B

Balagich or Ballageich. A hill in Eaglesham, 2 3/4 miles WSW of Eaglesham village. It overhangs the E side of Binend Loch, and has an altitude of 1084 feet above sea-level.
Balaklava. A village on the E border of Kilbarchan parish, 1 mile NNE of Johnstone. It was founded in 1856, on the lands of Clippens, for working extensive ironstone mines, and received its name from the celebrated battle of the Crimean war. It is sometimes called Clippens Square. Pop. (1891) 428.
Bargarran. An old-fashioned mansion in Erskine parish, near the Clyde, and 2 miles E by N of Bishopton station. In 1697 it became notorious in witchcraft annals as the scene of the `Tragedy of Bargarran's daughter,' for which 5 persons were executed at Paisley. See Arnot's Criminal Trials (1785); vol. iii., p. 167, of Chambers' Domestic Annals; and The Witches of Renfrewshire (1809: new ed. 1877).
Barnsford. A bridge on Gryfe Water, immediately below the influx of the Black Cart, 2 3/4 miles NW of Paisley.
Barochan. An estate, with an old mansion, in the NE of Houston parish. It belonged from the time of Alexander III. to the family of Fleming, seven of whom fell on the field of Flodden, and it contains an ancient monument, Barochan Cross. This is a sculptured stone cross, set on a pedestal of undressed stone, and measuring about 11 feet in height from the ground; it has been a subject of much discussion among antiquaries. Local tradition regards it as a memorial of a defeat sustained here by the Danes; but Hamilton of Wishaw's Description of the Shires of Renfrew and Lanark (Maitland Club), where it is figured, conjectures it to commemorate the defeat of Somerled, Lord of the Isles. Many stone coffins, containing quantities of human bones, have been found in its neighbourhood.
Barochan-Mill. A hamlet in Houston parish, 1 mile NW of Barochan House, and 1 3/4 N of Houston village.
Barr. An estate, with a mansion, in Lochwinnoch parish. The mansion stands in the southwestern vicinity of Lochwinnoch village; and was rebuilt, In the latter part of last century, on the site of a previous mansion. An oblong, four-story, roofless tower, stands on an eminence near the mansion; has both slits for arrows and ports for guns; and appears, from the style of its architecture, to have been built in the 15th century. A lake lay adjacent, but has been drained.
Barrhead (Gael. barr, `point or upper part,' with its English rendering, head, suffixed). A manufacturing town and police burgh, chiefly in the N of Neilston parish, but stretching also into that of Abbey. Standing on Levern Water to the W of Ferneze Hill (585 feet), it is 3 1/2 miles SSE of Paisley by road, and has a station on a joint section of the Caledonian and Glasgow & SouthWestern railways, 8 3/4 miles SW of Glasgow, and 14 3/4 NNE of Kilmarnock. Founded about 1773, its growth has been rapid, its one main street, with smaller ones diverging from it, being now connected with the populous suburbs of Grahamston, Arthurlie, Newton, etc., whilst its present industries comprise the printing of shawls and calicoes, cotton-spinning, dyeing, bleaching, iron and brass founding, and machine-making. Barrhead has a post office under Glasgow, with money order, savings bank, and telegraph departments, branches of the Bank of Scotland and the Union Bank, insurance agencies, an hotel, a public hall, a mechanic's institute with a good library, a gas company, an agricultural society, and a Saturday paper, the Renfrewshire Independent (1856). Justice of Peace courts sit on the first Monday of every month; and a fair is held on the last Friday and Saturday of June. In the presbytery of Paisley and synod of Glasgow and Ayr, a quoad sacra parish of Barrhead, all on the right bank of the Levern was formed in 1869, with stipend of £300; there are places of worship--Established, Free, U.P., Evangelical Union, and Roman Catholic,--of which none but the U. P. church (1796) is older than 1837. Barrhead public and Roman Catholic schools, and Cross Arthurlie public school, with respective accommodation for 505, 258, and 529 children, had (1891) an average attendance of 321 232, and 387, and grants of £319, 7s., £212, 3s. 7d., and £404, 3s. 1d. Pop. of town (1851) 6069, (1861) 6018, (1871) 6209, (1881) 7495, (1891) 8215; of quoad sacra parish (1891) 7359.--Ord. Sur., sh. 30, 1866.
Barshaw. an estate, with a mansion, in Abbey parish, 1 1/2 mile E of Paisley.
Beltrees. A hamlet in Lochwinnoch parish, 1 1/2 mile E by S of Lochwinnoch town.
Binend. A lake in Eaglesham parish, near the Ayrshire boundary, 3 1/2 miles WSW of Eaglesham village. Measuring 5 by 2 furlongs, it contains large pike and perch, and is overhung on the E by Ballageich Hill, 1084 feet above sea-level.
Bishopton. a village, an estate, and a range of hills, in Erskine parish. The village stands 1 mile S of the Clyde, and has a station on the Glasgow and Greenock section of the Caledonian railway, 5 miles NNW. of Paisley; at it are a Free church, a Board school, 2 inns, and a post office, with money order, savings bank, and telegraph departments. Pop. (1861) 341, (1891) 323.--The estate belonged, from 1332 and earlier, till about 1671, to the family of Brisbane, passed through a number of hands, and is now the property of Lord Blantyre.--The hill range divides the banks of the Clyde from the lowlands of Gryfesdale; consists of compact trap rock, and is pierced by a tunnel of the Glasgow and Greenock railway. The tunnel is approached, at the two ends, by deep rock cuttings, respectively 748 and 946 yards long; consists of two reaches, respectively 320 and 340 yards long; and has, between these reaches, an open part 100 yards long and 70 feet deep. The formation of this subterranean passage was a long and difficult process, engaging hundreds of workmen for years, and costing for gunpowder alone no less than about £12,000.
Black Cart. See CART.
Blackhall. An estate in Abbey parish, adjacent to the SE side of Paisley. It gives appellation to Sir Michael Robert Shaw-Stewart, Bart., Ardgowan House (of Greenock and Blackhall), and was conferred on his ancestor, Sir John Stewart, by King Robert III. The mansion on it, about 1 mile SE of the centre of Paisley, is a plain, strong, ancient pile, which after 1710 became a farm-house, and is now deserted, roofless, and of very dismal appearance. Lime works are on the estate.
Black Loch. A loch in Mearns parish, 3 3/4 miles SW of Newton-Mearns village. It lies at the E foot of Nethercairn Hill, 871 feet high; measures about 1/2 mile in length and 1/4 in width; and contains excellent trout.
Blackstoun. A hamlet and a mansion on the NE border of Kilbarchan parish, Renfrewshire, on Black Cart Water, 2 miles NW of Paisley. Pop. (1891) 344.
Blackwood. A property, with a hill and a loch, on the SW border of Eaglesham parish, Renfrewshire.
Bleary's Cross. A quondam monument on the lands of Knock, Renfrew parish. It comprised an octagonal pedestal, 6 feet in diameter, with an octagonal column, 10 feet high; it had neither inscription nor sculpture; it was traditionally regarded as commemorative of the premature birth, through accident near it, of the child who became King Robert II.; and it was removed in the year 1779.
Blythswood. An estate, with the seat of Archibald Campbell, first Lord Blythswood (cre. 1892), in Renfrew parish. The mansion, on the low flat peninsula between the Clyde and the Cart, 1 mile NW of Renfrew town, is a neat, large, modern edifice, surrounded by a finely-wooded park; on 11 Oct. 1876 it was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales, and in 1888 by the Queen and Princess Beatrice. Lord Blythswood owns in the shire 1826 acres, valued at £5931 including £1907 for minerals. The estate was originally called Renfield; is celebrated, under that name, in Wilson's Clyde; and, at the erection of the present mansion, took the name of Blythswood from a small but now very valuable estate belonging to the same proprietor, which forms a handsome western portion of Glasgow. The name Blythswood gives designation to a registration district of that city, with 29,311 inhabitants in 1891, and also to a quoad sacra parish, with a population of 6185. A large stone on the Renfield-Blythswood estate, close to the road from Renfrew to Inchinnan, marks the spot where Archibald Campbell, ninth Earl of Argyll, was captured in peasant disguise in 1685; and consists of a fragment of rock, weighing probably 2 tons, and containing some reddish veins, which were long believed to be stains of the Earl's blood.
Boon-The-Brae. A place with the site of an ancient chapel in Neilston parish.
Brabloch. An estate, with a mansion, in Abbey parish, in the north-eastern vicinity of Paisley.
Brediland. An estate, with a mansion, in Abbey parish, 1 1/2 mile SW of Paisley. A pottery, for the manufacture of coarse earthenware, is on the estate.
Bride's Burn. A burn in rising in the S of Kilbarchan parish, and running about 2 miles southward, partly along the boundary with Lochwinnoch, to the Black Cart, at its efflux from Castle-Semple Loch.
Bridgend. A hamlet in Lochwinnoch parish, on the river Calder, 1/4 mile NNW of Lochwinnoch village. An ancient bridge, with a very fine arch, crosses the Calder at it; and, originally very narrow, was widened in 1814.