Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Mearns

Mearns, a village and a parish of SE Renfrewshire. The village, called Newton-Mearns (a name as old at least as 1306), is pleasantly situated on a rising ground, 410 feet above sea-level, 3½ miles WSW of Busby and 7 SSW of Glasgow. A burgh of barony, with the right of holding a weekly market and two annual fairs, it chiefly consists of a single street on the Glasgow and Kilmarnock highroad, and has a post office under Glasgow, a branch of the Union Bank, gas-works, and an hotel. Pop. (1841) 629, (1861) 718, (1871) 776, (1881) 900.

The parish, containing also three-fourths of the town of Busby, is bounded N by Neilston, Eastwood, and Cathcart, E by East Kilbride and Cathcart in Lanarkshire, SE by Eaglesham, S by Fenwick and Stewarton in Ayrshire, and NW by Neilston. Its utmost length, from NE to SW, is 71/8 miles; its utmost breadth is 33/8 miles; and its area is 10, 607 acres, of which 325½ are water. Earn Water runs 6 miles north-eastward along the south-eastern boundary to the White Cart, which itself flows 7½ furlongs along all the Lanarkshire border, and several more of whose little tributaries take a north-north-easterly course through the interior. On the Neilston boundary lie Long Loch, Harelaw Dam, Walton Dam, Glanderston Dam, Balgray Reservoir, Ryat Linn Reservoir, and Waulkmill Glen Reservoir; and in the interior are Black Loch, Little Loch, Brother Loch, and South Hillend Reservoir. The surface sinks at the northern boundary to 280 feet above sea-level, and rises thence south-westward to 783 feet at Barrance Hill, 895 at Dod Hill, and 928 at James Hill, moorland occupying a good deal of the south-western district. Trap rock, chiefly an early disintegrable greenstone, prevails throughout nearly all the area, but gives place to rocks of the Carboniferous formation about the boundary with Eastwood. The soil in patches of the lower district is stiffish, and lies on a clay bottom, but elsewhere is mostly light, dry, and sharp, incumbent on porous, fractured, rapidly decomposing trap. Mearns has always been distinguished for its fine pasture, and even in the present times of extended cultivation it is very largely devoted to sheep and dairy farming. The earliest name on record in connection with this parish is that of Roland of Mearns, who is mentioned as a witness to the donation which Eschina, wife of Walter the Steward, gave to the monastery of Paisley in the year 1177. Robert of Mearns appears in the same capacity in a grant made to that establishment in 1250. In the 13th century, the barony of Mearns came by marriage to the Maxwells of Caerlaverock, afterwards Lords Maxwell and Earls of Nithsdale. About the year 1648 it was sold by the Earl of Nithsdale to Sir George Maxwell of Nether Pollock, from whom it was soon afterwards acquired by Sir Archibald Stewart of Blackhall, with whose descendants it has since remained. (See Ardgowan.) The castle of Mearns is a large square tower situated on a rocky eminence, 1 mile E by S of the village of Newton-Mearns. It is surrounded by a strong wall, and seems to have been secured by a drawbridge. It has long been uninhabited. Caplerig was anciently a seat of the Knights Templars. Professor John Wilson (1785-1854) received his early education in the manse of Mearns, and so often in his writings does he allude to these scenes of his boyhood that the ' dear parish of Mearns ' is nearly as much associated with his great name as if it had been the place of his nativity. Thus opens one of his many apostrophes to Mearns: ` Art thou beautiful, as of old, O wild, moorland, sylvan, and pastoral Parish! the Paradise in which our spirit dwelt estates, noticed separately, are Belmont (whose mansion, Belmont Castle, was burned on 21 April 1884) and Drumkilbo; and 4 proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards. Including ecclesiastically the Kinloch portion of Coupar-Angus parish, Meigle is the seat of a presbytery in the synod of Angus and Mearns; the living is worth £314. At Ardler or Washington village, a handsome Established mission church was erected in 1883 by Peter Carmichael, Esq. of Arthurston. Two public schools, Meigle and Washington, with respective accommodation for 200 and 110 children, had (1883) an average attendance of 164 and 69, and grants of £170, 7s. and £60, 7s. 6d. Valuation (1865) £7953, 8s. 2d., (1884) £10,111, 5s. 3d. Pop. of civil parish (1801) 946, (1831) 873, (1861) 835, (1871) 745, (1881) 696; of ecclesiastical parish (1871) 1003, (1881) 966.—Ord. Sur., shs. 56, 48, 1870-68.

The presbytery of Meigle comprises the quoad civilia parishes of Airlie, Alyth, Bendochy, Blairgowrie, Coupar-Angus, Eassie and Nevay, Glenisla, Kettins, Kingoldrum, Lintrathen, Meigle, Newtyle, and Ruthven, and the quoad sacra parishes of Kilry, Persie, and St Mary's (Blairgowrie). Pop. (1871) 18,564, (1881) 18,269, of whom 4821 were communicants of the Church of Scotland in 1878.-The Free Church also has a presbytery of Meigle, with 2 churches in Blairgowrie, and 8 in Airlie, Alyth, Coupar-Angus, Cray, Glenisla, Meigle, Newtyle, and Rattray, which 10 churches together had 2624 communicants in 1883.


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Mearns ScoP       Renfrewshire ScoCnty
Place: Mearns

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