200 Topography of Dumfries. 



the Gaelic word loir (pronounced loer), meaning (Scottice) gutters, 

 an origin suitable in respect of description and pronunciation. The 

 latter part of the word is also Gaelic, burn being used for water, 

 though not as applied by the Scot to a brook. Thus we have burn 

 salach, dirty water. If taken in this sense, the combination loir- 

 burn would mean " the water that became gutters." The Anglo- 

 Saxon loord (O.E., lorde), meaning heavy, clumsy, sluggard, may 

 explain the confusion in spelling. Pennant notes the traditional 

 use of the word as a rallying cry {Tour in Scotland, 1772, 4th ed., 

 vol. ii., p. 103). A similar use of a place name was the Maxwell's 

 "A Wardlaw," from the AVardlaw Hill. The course of the burn 

 was upon the line of attack from north and east, which naturally 

 explains its adoption. The motto was inscribed upon a stone (now 

 built into the Midsteeple) on the Prison built in 1578-9, but at what 

 date it appeared upon the Burgh Arms is not certain. 



16 More minutely traced, the Loreburn rose in the bog in 

 which the Ewart Public Library is built and extending from the 

 back of Loreburn Street to Townhead Church ; it flowed under 

 St. John's School and between the Slaughter-House and the Drill 

 Hall, crossing English Street just beyond its junction with Shakes- 

 peare Street. It then ran down the east side of St. Andrew's 

 Pro-Cathedral to Leafield Gardens, and thence, by the old fence, 

 it turned westward and joined the Millburn near the open space 

 in Queen Street, through whieh the united burns ran. Another 

 slighter burn ran from the same bog along Langlands, and fell into 

 the Nith opposite Ivy Lodge. 



ifia As mentioned farther on, there was a mill here in 1215. In 

 the 16th century it was held in feu by the M'Brairs. On the last 

 day of May, 1628, " for great sums of money," Robert M'Brair with 

 consent of Thomas M'Brair and Jonnet Dickson, his spouse, dis- 

 poned it to the Burgh , ' ' that the said Mill may be consolitated 

 with the superiority in the hands of the Magistrates " (Beg. of Sas., 

 Dumfries). Robert Edgar, writing circa 1746, says: — "The Old 

 Milnhole Miln whose aqueduct is from the Town's property, a little 

 lake called Newdam [and from] Milndamhead, and was an easy and 

 swift going Miln for grinding malt, but [was] miserably rendered 

 useless as to that (and [is] said now to be a snuff Miln) by reason 

 . of . . a set of men . . who had a Tack of this Milndam- 

 head which was the cistern of the other and fed the saTd old Miln- 

 hole [Miln] and [they] ditched it of 8 or 9 aikers and converted it 

 into a meadow, where in lieu of £7 or £8 of tack duty . . they 

 reap hay and grass yearly to the value of £36 or £40." The result 

 of this desuetude was the building of the Town Mills on the Troqueer 

 side of the river in 1705. In 1769-70 these buildings, consisting of a 

 corn and a barley mill and a kiln adjacent, were taken down and, 

 on plans prepared by John Smeaton the engineer, a double flour 

 mill, a double barley mill, a double corn mill, and a malt mill, were 

 erected. On 31st October, 1780, they were burnt down, but, being 



