ROXBURGHSHIRE. 



Koxburgh- ROXBURGHSHIRE. This county evidently de- 

 shire, rives its name from the ancient city and castle of Rox- 

 burgh, which stood in the beautiful peninsula formed 

 by the junction of the Tweed and Teviot, opposite to 

 Kelso, but of which scarcely a vestige now remains. It 

 is also sometimes called Teviotdale, as the river Teviot 

 rises in its western extremity, and flows through the 

 county in a north-easterly direction, till it unites with 

 the Tweed at Kelso, which is within four miles of the 

 eastern extremity. There is indeed a district in the 

 county towards its southern point, called Liddisdale, 

 from the stream Liddal, which runs through it from 

 north to south. But, speaking in a general way, the 

 name of Teviotdale is often given to the whole county. 

 The parish of Castletown comprehends all Liddisclale, 

 is about fifteen miles from north to south, and though 

 it varies much in breadth, may be about twelve miles 

 in its greatest extent from east to west. Roxburghshire 

 is situated between 55 7' and 55 42' North Lat. and 

 nearly between 2 10' and 3 8' West Long, from Lon- 

 don. Its form is very irregular, particularly towards 

 the south and north extremities, which run so much 

 into adjoining counties, as to render it a difficult mat- 

 ter distinctly to fix the limits of each. It is bounded 

 on the north by the county of Berwick ; on the east by 

 Northumberland; on the south by Cumberland and 

 Dumfries-shire; on the west by Dumfries- shire and Sel- 

 kirkshire ; and on the north-west by Selkirkshire, and 

 a small portion of Mid-Lothian. It varies much in its 

 dimensions. Its greatest length is about 41 miles, 

 measuring from the junction of the Mare burn with 

 Liddal, to that of Carham burn with Tweed ;. and its 

 greatest breadth, by a line crossing the above at right 

 angles, is about thirty miles. The late Dr. Douglas of 

 Galashiels, in his agricultural survey of this county, 

 prepared in 1796, and published in 1798, states its me- 

 dium length at about thirty miles, and its medium 

 breadth a little more than twenty-two miles, making 

 its contents nearly 672 square miles, and 430,080 square 

 acres, of which about three-fifths were in sheep pasture, 

 and the remaining two-fifths were under the plough, 

 except about 8000 acres occupied in woods, pleasure 

 grounds, towns, and villages. Though some subse- 

 quent accounts in gazetteers, &c. vary considerably in 

 certain of these calculations, yet, as we well know 

 the remarkable accuracy of the Reverend Doctor, and 

 that there has been no general agricultural survey of 

 the county since that time, we think it safer, except in 

 cases in which we have particular data of our own, to 

 take him chiefly for our authority in matters like these, 

 than to trust to the unauthenticated statements of ano- 

 nymous publications, which are too often loosely and 

 carelessly given. At the same time it is proper to men- 

 tion, that there has been a great extension of improved 

 and cultivated, as well as of planted land in the county 

 since that period, though we do not pretend to be able 

 to estimate its amount. The late Duke James of Rox- 

 burghe,who died at an advanced age in July, 1823, a few 

 years previous to his decease planted a great part of the 

 extensive and unsheltered waste called Caver ton-Edge, 

 in the parish of Eckford, and other lands in Roxburgh 

 parish, &c. amounting in all to about 500 acres. He 

 transferred Kelso races, which had long been held 

 there, to the Berry-Moss, which he transformed into a 

 beautiful course, and on which he erected a very com- 

 modious and elegant race-stand. 



Roxburghshire contains twenty-nine complete pa- 

 rishes, and a part of four others, viz. Roberton, Ash- 



kirk, Selkirk, and Galashiels. The river Tweed, issu- Roxburgh. 

 ing from a mountain spring near the southern extre- slltre - 

 mity of Peebles-shire, and almost contiguous to the _ Y~~" 

 sources of the Clyde and Annan, enters the county at 

 its confluence with the Gala, a little below Abbots- 

 ford, having formed its boundary with Selkirkshire from, 

 below Sunderland Hall. Passing Melrose at the base 

 of the Eildon hills, and receiving the Leader at Dry- 

 grange bridge, itflows through the finely wooded scenery 

 of old Melrose, Dryburgh Abbey, Merton, Makerston, 

 and Fleurs, where it reaches Kelso, to the beauty of 

 the scenery* of which place its confluence with the Teviot 

 richly contributes. Thence it proceeds through a more 

 level but richly cultivated district, and becomes in its 

 progress the boundary between England and Scotland. 

 The part of the Tweed within Roxburghshire is crossed 

 by three stone bridges, viz. at Darnick, a mile above 

 Melrose, at Dry grange, two miles below Melrose, and 

 at Kelso ;* also by two iron suspension bridges, one 

 about 300 feet in span, now erecting (1825) between 

 Melrose and Gattonside, and the other at Dryburgh 

 for foot passengers and single horses. The Teviot, Teviot. 

 which may be truly called a county river, rises many 

 miles south of the Tweed, and taking a north-easterly 

 course to Kelso, seems pretty nearly to divide the coun- 

 ty into two equal parts. The division lying north of 

 the Teviot contains the greater proportion of the arable 

 land of the county, the south-eastern and the southern 

 part of the other division being very mountainous. 



The surface of the county is finely diversified, and 

 exhibits many scenes that are beautiful and romantic ; 

 while the historical and poetical associations connected 

 with the course of its rivers, and their tributary streams, 

 confer upon it, in the eye of the scholar and antiquary, 

 peculiar charms. No county in the kingdom perhaps 

 is better watered, or enjoys more iiumerous or beauti- 

 ful streams and brooks. One or more of these meanders 

 through almost every little vale. The Teviot receives 

 in its course the Allan, the Slittrige, and the Rule, all 

 of which rise on the confines of Liddisdale. The Ale 

 and Borthwick are the northern feeders of the Te- 

 viot. Both rise in Selkirkshire, and are in some places 

 boundaries of the two counties. The Ale, after flow- 

 ing upwards of twelve miles, falls into the Teviot 

 amidst the romantic scenery of Ancrum. The Borth- 

 wick, passing through a more pastoral country, dis- 

 charges itself into the Teviot above Hawick. In its 

 farther progress, the Teviot receives the Kale, the Ox- 

 nam, and the Jed. Of these, the first and last issue 

 from the border hills. The Jed, rushing along a rocky 

 channel, through narrow and thickly wooded vales. 

 and through some most picturesque scenery in the 

 neighbourhood of Jedburgh, passes that county town, 

 and, at the commencement of an extensive plain 

 near Crailing, empties itself into the Teviot. Bow- 

 monjt is a pastoral rivulet, which has its source in the 

 south-east of this county, and after a rapid course of 

 nine or ten miles, passes into England at an eastern 

 extremity of the parish of Yetholm. The Hermitage, 

 which runs in the south-eastern declivity of the ridge, 

 whence Allan and Slittrige proceed in an opposite di- 

 rection, tumbles over a bottom of rough stones, in the 

 midst of green hills, whose base is generally skirted 

 with copsewood. Passing southward, it loses itself in 

 the Liddal, after embellishing the scenery of that de- 

 tached portion of the county, called Liddisdale. The 

 Liddal is a more placid stream, which issuing from a 

 kind of morass, not improperly called Dead Water, 



* See our article BRIDGE, Vol. IV. p. 486. and RENNIE, in this volume, {* 335. 



