparable to
Gameshope Loch are not available, but at the low-lying station at Glentress (850 ft. O.D.) the
mean annual temperature is 46·2° F. / 7·9° C., the warmest month being July (56·5° F. / 13·6° C.)
and the coldest January (34·7° F. / 1·5° C.)
The chief natural resource of the county is its hill pasture, which is largely given over to sheep
farming. Although abundant traces of cultivation terraces and rig-and-furrow ploughing
indicate that a great deal of the marginal land under 1200 ft. O.D. has been tilled in former
times, the amount of arable land is now extremely small in proportion to the rest; for the most
part it is not of very good quality, and the crops grown are mainly used for feeding stock. The
only industry of any importance is the manufacture of woollen goods, which is carried on in
mill at Peebles, Innerleithen and Walkerburn. Sand and gravel is worked in several places, and
a quarry at Edston produces road metal. But a number of other industries that are discussed in
the body of the Inventory - the coal and lead mines at the northern end of the county, the
sandstone and limestone quarries at Broomlee and Macbiehill, and the Grieston slate quarry -
have all been discontinued.
The old roads of which traces still remain are discussed below,¹ and here it is sufficient to
point out that Peeblesshire lies at the junction of two natural lines of communication. Of these
the east to west route, formed by the valleys of Tweed and the Biggar Water, links Lauderdale
with Clydesdale, and was sufficiently important in early times to be incorporated in the Roman
road system. On the other hand the north to south route from Midlothian to Annandale by
way of the upper Tweed was probably little used until the Middle Ages, the Roman road
builders, like the later railway engineers, preferring the easier, if less direct, passage into
Dunfriesshire afforded by Beattock Summit.

2. THE PEOPLE

From the geographical considerations outlined above, it follows that Peeblesshire is a region
open primarily to influences coming up the Tweed from the east coast, but secondarily to
others from Midlothian, and to others again from Strathclyde through the Biggar Gap. At the
time of the Roman invasion of Scotland in A.D. 79 or 80 the county formed part of the lands of
the Selgovae. ² Occupying a large block of hill country in the centre of the Southern Uplands,
the Selgovae were flanked on the east by the Votadini and on the north-west by the Damnonii.
Our earliest historical sources suggest that in the 5th to 6th centuries the representatives of
these last two states were Gododdin (the name derives from Votadini) and Strathclyde, centred
respectively on Edinburgh and Dumbarton. The territory of the Selgovae may have been
largely absorbed into the kingdom of Rheged, centred on Carlisle, but there is nothing to
show to which of the three kingdoms Peeblesshire belonged at that time.
The inhabitants at this stage were certainly Britons (no doubt with some degree of super-
ficial Romanisation), and speakers of British, and it is they and their descendants who were
responsible for the Brittonic or "Cumbric" place-names of the region. For instance Peebles is

1 Pp. 36 f., 47 f. and relative Inventory articles.
2 Cf. pp. 32 ff.

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valrsl- Moderator, Kirk Beadle

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