Peeblesshire, or TWEEDDALE, a southern county of Scotland, bounded by Edinburgh, Selkirk, Dumfries, and Lanark shires. Irregular in outline, it has a maximum length and breadth of 29 and 21 miles, and an area of 356 sq. m. or 227,869 acres. The Tweed, rising in the extreme south, winds 36 miles north-north-eastward and eastward, descending therein from 1500 to 450 feet; and from it the surface rises into big, round, grassy hills—Windlestraw Law (2161 feet), Minchmoor (1856), Hartfell (2651), Broad Law (2754), &c. Among the Tweed's numberless affluents are Talla, Biggar, Lyne, Manor, Eddleston, Leithen, and Quair Waters; and St Mary's Loch touches the southern boundary. Less than one-fifteenth of the entire area is under corn and root crops; but nearly 200,000 sheep graze on the hillsides. The antiquities include over fifty hill-forts, the 'Romanno terraces,' a Roman camp at Lyne, the ruined castles of Neidpath and Drochil, and the old mansion of Traquair; whilst 4 miles SW. of Peebles is the cottage of Davie Ritchie, the 'Black Dwarf' (1740-1811). Peebles and Innerleithen are the only towns. The county unites with Selkirkshire to return one member. Pop. (1801) 8735; (1841) 10,499; (1881) 13,822; (1891) 14,761.
PEEBLES, the pleasant county town, stands on the left bank of the Tweed, 22 miles S. of Edinburgh. It has a new parish church (1887) and five other modern churches; the Chambers Institution (1859), with library, museum, &c., in the old house of the Yester and Queensberry families; a hydro-pathic (1881); a public park (1887); tweed-manufactures; and the tower of St Andrew's Church (1196), restored in 1882 by Dr William Chambers (q.v.), who rests beneath its shadow. Mungo Park was a surgeon here. Peebles was made a royal burgh in 1367, and till 1832 returned one member. Pop. (1861) 2045; (1881) 3495; (1891) 4704.
See Dr A. Pennicuik's Description of Tweeddale (3d ed. 1875), Dr W. Chambers' History of Peeblesshire (1864), Dr John Brown's Minchmoor (1864), and Charters of Peebles (1873).