C

Calder. A rivulet of Ayr and Renfrew shires. It rises in Largs parish on the N slope of Burnt Hill (1589 feet), near the mutual border of the two counties; runs 1 1/4 mile ENE on this boundary, then 2 1/2 miles E and SE on the boundary between Kilmalcolm and Lochwinnoch parishes, expanding here into a triangular lake, called Calder Dam (2 1/4 x 1 1/2 furl.); then proceeds about 51/2 miles SE, through Lochwinnoch parish, to the head of Castle-Semple Loch, in the vicinity of Lochwinnoch town. A number of beautiful cascades diversify its romantic course, while on its banks are several cotton-mills.--Ord. Sur., sh. 30. 1866.
Calderbank. A village, with bleach-works, on the river Calder, in Lochwinnoch parish.
Camphill. An estate, with a mansion, in Cathcart parish, on the verge of the county, a little NE of Crossmyloof. A green hill here, with vestiges of an ancient camp, commands an extensive view over the surrounding country, away to the heights of Dumbartonshire and Argyllshire.
Candren. A saline spring in Abbey parish, 2 1/2 miles E of Paisley. A pamphlet was written by the late Dr. Lyall, strongly recommending its water as an aperient and corrective.
Capelrig. An estate, with a mansion, in Mearns parish. The mansion stands 2 3/4 miles SSW of Pollokshaws, and occupies the site of a seat of the Knights Templars.
Caplaw or Cawpla. A hill in the W of Neilston parish, and a lake on the mutual border of Neilston and Abbey parishes. The hill flanks the E side of the lake, 2 1/4 miles WNW of Neilston village, and has an altitude of 652 feet above sea-level; the lake is a dam on Patrick Water, and, measuring 1/2 mile by 3/4 furlong, is larger in winter than in summer.
Cardonald. An estate in Abbey parish, on the White Cart, 3 miles E of Paisley. It belonged anciently to the Stewart family, and passed to the Lords Blantyre. The mansion on it was large, castellated, and picturesque; underwent transmutation for the occupancy of various tenants; and, about 1855, gave place to a neat new farmstead. A village, called Cardonald Mills, stands a little to the N; comprises a group of cottages and several grain mills; and has a quoad sacra church, a public school, which, with accommodation for 144 children, had (1891) an average attendance of 80, and a grant of £65, 9s.
Carruth. An estate, with a modern mansion, in Kilmalcolm parish, 2 miles W by N of Bridge of Weir station.
Cart. A river of Renfrewshire, formed by the union the Black Cart and the White Cart at Inchinnan Bridge and running 7 furlongs northward, along the boundary between Renfrew and Inchinnan Parishes, to the Clyde 1 1/4 mile NW of Renfrew town. Its banks are low wooded; and its mouth contains a wooded islet, said have been formed by a sunken raft of timber. The Black Cart issues from Castle Semple Loch in Lochwinnoch parish; runs about 9 miles north-eastward past Johnstone and Linwood; and receives the Gryfe from the W at Walkinshaw. Its valley, from head to foot, has nowhere an elevation of 100 feet above sea-level and its current is dark and sluggish.--The White Cart rising in the moors of Eaglesham, near the meeting point of Renfrew, Lanark, and Ayr shires, runs 9 mile northward, partly in Eaglesham, partly on the boundary between Renfrew and Lanark shires, partly in Cathcart then turns 7 miles westward, past Pollokshaws and Crookston Castle, to Paisley, receiving the Levern from the S near Crookston Castle; and again runs 2 1/2 miles northward, through Abbey and Renfrew parishes, to its confluence with the Black Cart. Its upper and middle reaches, particularly in Cathcart parish, and thence to the neighbourhood of Paisley, exhibit beautiful scenery, sung by Burns, Campbell, Tannahill, and Graham; and its waters drive a vast amount of machinery, particularly at Pollokshaws and Paisley. Once everywhere a noble angling water for trout, perch, and braise, the Cart, both in its main body and in much of its upper streams, has been foully polluted by the discharges of public works. Its navigable communication from the Clyde to Paisley was naturally obstructed by shallows at Inchinnan Bridge; but the Paisley authorities are deepening the channel here, in order to increase the trade of their port. A navigation, continuous with it, from the Clyde opposite its mouth to the Forth and Clyde Canal, was artificially formed in 1840; bears the name of the Cart and Forth Junction Canal; and is about 3/4 mile long.--Ord. Sur., shs. 22, 30, 1865-66.
Castle-Semple. A loch and an estate in Lochwinnoch parish. From the vicinity of Lochwinnoch town, the loch extends 1 3/4 mile north-eastward, whilst tapering to a point from an utmost breadth of 3 furlongs. Originally 4 1/2 miles long, and upwards of 1 mile in width, it was greatly curtailed by draining processes between 1680 and 1774, with the result of recovering from its bed upwards of 400 acres of rich land. It receives the CALDER at its head, and sends off Black CART Water from its foot; it lies in the long, wide valley which separates the heights of SE Renfrewshire and Cunninghame from the moorish uplands to the NW; and it is traversed, along most of its SE shore, by the Glasgow and South-Western railway. Its bosom is gemmed with three small wooded islets; its shores are decked with park and lawn and trees; its flanks shelve upward, with rich embellishment of hamlet, mansion, and farmstead, to picturesque ranges of distant heights; and its waters contain pike, perch, braize, and a few shy lake-trout, whilst on them swim swans and teal and other waterfowl. The estate of Castle-Semple belonged to the noble family of Sempill from the 14th century till 1727, when it was sold to Colonel M`Dowall; in 1813 it was sold again to John Harvey, Esq.; and its present proprietor is James Widdrington Shand-Harvey, Esq., who owns 6500 acres in the shire, valued at £5562 per annum. Elliotston Tower, its original seat, 3/4 mile E of the foot of the loch, was occupied by the Sempill family till about 1550, and, 45 feet long by 33 broad, still stands in a state of ruin. The next seat, Castleton or Castle-Semple, on the NW side of the lake, 1/4 mile W of the foot, was built about the time of the abandonment of Elliotston Tower; appears to have been an edifice of great size, amid very beautiful grounds; and was demolished in 1735. The present Castle-Semple is an elegant edifice, rebuilt on the site of its predecessor, and standing amid a splendid park. A tower, called the Peel, was built, between 1547 and 1572, by the great Lord Sempill; stood on an islet, now forming part of the mainland, 1/2 mile E by S of Lochwinnoch town; had the form of an irregular pentagon, with a sharp end towards the head of the lake; and is now represented by some ruins. A collegiate church, for a provost, six chaplains, two boys, and a sacristan, was founded in 1504 by John, Lord Sempill, near the loch, in the vicinity of the site of Castle-Semple; measured 71 1/2 feet in length, 24 1/4 in breadth, and 15 1/2 in height; and included, at its E end, the burial-place of the Sempill family, afterwards the burial-place of the Harveys. A village and a chapel of St. Bride also seem to have anciently stood near the foot of the NW side of the lake. A structure in imitation of a Chinese pagoda stands on Kenmure Hill, in the western part of the estate; was built. about the middle of last century, by one of the M`Dowalls; and commands a fine view of the lake and the surrounding country.--Ord. Sur., sh. 30, 1866.
Castlewalls. An eminence (700 feet) near the E border of Lochwinnoch parish, 3 miles SSW of Johnstone. Consisting of trap rock, precipitous on the E and W, sloping on the N and S, it has an ancient circumvallation, supposed to be remains of a camp formed by Sir William Wallace, but more probably remains of a Caledonian fort; and it commands a splendid view over Cunningham and the Firth of Clyde, to Arran and Ailsa Craig.
Castle Wemyss. A mansion in Inverkip parish, near Wemyss Point on the Firth of Clyde, 1 1/4 mile NNW of Wemyss Bay. It is the residence of Sir John Burns, Bart. (b. 1829; suc. 1890).
Cathcart (Celt. caer-cart, `Cart castle'). Two villages of NE Renfrewshire, and a parish formerly partly also in Lanarkshire. The villages, Old and New Cathcart, stand some distance asunder, near the White Cart Water, 2 miles S of Glasgow, on the Cathcart District Circular railway. There are many handsome houses and villas, a post office, a foundry, a dye-work, a paper-mill, a snuff factory, a photographic material manufactory, a cemetery, and the Couper Institute. Pop. of Old Cathcart (1891) 2511; of New Cathcart, 776.
     The former Lanarkshire portion of the parish was divided in two, one being a detached part of it, and the other forming part of its main portion. The Boundary Commissioners in 1891 transferred the detached part to the parish of East Kilbride, thus remaining in Lanarkshire, while the remainder of the parish of Cathcart was placed wholly in the county of Renfrew. As this, however, caused the boundary between the two counties to run along the centre of a road, that part of it (see CARMUNNOCK) which had been divided between the parishes of Cathcart and Carmunnock was placed wholly in the parish of Cathcart. Then, in 1892, the Commissioners transferred from the parish Crosshill, Mount Florida, Langside, and Crossmyloof to Lanarkshire, these places having been incorporated in the extended City of Glasgow. The surface is charmingly undulated. The White CART winds through all the parish. Of it the late John Ramsay wrote:-- `Sluggish and unadorned though the White Cart be in the lower part of its course, it exhibits much beauty in its progress through the parish of Cathcart, the banks being often elevated and clothed with a rich drapery of wood. Such is the warmth and shelter in some of the sequestered spots on its banks, that an almost perpetual verdure is to be found.' In the midst of this scenery, Thomas Campbell and James Graham were, in their childhood, accustomed to pass their summer months and feed their young fancies, removed from the smoke and noise of their native city. The latter, in his Birds of Scotland, says--

"Forth from my low-roofed home I wandered blythe,   Down to thy side, sweet Cart, where, `cross the stream,   A range of stones, below a shallow ford,   Stood in the place of the now spanning arch."

And Campbell, in his Lines on Re-visiting Cathcart, thus tenderly apostrophises the pleasant fields which he had so often traversed in "life's morning march," when his bosom was young--

"O scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart,   Ye green waving woods on the margin of Cart,   How blest in the morning of life I have stray'd   By the stream of the vale and the grass-cover'd glade."

The rocks are chiefly of the Carboniferous formation. Sandstone of excellent quality is largely quarried; limestone and coal were formerly worked; ironstone abounds; and various rare minerals, now in the Hunterian Museum of Glasgow University, were found in the channel of the Cart. The soils are various, but generally fertile; about 100 acres are under wood. A ruined village, comprising 42 houses, each of one apartment front 8 to 12 feet square, and all deeply buried beneath rubbish or soil, was discovered in the early part of the present century on Overlee farm; and on Newlands farm, small earthen pots, full of foreign silver coins of the 17th century, have, from time to time, been exhumed. The field of Langside, where in 1568 Queen Mary's last blow was struck, is a chief object of interest, but will be separately noticed. Cathcart Barony either gave name to the ancient family of Cathcart, or from it took its name. That family acquired the barony in the early part of the 12th century, and assumed there from the title of Baron about 1447; then having alienated the barony to the noble family of Sempill in 1546, repurchased part of it in 1801; and were created Viscounts and Earls of Cathcart in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1807 and 1814. Cathcart Castle, on a steep bank of the White Cart, in the southern vicinity of Old Cathcart village, dates from some period unknown to record, and in the days of Wallace and Bruce belonged to the ancestors of the Cathcart line. Seemingly a place of great strength, it continued to be inhabited by successive owners of the barony down to the middle of last century, when it was in great measure demolished for sake of its building materials, so that now it is represented only by one ruined ivy-clad square tower. On the bank of the river, and adjacent to the castle, stands modern Cathcart house, into whose front a stone has been built, whereon are sculptured then of Cathcart, quartered with those of Stair; its present owner is Alan Frederick, third Earl of Cathcart. Other mansions are Aikenhead, Bellevue, Bogton, Camphill Holmwood, Kirklinton, Linn, and Overdale; and year by year the parish is becoming more and more thickly studded with good residences. Cathcart is in the presbytery of Glasgow and synod of Glasgow and Ayr; the living is worth £341. The parish church, near Old Cathcart village, rebuilt in 1831, is a handsome Gothic edifice, containing 850 sittings. In its kirkyard are the graves of three martyred Covenanters, of the Gordons of Aikenhead, and of two English Gipsies; John Cooper and Logan Lee. The U.P. church was built in 1893-94. At New Cathcart are a Free and a U. P. church. Four schools--Cathcart, Crossmyloof, Queen's Park, and St. Joseph's R.C., Busby--with respective accommodation for 841, 522, 1288, and 162 children, had (1891) an average attendance of 480, 506, 907, and 52, and grants of £519, 17s. 6d., £520 14s., £902, 14s. 6d., and £50, 8s. Pop. of quoad sacra parish (1891) 9539; of civil parish (1861) 3782, (1871) 7231, (1881) 12,205, (1891) 16,589, of whom 156 in Lanarkshire.--Ord. Sur., sh. 30. 1866.
*Other names that suggest themselves are Tannahill, John Struthers, `Christopher North,' and Alexander Smith; the last, in chapter xvi. of his Summer in Skye, has left a sketch of this haunt of his boyhood.