Leadhills, a mining village in Crawford parish, S Lanarkshire, on Glengonner Water, 1½ mile NNE of Wanlockhead, 5 miles WSW of Elvanfoot station, 7 SSW of Abington, and 45 SSW of Edinburgh. The highest village in Scotland-1250 to 1412 feet above sea-level-it is backed to the S by Wanlock Dod (1808 feet) and Lowther Hill (2377), and straggles down both sides of its upland glen for nearly ¾ mile. Since 1861 nearly every cottage has been either rebuilt or repaired; and their roofs of Welsh slate, their whitewashed walls, and their pretty flower-borders have greatly improved the aspect of the village. The landscape around is bleak, but the neighbouring summits command magnificent views from Cumberland to Ben Lomond, and from the Pentlands to Ailsa Craig, Arran, and Jura. Lead-mining in the vale of Glengonner Water is heard of as long ago as 1239, and possibly was carried on in the time of the Roman domination. The Romans, at all events, had several camps in the neighbourhood, and led two of their military roads to a junction within the parish; and, as they certainly worked lead-mines somewhere in Great Britain, they are more likely to have worked them here than in any other locality. The ores, however, were little known till 1517, nor were they begun to be vigorously and systematically worked till the beginning of the 17th century; but from then on until now they have continued to be worked with little interruption. In 1810 the Leadhill mines produced about 1400 tons of lead, worth at the then current price more than £45,000; but they afterwards so declined that the annual output was only from 700 to 800 tons. Since 1861, however, they have much revived under the Leadhills Mining Company, the outputs of dressed lead in 1878 and 1881 being 1350 and 1805 tons, containing on an average from 6 to 12 oz. of silver per ton. The ores of Leadhills, which belong to the Earl of Hopetoun, since 1842 have been worked with the aid of steam power and of improved smelting. apparatus; and in 1868 some 2½ miles of underground railway were formed at a cost of £7213. The goldmines of Crawford Muir are noticed under Lanarkshire (p. 462, col. ii.). Leadhills has a post office under Abington, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, an hotel, a good water supply, a public school, an excellent public library (1741), a Good Templar lodge, a brass band, a volunteer corps, a curl. ing club, and fairs on the second Friday of June and the last Friday of October. The Ha', a shooting-lodge of the Earl of Hopetoun, is a large old mansion; one of its two wings has served since 1736 as an Established place of worship, and contains 500 sittings. The poet, Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), was a son of the superintendent of the mines, and at Leadhills passed the first fifteen years of his life; other natives were James Taylor (1753-1825), who suggested the power of steam in inland navigation, and James Martin, M.D. (17901875), who served as a surgeon in the Peninsular War. In the churchyard, too, is buried John Taylor (16371770), who passed the last 37 years of his life at Gold Scars, and worked as a miner for upwards of a century. Leadhills was visited by Thomas Pennant (1769), by Coleridge, Wordsworth, and his sister Dorothy (1803), by Miss Martinean (1852), and by Dr John Brown (1865). The quoad sacra parish, constituted in 1867, is in the presbytery of Lanark and synod of Glasgow and Ayr; its minister's stipend is £120. The public school, with accommodation for 216 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 180, and a grant of £166, 9s. Pop. of village (1769) about 1500, (1831) 1188, (1861) 842, (1871) 1033, (1881) 1023, in 243 houses; of q. s. parish (1881) 1081, of whom 7 were in Crawfordjohn.—Ord. Sur., sh. 15, 1864. See eight articles, original or quoted, in vols. i. and iii. of Irving's Upper Ward of Lanarkshire (Glasg. 1864); pp. 18-22 of Dorothy Wordsworth's Tour in Scotland (Edinb. 1874); 'The Enterkin' in John Brown's Leech and other Papers (Edinb. 1882); and the Rev. Dr J. Moir Porteous' God's Treasure House in Scotland (Lond. 1876).
Brow, one of the lead mines at Leadhills, in Crawford parish, Lanarkshire.
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