24> SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



rather hilly, suiface. It is noted in history as the first local settlement of the 

 Gordon family, who received the lands in return for services similar to those already 

 mentioned in our notice of Swinton, and from which several other distinguished 

 families, north and south of the Tweed, derive their patents of nobihty. This 

 settlement dates so far back as the reign of Malcolm Canmore ; and a small 

 eminence is still pointed to as the site of the ancient Castle ; but the residence 

 of that illustrious family has been long transferred, with its hereditary honours, 

 to the more princely residence of Gordon Castle, in the Highlands. Huntly, a 

 second title of the same chief, was also the name of a small hamlet in this 

 parish, but which, like many others now desolate from similar causes, has lately 

 passed away, and left but a solitary tree to mark the spot.* Greenknow Tower, 

 " hanging in doubtfid ruins round its base," is another chronicle of former times, 

 and carries us back to that stirring epoch, when Pringle, its intrepid owner, 

 rendered himself conspicuous under the banner of the Covenant — in days 



" Ere quenched red persecution's torch ! 



And — incense most accursed ! — when Christian liands 

 Heaped on a brother's head the blazing brands ! " 



Greenlaw, the county town since 1G69, and a burgh of barony, subject to the 

 proprietor of Marchmont, is pleasantly situated in a valley on the Blackadder, 

 over which are two bridges. It is a thriving place, and in the interval between 

 1821 and 1831 raised its population from 765 to 895. The county hall, just 

 finished, is an elegant building in the Grecian style, of handsome dimensions — 

 sixty by forty feet — adorned with four fluted columns and Corinthian capitals, 

 and presenting a beautiful vestibule in front, surmounted by a dome, so con- 

 structed as to form a safe and commodious depositary for the county records. f 

 This noble edifice was built at the sole expense of Sir W. P. H. Campbell, of 

 Marchmont, and presented by him to the county, which he continues to 

 represent in parliament. Every thing in this town indicates an advance in the 

 comforts and elegancies, as well as a progressive improvement in all the arts, of 

 social life. Regular markets now established. 



At the confluence of the Blackadder and Faungrass are the remains of an 

 encampment : the camp called Black-castle Rings, is on the southern side of the 

 river, and exactly opposite another entrenchment running south. In opening 

 a quarry in the line of tliis trench, about two years since, a number of gold and 

 silver coins of the reign of Edward III. were found slightly imbedded under the 



• The cause of this depopulation is the custom latterly so prevalent, of throwing several small farms 

 into one, and thereby setting the redundant population adrift upon the world. — Vide Annals of Phil. 

 vols. 1. ii. — Scottish Stat. 



t Vide S<a/ij;ics o/ Grccr.;<i«>, by tlie Rf.v. J. Paterson — .Art. Antiquities. 1S34. Blackwood. 



