CANONBIE, or CANOBIE, a parish, in the county
of Dumfries, 6 miles (S.) from Langholm, and the same
distance (N.) from Longtown; containing 303'i inhabitants.
An ancient priory that was situated here is
supposed to have given name to this place, Canonbie
probably signifying "the residence of the canons".
How long this religious establishment existed before the
year 1165, when a grant of land was made by William
the Lion, is uncertain. In the year 1533 Henry VIII.
claimed it as having belonged at one time, as well as
the whole parish, to England; upon which pretence he
ordered hostilities to be commenced on the Scottish
borders. About the end of the reign of James V., in
1542, after the surrender of the Scottish army at Solway
Moss, the English soldiers, upon the same pretext, pillaged
and laid in ruins both the monastery and church.
The church was dedicated to St. Martin, and was often
called the Church of Liddel or Liddal, from the river
near which it stood: in the reign of David I., Turgot de
Rossedale founded a canonry in connexion with it, which
afterwards came into the hands of the monks at Jedburgh,
but was dissolved at the Reformation. Canonbie
is called debatable land; and on account of its exposure
to the English borderers, many places of defence were
formerly erected, the vestiges of some of which still
remain. At a place called Gill-knocky, eastward of
Hollows bridge, stands the tower of Hollows, the reputed
castle of Johnnie Armstrong, a famous chieftain
in the reign of James V., and styled John of Gill-knocky;
he was the terror of the western marches of England,
and forced the inhabitants of Cumberland, Westmorland,
and a great part of Northumberland, to become his tributaries,
or annually pay him blackmail. Not far from
Penton Linns, on the banks of the Liddel, was the strong
tower of Harelaw, the residence of Hector Armstrong,
the famous freebooter, who, by bribery, betrayed the
Earl of Northumberland into the bands of the regent
Murray.
The PARISH is nine miles long and six broad, and
contains an area of 23,17" acres, 2 roods, 14 perches, of
which 11,774 acres are in tillage, 10,522 in pasture, and
881 in wood. It is bounded on the south and east by
the county of Cumberland, from which it is divided by
the river Liddel and the river Esk, and by a plantation
of above five miles reaching from the Esk to the Sark,
which then becomes the boundary. On the north the
parish is divided from the parish of Langholm by the
Tarras, a very rocky stream with well-wooded banks,
anciently a favourite haunt of the freebooters, or mosstroopers.
The district may be considered as the low
grounds of Eskdale; the surface, however, is uneven,
and diversified by a variety of ridges, with the exception
of the land on the banks of the Esk, which is generally
level. The Esk river, flowing through the middle of the
parish from north to south, receives the Liddel nearly
at the southern boundary, and falls, at the distance of
about seven miles from the parish, into the Solway
Firth. Along its course, parallel with which passes the
great road from Edinburgh to London by Langholm and
Carlisle, is a succession of some of the most varied and
beautiful scenery to be met with in any part of Scotland.
The Liddel runs between banks adorned with natural
wood and plantations, and in several places the channel
of the river is much contracted, and, flowing over a bed
of limestone, broken into fantastic masses, exhibits a
scene of striking interest and beauty when the stream is
a little swollen. The soil, on the holm-land in the
neighbourhood of the rivers, is chiefly light loam, and
produces early and rich crops of all kinds, being much
favoured by the shelter of a profusion of wood. On the
higher grounds it is mossy, wet, and clayey, but, if well
limed, produces good crops of oats in dry seasons. This
land has been much improved within the last fifteen
years by tile-draining, and a large part of it is now
capable of bearing crops of all descriptions. The sheep
are the Cheviots, the largest of which are often crossed
with the Leicester; some of the cattle are the Teeswater,
but the Galloway breed is preferred. The annual value
of real property in the parish is £9095. Limestone,
sandstone, and coal abound, the last in hollows of the
transition rocks. In 1S47 an act was passed authorizing
the construction of a colliery branch of nine miles, to
Canonbie, from the Caledonian railway. There are extensive
corn-mills at HoUows, near the Esk.
For ecclesiastical purposes, the parish is within the
bounds of the presbytery of Langholm and synod of
Dumfries; patron, the Duke of Buccleuch: the stipend
is £236. 12. 6., with a manse, and a glebe of twenty
acres, valued at £20 per annum. The church is an elegant
sandstone building with a tower, erected in 1822,
at an expense of £3000, and containing sittings for upwards
of 1000 persons. There is a parochial school, in
which Greek, Latin, French, and all the usual branches
of education are taught; the master has a salary of
£31. 6., with the legal accommodations, and fees amounting
to about £30. A subscription library, two friendly
societies, and a savings' bank are also supported. Among
the numerous ruins of defence-towers, the most perfect
and the most famed is that of Johnnie Armstrong, sixty
feet long, forty-six broad, and seventy-two high; it has
two round turrets, with loop-holes at the east and west
angles, and was in former times a place of great strength.
About one mile to the east of this are the remains of a
Roman station, supposed to be the first in the chain from
Netherbie to Castle-Over, the upper camp, in the parish
of Eskdalemuir. There are also vestiges of a Roman
road having passed through the parish of Canonbie, in a
direction nearly from north to south. Dr. Russell, author
of the History of Modern Europe, who died in 1*93,
and Mr. Benjamin Bell, the celebrated surgeon, were natives
of the parish.