The Picture of Scotland Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1828 Excerpt: ...must have flowed. Lochmaben Castle has evidently belonged to that first-rate order of Scottish fortresses which comprised the castles of Tantallan, Roxburgh, &c. Some enormous walls yet exist amidst the melancholy firs which have been permitted to overspread the place, giving impressive manifestation of its former strength and importance. These walls have a peculiarly ghastly and emaciated look, --like a large man broken down and disfigured by cutaneous disease, --in consequence of all the exterior ashler stones having been picked out and carried off, leaving only the ruder internal work behind. The fortress of the Royal Bruce, I am grieved to say, has, from time immemorial, been regarded by the people around in no other light than that of a superterraneous quarry. Many of the houses of Lochmaben, among the rest the new school, have been built of materials torn from its shattered remains; and a particular inhabitant at this day warms his toes beside a pair of fine jambs which he procured in Bruce's Castle. Could the unfortunate edifice become animated, and demand its mutilated members of the town which it so long protected, fearful would be the reckoning among the honest burgesses of Lochmaben. Dumfriesshire. 210 LOCHMABEN CROSS. The Castle Loch is a fine sheet of water, skirted by green and fruitful fields, and woods of the true rich and massive hue. Fed entirely by its own springs, it is remarkable in the eyes of the natural historian and the gourmand, for containing a peculiar species of fish entitled the vendise. It is said that a causeway traverses the bottom of the loch between the point of the castle promontory and a spot called the Castle-hill of Lochmaben, where the vestiges of an ancient and unrecorded fortress are yet very distinctly to be trac.