Читать книгу Our Western Hills: How to reach them; And the Views from their Summits. By a Glasgow Pedestrian онлайн

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A little to the north of Drumclog the Irvine rises in what at the time of the battle was a mere moss, but the rivulet is now conveyed in a straight line through an artificial ditch, and inclining to the west is joined by the Hairschaw Burn, and flows past the south side of the hill in a deep ravine. At one time trout were readily got here; but a lime work at the junction of the Hairschaw and the Irvine, according to an old angler, “seems to have hurt the health of the fish, for they have never been seen since it was started.” It has sometimes been a question whether the parish got its name from the hill or from the valley; but as Loudon or Loddam means marshy ground, and as not long ago the Irvine flooded the whole valley, it is probable that the parish was named after the valley. The banking of the river and tile-draining make the name no longer appropriate; but the memory of the marshy ground is kept alive in the “Waterhaughs,” a farm not far off on the Galston side of the river. About a quarter of a mile to the south of the hill, on the summit of a precipitous bank overhanging the old public road, there is a small turf redoubt, about twenty yards in length, called Wallace’s Cairn, to mark the spot where some of his men were buried after the battle which took place in the narrow gorge below. At this place, which is the watershed for the Clyde and the Irvine, in a narrow pass, down which the winds come in grand style, and which is therefore called the Windy Hass or Wizen (Gullet), Wallace and a small band of warriors lay in ambush, attacked and defeated a rich English envoy from Carlisle to the garrison at Ayr, although they were only 700 against 3000. A large quantity of booty was got, and, according to Blind Harry, “a hundred dead in the field were leaved there.”