Selkirkshire

Selkirkshire, an inland county in the south of Scotland, bounded by Peebles, Edinburgh, Roxburgh, and Dumfries shires. Measuring 28 miles by 17, it has an area of 260 sq. m. or 166,524 acres, of which barely one-seventh is under crops. Silurian in formation, and drained by Ettrick and Yarrow Waters to the Tweed, it is a pastoral region, of grassy rounded hills—Minchmoor (1856 feet), Dun Rig (2433, the highest), Ettrick Pen (2269), and eight others exceeding 2000 feet above sea-level. Sheep-farming (over 160,000 head) is an important industry; and the manufactures are confined to the two towns of Selkirk and Galashiels. The Duke of Buccleuch is chief proprietor, holding about three-fifths of the whole county. Since 1867 Selkirkshire has united with Peeblesshire to return one member. Pop. (1801) 5388; (1851) 9809; (1871) 14,005; (1891) 27,353, of whom 6937 were in Selkirk, and 17,367 in Galashiels. Smaller than Middlesex, and than all but six of the thirty-three Scotch counties, Selkirkshire yet contains within its narrow bounds almost all the old Forest of Ettrick; St Mary's Loch; the whole course of the Yarrow; the vale of Ettrick, where the 'Shepherd' was born and lies buried; the birthplaces, too, of Laidlaw and Mungo Park, of the 'Flower of Yarrow' and Alison Cockburn; Ashiesteel, where Scott wrote Marmion; the scenes of the ballads of 'The Douglas Tragedy,' 'The Dowie Dens,' 'The Outlaw Murray,' and 'Young Tamlane'; the battlefield of Philiphaugh; and the ruins or sites of the castles and peel-towers of Newark, Dryhope, Tushielaw, Oakwood, and Buccleuch. See the articles ETTRICK, YARROW, PHILIPHAUGH; and T. Craig-Brown's History of Selkirkshire (2 vols. 1886).