210 Moffat and Upper Annandale. 



The original Market Place of the town was opposite the 

 Kirkyard gate. The market stance on the street was marked 

 by small paved circles with a cross line of stones through the 

 diameters, some of them still can be seen in front of Mr 

 Anderson's shop. The meal house was the site of the present 

 Bank of Scotland. The market place was removed further 

 up the street, and a similar cross formed there when the Old 

 Tolbooth was removed, and the Market and building contain- 

 ing the Town Clock were erected in 1772, the original clock 

 having these figures on the four angles of the front dial. 



In 1 77 1 and 1772 two blocks of buildings were removed 

 from the centre of the High Street, and in the rebuilding of 

 the west side of the High Street the buildings were all set 

 back. The original building line would be out as far as the 

 line of the present gutter, but it was only in 1826 that the 

 Bowling Green was removed from the front of Ivy House 

 and the adjoining property further up, and it is to these 

 improvements that Moffat can boast of its wide and open 

 High Street. 



I have mentioned the great want of fences in the district, 

 and with a view to improve these matters a surveyor, named 

 Joseph Udney, an Aberdonian I believe, was brought in. He 

 surveyed and made a plan of the town and district, set out 

 and planted a great many of the woods. The fields also 

 were divided, hedges planted, and trees planted on the line 

 of the fences, as we now see them, all under his directions. 

 Udney, in addition to his other work, undertook the setting 

 up of sun-dials. One at Heatheryhaugh has inscribed within 

 an oval border " Joseph Udney, Moffat," and under " De- 

 signed and engraved by Joseph Pearson Pearson, diallist, 

 Dumfries, 1804." 



John, Earl of Hopetoun, bought the estate of Wamphray 

 in 1747, so that that parish came also under his improving 

 hand. He died in 1781, and his son James succeeded him; 

 and, on the death of the Marquis in 1792, succeeded to the 

 whole of the Annandale estates. He continued the good work 

 begun by his father, and as the other contemporary proprie^ 

 tors emulated the Earl in his efforts to improve the district 

 and bring their estates up to an equal state of efficiency, which 



