Within Lanarkshire’s bounds may be found every variety of scenery – open valleys and canyon-like ravines, placid streams and roaring torrents, blasted heaths and fertile orchards, quiet glens and busy towns, rugged heights and grassy plains.
The broad vale of Clyde rises slowly to extensive moorlands on east and west, to the Lowether Hills and the heights around Moffat on the south, and to the foothills of the Campsie Fells on the north. Here and there a trail of smoke in a quiet, pastoral area attracts the eye to the derrick and refuse bing of a colliery. Monstrous forges and ironworks extend from orchard-land to the boundary of Glasgow, and in gills and holms from Lanark to Uddingston are numerous orchards and strawberry plantations.
Glasgow, making full allowance for the noise, dirt and smoke which are almost inseparable from a busy industrial city, has many attractions. Like Rome, it is built on seven hills, but has spread itself far round their bases. There are large lovely municipal parks within its boundaries and round its fringes. There is an inviting warmth about its streets, which are beautified by fine architecture, while its substantial buildings suggest at once the sureness of the foundations on which they rest.
You have to ascend the Clyde for distance before you are out of the range of mills and factories. The sight of Bothwell Castle carries you back to medieval times. Two enormous circular towers give a powerful impression of feudal strength and grandeur, and its crumbling walls of red sandstone contrast with the green fields and lovely woodlands of Bothwell Bank.
Round Cadzow Castle, the original home of the Hamiltons, the scenery is peculiarly rich and charming. But the trees on its banks are young compared with the veterans of Cadzow Forest, near at hand, where the gnarled branches and hollow trunks are remnants of the great Caledonian Forest which once stretched from the Clyde to the Cheviots. Beneath these ancient oaks graze white cattle, survivors of the cattle which once roamed the forest.
From Dalserf to Lanark stretches Scotland’s Garden of Eden, where, in spring, lush green lands are bathed in foaming orchard blossom.
There are numerous roads out of orchard-land. You can climb through fruit plantations to Wishaw, Carluke and Lanark on the one side of the river, or you can make for Tillietudlem, Lesmahagow and Douglas on the other.
On the Nethan, which rises in the moorland above Lesmahagow and enters the Clyde at Crossford, stands Craignethan Castle, imposing both in ruin and strength, in the midst of scenery solemnly and fantastically environed by tree-clad cliffs.
Pilgrims come not to see this home of the Hamiltons, with whom Queen Mary spent the two nights before her defeat at Langside, but to identify scenes described in Sir Walter Scott’s “Old Morality.” Jenny Dennison, Cuddie Headrigg and their associates are of greater interest than its former inhabitants.
This part of Clydesdale has retained its splendour, although the gaunt frames of electricity pylons march like mechanical giants across the valley.
About a mile north of Lanark are Cartland Crags, a deep chasm through which the River Mouse finds its way to Clyde. Here a fissure in the rock pointed out in which Wallace hid after killing the English Governor of Lanark.
Not far from Bonnington, Clyde receives Douglas Water, whose pleasant valley opens westwards, with the old town of Douglas lying high among the moorlands. Close by is Douglas Castle, on the site of Castle Dangerous, seat of the early Douglasses, and in St Bride’s Church sleep those mighty warriors whose monumental effigies provide a Scots history lesson in stone.
Above the junction of Douglas Water, Clyde makes a wide sweep round Tinto, from whose summit you have a view of the great plains of Scotland. At times the Bass Rock is visible, with the gleam of the North Sea on the northeast, while the Solway Firth stretches out in the opposite direction.
You may catch a glimpse of the Cumberland Hills or Ben Lomond, while nearer at hand the Pentlands heave their western shoulder into Lanarkshire, and nearer still open country, with Carnwath as its chief centre. By the foot of Tinto lies Biggar, in its plain which stretches to the neighbouring valley of Tweed.
From Cutler Bridge the Clyde makes another sweep round Tinto to Lamington, beyond which it assumes the appearance of a moorland stream. And now the country becomes bare and wild.
From its source near Erickstanebrae Hill, where the three counties of Lanark, Peebles and Dumfries meet, and where rise the Tweed, Annan and Evan, Clyde shows a strength and vivacity that promise well for its future career. Soon it is joined by the united waters of Daer and Potrail, full and plentiful streams from the Lowther Hills, and on the other side of Crawford it takes in Glengonar Water.
High up near the source of Glengonar Water is Leadhills, birthplace of Allan Ramsey and William Symington. Hereabouts, too, is the goldfield of Scotland, where gold mines were worked with some success from the reign of James IV to the end of the 17th Century.
The great back of the Lowther Hills forms the southern boundary of Lanarkshire. Of the several passes through the range, the wildest is Dalveen Pass, from Elvanfoot to Carronbridge, on the Nith, with its branch the Wald Path to Durisdeer; the highest is Mennock Pass from Leadhills, with its fork through Enterkin Pass, and the most remote is by Duneaton Water from Crawfordjohn to Crawick.
On the west, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire meet on the lower heights of Douglasdale and on the moors and mosses which stretch to the Renfrewshire border and the fringe of Glasgow. Northwards from the city the boundary runs along the Roman Wall by Cadder to Lenzie, then eastwards across bleak country to Longriggend whence it bears southwards to Fauldhouse Moor, Tarbrax and the Pentlands. From Dolphinton the line runs by Walston and Elsrickle to Biggar, and from Culter to Erickstanebrae stretches a mass of wild mountains which forms the dividing line between Clydesdale and Tweeddale.