Report of Meetings for 1887. By J. Hardy. fi3 



occupies the position of the keep of the old structure. It faces 

 the south, and is constructed of very red bricks, dyed the people 

 say in blood, an audacious modern myth. Its previous owner, 

 Henry Inglis, was a man of great energy, an excellent public 

 speaker, a minor poet of some note, a prominent freemason. He 

 was involved in the Glasgow Bank disaster, and as Chairman of 

 the Directors, was punished along with others. After being 

 liberated from prison, he went to London, and stayed there some 

 years before his death, which happened some years ago. The 

 estate was bought in 1879, by Mr John Milroy, Assoc. Inst. 

 C.E.,E.R.S.E., who made many changes by building, roadmak- 

 ing, and planting. He was a successful constructor of railways, 

 canals, and harbours, and inventor of the " Milroy Excavator." 

 He died in 1886 or 7, aged 80 years. (Proc. of Royal Soc. of 

 Edinburgh, Vol. xiv., Obituary Notices, pp. 167-9). There were 

 fine tufts of Asplenium Rut a-mur aria on the garden walls. This 

 little fern is said to be not rare in the Galashiels district. 



The ground being nearly all under cultivation, very few wild 

 plants worthy of notice were picked up. Except above Fernie- 

 herst and a few other heights, the native heather has been nearly 

 swept from the hill-sides, and replaced by agricultural crops and 

 grasses. Galeopsis versicolor occurs in several of the fields. 

 Bilberry grows, but does not fruit, in the dry Torsonce woods. 

 The hill-top at Bow-castle is full of Viola lutea. A wild Roe-deer, 

 we heard, had once been shot at Bowland. The slate rocks in 

 this vicinity are of the Llandovery series, and are fossiliferous. 

 See Mr James Wilson's valuable paper in Mr Craig-Brown's 

 " History of the County of Selkirkshire," vol. i. p. 256, etc. 



One or two of the members visited Windydoors, a place always 

 to be held in remembrance by youthful students of history, as 

 the birth-place of Dr William Russell, author of the " History 

 of Modern Europe," and other publications. (Born 1741 — Died 

 1793). The object of the present visit, was a stone at the castle. 

 This stronghold is now utilised in the present farm-offices. " It 

 was so strongly built," says Mr Sanderson, "that the masons 

 when erecting the present farm buildings, found it so hard work 

 taking down the walls, that they were allowed to remain." 



During a visit to the neighbourhood before the meeting, Mr 

 Thomson, engineer, gave me a few of the popular traditions that 

 still linger in the district about old times and places. There are 

 the remains of a castle on Lugate or Lowgate water an affluent 



