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MID CALDER - Extract from National Gazetteer, 1868

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The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland - 1868

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer (1868)]
"MID CALDER, a parish, containing a village of its own name, also the village of Bellsquarry, in the county of Edinburgh, Scotland, 12 miles to the S.W. of Edinburgh. The village is 2 miles from the Calder station of the Caledonian railway. The parish lies in a fertile and pleasant district on the banks of the Almond Water, under Calder Wood, which is of considerable extent. Lin-house Water runs through the parish. Coal and lead are found, and there are beds of limestone of immense thickness. This parish, with West Calder, was formerly the estate of the earls of Fife.

The living, worth £158, is in the presbytery of Linlithgow, in the patronage of Lord Torphichen. The church, which is very old, and apparently unfinished, is an elegant Gothic structure. There is a chapel belonging to the United Presbyterians. Calder House, pleasantly situated near the Almond Water, is the seat of Lord Torphichen. The gallery of this house contains a good portrait of Knox, and one of Queen Mary. Greenbank in this parish was the birthplace (1565) of John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, the church historian, whose father was at that time minister here. Two annual fairs are held in the village in March and October.

"BELL'S QUARRY, a village in the parish of Mid Calder, in the county of Edinburgh, Scotland, 2 miles W. from the town of Mid Calder. The Caledonian railway passes near it."

"MID-CALDER, a parish in the district of West Edinburghshire, county Edinburgh, Scotland. See Calder, and the like, for Lavant, Lothian, &c."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]


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