own name of Lochlee on the whole parish. — The
author of ' Attic Fragments,' speaking of this lonely
sheet of water, says — " Close by its eastern margin
are the ruins of tlie little church and school-house
of Lochlee, the latter interesting to the lovers of
Scottish literatnre, by having been the residence of
Ross,* the author of ' Helenora, or the Fortunate
Shepherdess,' a poem which, though it be now as
much a sealed book to the fashionables of Scotland,
as the writings of Gower, or even Alfred himself,
are to those of England, yet contains some of the
most romantic descriptions that ever were written,
and preserves traces of customs and traditions not
to be found elsewhere. We came to the house, or
lather the ruin ; and, as was fitting for meditation
lor such a scene, we came without a guide to break,
by ill-tirned though well-meant information, the
chain of our reflections. It had been the very mini-
mum of human dwellings. There were two apart-
ments, the largest not ten feet square : and yet here
the humble and contented bard had taught the youth
of the glen, reared a numerous family, written poems
and songs, and been the life and admiration of all
around him. A single apartment had been his par-
lour, his bed-chamber, and his study ; that apart-
ment had but one little window, and near this we
saw, or fancied we saw, the marks of his rude chair
and little table in the clay floor. Withinside the
garden, small in proportion to the house, was a little
bank of camomile, upon which the bard used to rest
• when fatigued ; and below, a few stunted trees in
the deserted churchyard, was the walk along which
he used to study. There was a wildness of desola-
tion, but at the same tune a calm holiness of repose,
about the place that came over me, I know not
bow; and for the moment, I felt that, if (which is
not very likely) my own bones should become ob-
jects of interest or inquiry, I would rather have them
laid in the lone solitude of Glenlee, where they would
be visited only by the casual traveller, amid the wild
simplicity of nature, than huddled up in the church
of St. Peter, Westminster, where, while the worms
fed upon myself below ground, the dean and chapter
would feed upon my monument above." Opposite
the manse are the ruined walls of the castle of Inver-
mark, built in the early part of the 16th century, and
* In 1726, Ross married Jane Cattanacli, the daughter of a
fanner in Aberdeenshire, and descended by her rnotfier from
the ancient family of Duguid of Aiu-hinhiive. In I73i, by the
infiuence of his trieiid, Mr. Garden of Troup, he was appointed
Bc'hooliiiaster "f Loclilee, in Annus; and the rest of his life was
spent in the disc-harg^e of the duties of this humble otiice.
inhabited by the family of Lindsay of Edzell, the an-
cient lords of the soil. Lord Panmure is now the sole
heritor. Several roads penetrate far into the inte-
rior, and one leads across the bold mountain-boun-
dary into Aberdeenshire. Population, in 1801, 541 ;
in 1831, 553. Houses 119. Assessed property, in
1815, £.395. — Lochlee is in the presbytery of
Brechin, and synod of Angus and Mearns. Patron,
the Crown. Stipend £158 6s. 7d. ; glebe £20.
The parish-church is of modern erection, and has
about 270 sittings. Three miles east of it is a small
but neat Episcopalian chapel. About one-fifth of
the population are Episcopalians. The parish school
was attended, in 1834, by 28 scholars. Master's
salary £34 4s. 4d., with £5 lis. Id. and 6 bolls of
meal other emoluments. Two other schools were
attended, in 1834, by 73 children. One of them is
endowed by the Society in Scotland for propagating
Christian knowledge, and yields £10 salary, and £7
or £8 fees, with other advantages; and the other
has attached to it about £15 salary, with bed, board,
and washing.
LOCHLIN. See Fearn.
LOCH-LING, an arm of the Atlantic ocean, in
the shire of Ross. It forms the northern boundary
of the peninsula of Kintail.
LOCH-LINNHE, an arm of the Atlantic ocean
which separates the shires of Inverness and Argyle;
extending in a north-easterly direction from the
sound of Mull, as far as Fort- William, where it
takes a northerly direction, and acquires the name
ofLocH-EiL: which see.
LOCHMABEN, a parish in Annandale, Dum-
fries-shire ; bounded on the north by Johnstone ; on
the east by Applegarth, Dryfesdale, and Dalton ; on
the south by Dalton and Mousewald; on the west
by Torthorwald and Tinwald ; and on the north-
west by Kirkmichael. Its extreme length from the
point where it is first touched by the Annan on the
north to the boundary near Breconrig-side on the
south, is 8j miles. Its breadth, for 2 miles on the
north, averages If mile; for 3| miles further, it va-
ries from 2| to 3.^ miles ; and, in the south, the
parish runs out in two projections, one 1^ long by |
broad, and the other 3 miles long by half-a-mile
broad. The area is 16| square miles, or 10,750
English acres. The highest ground is along the
western boundary, but it is the summit merely of a
long waving swell, and all acknowledges the do-
minion of the plough. The surface descends in a
very gentle and finely diversified gradient, till nearly
mid-breadth of the parish ; and thence, excepting
some easy rising grounds toward the north, it every-
where subsides into a rich and beautiful plain. Ex-
cepting three small mosses, which are of great value
to the inhabitants for fuel, the whole parish is arable,
though a considerable proportion of it is disposed in
meadow land and pasture. The soil toward the
west is light and gravelly, but, in other parts, is
uncommonly rich, consisting over a large area of the
finest alluvial loam, occasionally nine feet deep, and
everywhere abundantly fructiferous in every descrip-
tion of crop. The land is too valuable to admit of
much plantation ; but it has fine enclosures, and is
sheltered by wide files of trees, and, in three or four
localities, beautified with little expanses of wood.
The climate — though various topographical features
would seem to evidence against it — is very healthy
and promotive of longevity. Red sandstone is
quarried in thin slabs for roofing, and in blocks for
building. All the mineral strata, like this, are o<
the secondary formation, and dip to the south. Few
districts in Scotland have such plenty of water, and
probably none combine so abundantly wealth ol
waters with opulence of soil and quiet beauty oi
LOCHMABEN.
289
landscape. The river Annan, in mazy folds, runs
along most of the eastern boundary, and looks, on
the bosom of the exuberant plain, like a waving
thread of silver on a fabric of tesselated green and
yellow velvet. The Kinnel runs diagonally across
the north end, south-eastward to the Annan, over a
distance of 2^ miles in a straight line, but at least 5
miles along its pebbly channel, musical in the gur-
gling sound oi its motion, limpid in its waters, and
graceful and sweetly varied in its banks. The Ale
runs a mile on the north-west boundary, and one-
fourth of a mile into the interior to the Kinnel, over-
looked on the Lochmaben side by a fine natural bank
or gentle ridgy elevation covered with alders, birches,
and hazels, and rioting over a pebbly bed on the
other side very much greater in breadth than fairly
belongs to the volume of its waters. So large and
expansive, and almost continuous, are the lakes of
this parish, that the ancient burgh, which stands
amongst them, appears from the rising grounds which
command a view of it to be situated on an island, in
the midst of a curiously outlined inland sea. Not
many years ago one of the lakes, called Grumbly-
loch, was drained and converted into a meadow; and
so amazingly fertile is its ancient bed, that, in a
withering season which exsiccates all vegetation, it
produces two luxuriant crops of hay, and, in ordi-
nary seasons, it has been known to yield no fewer
than five. The lakes which still remain are eight in
number, — five of them of considerable extent. The
Castle-loch, immediately south of the burgh, mea-
sures 200 acres ; Halleath-loch, east of the burgh,
80; the Mill-loch, north-west of the burgh, 70;
the Kirk-loch, west of the burgh, 60; and High-
tae-loch, south-west of Castle-loch, 52. Nowhere
do they, at any season, exceed 52 feet in depth; and
over a great aggregate extent they are shallow, and
in many places, from the shore inward, they are
thickly overtopped with reeds. Two kinds of loch-
trout, one usually weighing from 2 to 5 pounds, and
the other from 12 to l4 pounds, — pike, occasionally
weighing from 25 to 35 pounds, — perch, loach, roach,
skelly, banstickle, and eel, are taken in all the lakes ;
and green back, bream, and venriace or vendise, are
taken in addition, in the Castle-loch. The last of
these — the vendace — is believed to be peculiar to
this lake, and has drawn great attention both from
naturalists and from epicures. The fish measures
from four to six inches in length, and resembles a
herring in form, anatomy, and flavour, but exceed-
ingly delicate, and esteemed by gourmands the most
delicious of the finny tribes. When newly caught,
it has a brilliant silvery white appearance, slightly
azured along the back, and partially on the sides.
Its head is curiously and beautifully crowned or
marked with the well-defined figure of a heart, in a
brownish transparent substance, through which the
brain is seen. The fish cannot, so far as is known,
be taken with bait or the artificial fly ; but must be
caught with a net, and generally frequents the deepest
parts of the lake, or the vicinity of the mouth of a
tiny rill, called the Vendace-burn. Many and very
careful, but uniformly vain, attempts have been made
to transfer a breed of the vendace to other waters.
The fish is no sooner touched or exposed to the air
than it dies. For protecting it, or rather for judi-
ciously regulating the amount of its capture, a Ven-
dace club has for a considerable time existed, composed
of the gentlemen of the district.* The Halleaths-
* The local name of the Vendace is Vnngis or Jwmngis. Per-
haps it is the same fif h with the Gwiniud of Wales, aud the
fuilen of Loiigli-Neagh in Ireland ; but Sir \Vil4iain Jardiiie
in nut sure whether there is any authentic station for it either
in Kiisriand or Waiea. Professor Agassiz considers the Vendace
of the I.iulimaben lochs to be distinct from the Coregonus Ma-
ra-nula of the continental ichthyologists. Minute Entomos.
II.
loch is frequented by the heron, — the Annan and the
Ae are visited by the kingfisher, — the Castle and
Hightae lochs swarm with the wild duck, the coot,
and the teal, and occasionally are furrowed by the
cormorant, — and all the lakes are the re^^ort, during
severe winters, of wild geese and swans. In the
small mosses, and at the foot of turf fences, the ad-
der has so often a lodgment, and exercises so deadly
a power, as to occasion general dread among the
inhabitants; but it is supposed to be watched, and
partly kept down, by the heron. The number of
landownei's, in consequence of the singular distribu-
tion of the lands of Fourtowns, and the minute par-
celling out of the burgh-roods, is about 250; but
the principal in the parish are Johnston of Halleaths,
Dickson of Elshieshields, the Marquis of Queens-
berry, the Duke of Buccleuch, and Sir William Jar-
dine, Bart, of Applegarth. Halleaths is a pleasant
mansion, embosomed among wood between Hall-
eaths-loch and the Annan. Newmains is a neat but
unsheltered mansion, on the road between the burgh
and Dumfries. Broomhill, Todhill-muir, and Rig-
head, are good houses. Elshieshields, situated on an
eminence overlooking the Ae, at the termination of
the wooded bank, is an old but not warlike structure,
one part of it rising abruptly to a considerable height,
and imparting to the whole, as seen from a distance,
the appearance of a dilapidated tower. Spedlin's
tower, the ancient residence of the Jardines of Ap-
plegarth, situated on the Annan opposite the modern
mansion of Jardine-hall in the conterminous parisli,
is vastly thick in its walls, has round turrets at its
angles, and is strongly vaulted. Over the centre of
the arched and fortified door by which it is entered
are the armorial bearings of the Jardines, with the
date 1605; and along its exterior walls are green
coatings of ivy, while around it are some beautiful
trees. The parishioners, who are generally a full
century behind most parts of the Lowlands in re-
ceding from the superstitions of the dark ages, have
made this tower the scene of one of their most no-
table ghost-stories. In the southern district of the
parish are four villages. See article Fourtowns.
An excellent road communicates on the west with
Dumfries, and on the east with Lockerbie, — a good
but little frequented road between Glasgow and
Carlisle runs from north to south ; and other roads
radiate from the burgh. Population, in 1801, 2,053;
in 1831, 2,795. Houses 549. Assessed property
in 1815, £6,297.
The grand attraction of the parish is the paternal
residence of the Bruce, and the objects with which
it and its history are associated. Lochmaben-castle
stands a mile from the burgh, on the extreme point
of a heart-shaped peninsula which juts a considerable
way into the south side of the Castle-loch. Across
the isthmus at the entrance of the peninsula are
vestiges of a deep fosse which admitted at both ends
the waters of the lake, and converted the site of the
castle into an island, and over which a well-guarded
drawbridge gave ingress, or refused it to the inte-
rior. Within this outer fosse, at brief intervals, are
a second, a third, and a fourth, of similar character.
The last stretched from side to side of the peninsula
immediately at the entrance of the castle ; it was
protected in front by a strong arched wall or ledge,
behind which a besieged force could shield them-
selves while they galled, at a distance, an approach-
ing foe: and it had at the centre a drawbridge which
led into the interior building, and which was pr ^
bably the last post an enemy required to fore* „
order to be master of the fortress. Two archways at
the north-eastern and south-western angles of the
Unix appear to constitute the greater part of the nourishraeni
of thisbsh.
290
LOCHMABEN.
l)iiil(]iiifr, tliroiigli wbicli the water of the fosse was
received or emptied, remain entire. But no idea can
now be formed of the original beauty or polish either
of this outwork or of the stupendous and magnificent
pile which it assisted to defend. Gothic hands be-
gan generations ago to treat the castle of the Bruce
as merely a vulgar and convenient quarry ; and, for
the sake of the stones, they have peeled away every
foot of the ashler work which lined the exterior and
the interior of its walls. So far has barbarian rapa-
city been carried, that now only the heart or packing
of some of the walls is left, exhibiting giant masses
of small stones and lime, irregularly huddled together,
and nodding to their fall. Many portions of the
skinned and ghastly but once noble and aerial pile
have been precipitated from aloft, and lie strewed in
heaps upon the ground ; the stone and the lime so
firmly cemented, that scarcely any effort of human
power can disunite them. The castle, with its out-
works, covered about 16 acres, and was the strongest
fortress in the Border, and, till the invention of gun-
powder, all but impregnable. But what remains
can hardly suggest, even to fancy itself, the greatness
of what the Goths have stolen. Only one or two
small apartments can be traced, and they stand in the
remoter and less frequented part of the castle, and,
therefore, excite but little interest. But a few years
ago a farmer's dwelling-house and offices, built of the
stones of the ancient edifice, profaned the precincts ;
the potato-house was dug into the brow of the third
fosse J and the bold features of the military works
around were smoothed down to suit the convenience
of a man who cared exemplarily for his pigs and oxen,
but had not a nook in his recollection for a line of
patriot Kings, or the stirring occurrences of the most
eventful periods of Scotland's history. Many houses
in Lochmaben, including the new school-house, are
built of materials torn from the castle ; and one in-
habitant of the burgh warms his toes beside a pair of
fine jambs which once rested on the paternal hearth
of the Bruce.* The enclosed spot around the castle
is naturally barren, and fitted only for the raising of
wood; and its present growth of trees, if allowed to
bend their branches quietly over the ruin to the so-
lemn music of the winds, would harmonize well with
the solitude of fallen greatness. The view of the
loch and of the circumjacent scenery, from all points
in the vicinity, is calmly and impressively beautiful,
and strongly disposes a reflecting mind to indulge in
teeming and pleasingly tumultuous reminiscences of
the past. The date of the castle is uncertain, but pro-
bably was the latter part of the 13th century,— the pe-
riod of the competition of the Crowns. Tradition,
though unsupported by documentary evidence, as-
serts the castle to have been not the original Loch-
maben residence of the Bruces, but only a successor
of enlarged dimensions, and augmented strength. •[• At
3 brief distance south of the town, on the north-west
• A curious example will illustrate the surpassingly Gothic
spirit of the modem Lochniat>en-men. An inhabitaut of the
Heck, oue of ' the King's kindly tenants,' in the immediate
vicinity of the castle, found, many years ago, a key of very vast
proportions, supposed to have been that of the castle's chief
gate. The l
Sis. 6d. ; and not finding a purchaser at a price believed to ex-
ceed by a few farthin{,'s the value of its metal in pounds' weight,
it was coolly handed to a blacksmith to be converted into a pair
of spades for cutting turf!
f II is asserted in the Old Statistical Account, that " this
ca>tle was built by Robert Bruce, the first of that name. King
ol Scotland." This, however, is extremely improbable, lor the
following reasons urged by Dr. Jamiesou. Betoie tiie asser-
tion of his right to the Crowu, he could not have enga^-ed in
the erection of so strong a fortress, without exciting the sus-
picion of Edward 1. He had neither opportunity nor means
lor carrying on such a work during the time of his arduous
struggle ; and when this was teriniiiatfd by the defeat of his
enemies, and the establishment of peace, he had business of far
more iinportanie to occupy his attention. We discover no
veatige, in any of oiir public records, of his being thus engaged.
side of the lo/h, is a large rising ground called Castle-
hill, and pointed out as the site of the original castle,
and even as the alleged birth-place of the first royal
Bruce. That a building of some description an-
ciently crowned the eminence, is evident from the
remains of an old wall still dug up an inch or two
beneath the surface of the summit, and from the
vestiges of a strong and deep intrenchment carried
completely round the base. Tradition says that the
stones of this edifice were transferred from the
Castle-hill, across the intervening part of the lake,
to the point of the heart-shaped peninsula on the
southern shore, as materials for the more modern
erection; and it adds, that a causeway was construct-
ed, and still exists, across the bed of the lake, to
facilitate the convenience. But here monuments,
documents, and physical probabiUties, concur in re-
fusing corroborative evidence. The original castle,
situated at such convenient nearness to the burgh,
was, we may conclude, devoured piece-meal by the
proved castle-eaters of the town, and the more mo
dern castle seems, as to its ashler- work, to have been
constructed of stone from Corncockle-moor, the
quarry in the parish which continues to be worked.
The Castle-hill commands a fine view of the burgh,
of the beautiful lakes, and of a considerable expanse
of the luxuriant How of Aiinandale. Near it is a
lower hill or mount, called the Gallows-hill, on which,
in ancient times, a formidable gallows constantly
stood, and was seldom seen during the Border wars
without the dangling appendage of one or two rei-
vers. The baronial courts of Lochmaben, and even
occasional warden courts, were probably held on the
summit of the Castle-hill, whence the judges beheld
their sentences promptly and rigidly carried into
execution.
The first mention that is made of this place is by
Humphrey Lluyd, who has said that Constantine,
King of Cumbria, was killed at Lochmaben about 870.
But this seems to be a mere fabrication. Robert de
Brus, the son of that noble knight of Normandy, who
came into England with William the Conqueror, and
first possessed the manor of Skelton, being in a state
of friendship with our David L, while prince, received
from him, when he came to the throne, the lordship
of Annandale, with a right to enjoy his castle there,
with all the customs appertaining to it. This grant
was made a.d. 1124. A charter, granted by William
On the contrary, from one of them it seems probable that the
castle of Lochmaben came into the possession of his nephew
Randolph, Earl of Murray, who is recognised as Lord of Aiu
uimrfale. Besides, had King Robert been more partial to castle-
building than he was, he would most likely havegiven the pre-
ference to Turnberry. It is to be observed that, in several
deeds of Edward III., mention is made both of a castle and of
a peel at Lochmaben; as in a letter from him to Adam de Cor.
ry, whom he designs his " seneschal of the castle, peel, and
lands of Lochmaben and Annandale," in a grant to William de
Bohun, and in another to Henry de Percy. [Hotul. Scot. i. 276,
b. ; 39y, a. ; 479, 6 ] Distinct from both these ca^tles, there ap-
pears to have been one more ancient than either of tliem,
erected in one of the seven or eight lochs reckoned up in this
neighbourhood. According to tradition, there was a nun-
nery in the largest of them, where a castle afterwards stood j
and some who are acquainted with tlie Gaelic, contend, that
Lorhmiiben signifies ' the Loch of the Maidens,' or ' the Loch
of the Fair.' Dr. Jamiesou says: " I should be disposed to
doubt this derivation, were it for no other reason than this,
that although maighdean is rendered in modern (iaelic.a maid-
en, it is obviously a term borrowed from the Gothic, as not a
vestige of it appears, either in the old British, or in its kindred
dialect, the Armorican. In the latter, the only similar words
are the derivatives of the verb maga, wliich conveys rather a
dirterent idea from that of ' maid,' as signifying to act the pari
of a nurse. As this fortress was apparently within the limits
of the kingdom of Strat-Clyde, the name may have been formed
from the Welsh Uwch, — mebyu and maban,—' a babe.' Another
mode of orthography, however, occurs in one old deed. Kobert
I. grants a charter to Thomas, son of John of Carruthers, of
Musfald, kc, dated at 'our manor of Lochmaiban.' Could
we view this as the original form of the word, it might be
traced either to the Gaelic loch maol ben, or to the Welsh llwcli
moel ban, both signifying ' the Lake of the bald,' or ' smooUi
eminence.' " — I'aluces of Scotland, pp. 101, 10a,
LOCHMABEN.
291
f lie Lion to Robert, 3(1 Lord of AnnaTKlalc, confirming
io hiai the property possessed by bis father in that
district, is dated at Lochmaban. This is supposed to
have been granted between the years 11C5 and 1174.
The church of Lochniaben was one of those which
Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, gave to the monks
of Gyseburn, in Yorkshire, about the year 1183.
Bruce, the competitor for the throne, and the grand-
father of Robert I., died at his castle of Lochmaben,
A.D. 1295, or, according to Leland, 1296. In the
year preceding his death, he granted a charter, dated
at this fortress, confirming a convention between the
monks of Melrosg, and those of Holmcultram. " This
old castle of Lochmaben," it is said by Chalmers in
his ' Caledonia,' [iii. 78, 79,] " continued the chief
residence of this respectable family, during the 12th
and 13th centuries. Robert de Brus, the first Earl
of Carrick, of this dynasty, probably repaired the
castle at Annan." As a stone, taken from the ruins
of Annan-castle, bears his name, with the date 1300,
the conjecture seems to be formed, with great pro-
bability, that the family had continued previously to
reside at Lochmaben. According to the testimony