A vision of Britain through time
A vision of Britain from 1801 to now.
Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.
A vision of Britain through time
A vision of Britain from 1801 to now.
Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.
Cardross (Gael. car-rois, 'curved point'), a village and a parish of S Dumbartonshire. The village stands on the shore of the Firth of Clyde, adjacent to the Glasgow and Helensburgh railway, 3½ miles WNW of Dumbarton; is a well-built, pleasant place; and has a station on the railway and a post-office under Dumbarton, with money order and savings' bank departments. Pop. (1871) 301, (1881) 632. The parish contains also a suburb of Dumbarton, and the town of Renton. Bounded N by Luss and Bonhill, E by Dumbarton, SW by the Firth of Clyde, and W by Row, it has an extreme length from NW to SE of 7½ miles, a varying breadth of 13/8 and 2¾ miles, and an area of 11,536½ acres, of which 2656½ are foreshore, and 615¾ water. The Leven winds 4¾ miles along all the eastern boundary; and four or five burns flow through the interior to the Firth of Clyde, which, with a shoreline in Cardross of 9¾ miles, here widens from 1 mile to 3½, and almost insulates the wooded promontory of Ardmore (103 feet). From a belt of low flat ground along the Firth the surface rises northward and north-westward, to 526 feet near Carman, 978 on Killeter, and 1028 on Benuchara Muir, just within Luss-heights that command a wide and brilliant prospect. Nearly the entire surface is in full view to passengers of the Clyde steamers, and all of it forms a picturesque portion of the northern screen of the Clyde. The rocks are Silurian and Devonian, and they include a considerable dyke of jasper. Sandstone, both of reddish friable character and of bluish grey colour and durable compactness, is plentiful, and has been quarried. Limestone occurs in veins on Camus Eskan estate, and has been occasionally worked. The soil, near the Leven, is alluvial; adjacent to the Clyde is diluvial; on the grounds further inland is a mixture of sand, gravel, and humus; and on the acclivities and tops of the hill-ridge is moorish. Considerably more than one-half of the entire land area is regularly or occasionally in tillage, and about 300 acres are under wood- Much of the foreshore is capable of reclamation by embankments- Cardross Castle stood on Castle Hill, a spur of the eastern end of the hillridge, on the NW outskirts of Dumbarton. Here good King Robert Bruce (1274-1329) spent the two last years of his life, fishing, hawking, and building ships; and here on June 7 he died. Near Renton, in the old mansion-house of Dalquhurn, was born the novelist, Tobias Smollett (1721-71); a Tuscan column, 60 feet high, reared by his cousin to his memory, bears a Latin inscription by Dr Samuel Johnson and others. 'The Latin is miserably bad,' according to Coleridge, who passed this way with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, 24 Aug. 1803. Mansions are Cardross Park, Bloomhill, Keppoch, Ardmore, Camus Eskan, Kilmahew, and Ardoch; and 8 proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 22 of between £100 and £500,27 of from £50 to £100, and 77 of from £20 to £50. In the presbytery of Dumbarton and synod of Glasgow and Ayr, Cardross is divided among the quoad sacra parishes of Cardross, Renton, and Dalreoch, the first being a living of £415 value. The original church stood on the point of the peninsula between the Leven and the Clyde; the present one, a neat edifice with a square tower and 800 sittings, was built in 1826 at the village, where is also a Free church, other places of worship being at Renton and in the Dumbarton suburb. Two public schools, Cardross and Renton, with respective accommodation for 210 and 500 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 135 and 343, and grants of £132,13s. 6d. and £343, 13s. 11d. Valuation (1881) £27,189,3s. Pop. of civil parish (1801) 2549, (1831) 3596, (1861) 6325, (1871) 7080, (1881) 9365; of q. s. parish (1881) 1342; of registration district (1881) 5883.—Ord. Sur., sh. 30,1866.
(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: | Cardross ScoP Dunbartonshire ScoCnty |
| Place names: | CARDROSS | CAR ROIS |
| Place: | Cardross |
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