RENFREWSHIRE EXCURSIONS. 43 



gardens were situated, and evidences remain in the walls there of 

 fruit culture, which may have begun in monastic times when the 

 monks were our only horticulturists. This plot of ground may 

 well have been their orchard. 



In Paradise are some fine yellow-berried hollies, and a wild rose 

 is shown with a stem 7 inches in girth. Petasites alius and the 

 Welsh poppy {Meconopsis cambricd) occur as garden escapes. On 

 the approach from Langbank some aged thorns attract attention, 

 and the gardens contain a collection of herbaceous plants of great 

 extent and interest. The measurements above stated were made 

 in June, 1892. 



Houston and Kilallan Parish. — Barochan House, in this 

 parish, was visited in the spring of 1891, without any particular 

 feature of interest being noted except what attaches to the house 

 itself, over which the party were shown by Mrs. Renshaw. On the 

 same visit old Kilallan Church was also inspected. Little of the 

 church now remains except the walls to the height of 8 to 10 feet, 

 and they are largely obscured by a most luxuriant growth of the 

 ivy-green. In the outer wall a curious stone called St. Fillan's 

 Stone received a large share of attention, as did also a natural 

 depression in the rock by the roadside in this vicinage, called St. 

 Fillan's Chair, from which tradition declares the saint to have 

 preached. 



Barochan Cross, as illustrated in the frontispiece to this volume, 

 arrested the party with conjectures as to the details of the design, 

 which are slowly but surely giving way to atmospheric action. 

 The cross in the time of Crawfurd, the historian of the county 

 (as quoted by Motherwell), stood " a few score yards south 

 from " Barochan Mill, and at a later date (about a century since) 

 the writer of the old statistical account of the parish says that it 

 was " lately removed ... to a neighbouring hill, where the 

 old mansion house of Barochan formerly stood." Both sides of 

 the cross have been elaborately carved, and the workmanship must 

 have been excellent and the material well chosen, to admit of the 

 present comparative sharpness of outline of some of the figures. 

 Nothing of its history is known. Locally it is called a Danish 

 cross, and Motherwell the poet had no difficulty in convincing 

 himself that it should be considered commemorative of the defeat 



