Parish of Dalton

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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1791-99: Dalton 1834-45: Dalton

Dalton, a village and a parish of Annandale, Dumfriesshire. The village stands on Dalton Burn, 6 miles SSE of Lockerbie, under which it has a post office. The parish, comprising the ancient parishes of Meikle and Little Dalton, and annexed to Mouswald from 1609 till 1633, is bounded N by Lochmaben, NE by DryfesDale and St Mungo, SE by Cummertrees, S by Ruthwell, and W by Mouswald. With a very irregular outline, it has an utmost length from NNW to SSE of 5 ^hr. miles, an utmost breadth from E to W of 3¾ miles, and an area of 6941 acres, of which 55 are water. The river Annan winds 4¼ miles south-eastward along all the Dryfesdale and St Mungo border, and its tributary, Dalton Burn, twists and turns 5¾ miles SSE, ENE, and N, through the interior; whilst Pow Water, rising in the S, passes off direct to the Solway Firth through Ruthwell and Cummertrees. The surface, nowhere lower than 150 feet above sea-level, is flat or but gently undulated over all the S and E of the parish, but in the NW attains 604 feet at Butterwhat, 720 at Almagill, and 800 at Holmains. The rocks are partly eruptive, partly Devonian, and largely Silurian. The soil, in most of the low tracts, is light alluvial loam; in most of the higher ground is sand and gravel; and in some parts is a cold clay on a till bottom, with a few patches of reclaimed bog. About 600 acres are pastoral or waste, 500 or so are under wood, and all the rest of the land is arable. Wm. Beattie, M.D. (1793-1875), biographer of the poet Campbell, was a native. Dormont and Rammerscales are the chief mansions; and 3 proprietors hold each an annual value of more, 5 of less, than £500. Dalton is in the presbytery of Lochmaben and synod of Dumfries; the living is worth £283. The parish church, built in 1704, contains 300 sittings; and a public school, with accommodation for 85 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 60, and a grant of £51,17s. Valuation (1882) £7077,6s. 3d. Pop. (1801) 691, (1831) 730, (1861) 679, (1871) 577, (1881) 579.—Ord. Sur., sh. 10,1864.

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Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer