OXNAM, a parish, in the district of Jedburgh, county of Roxburgh, 4 miles (E. S. E.) from Jedburgh; containing 653 inhabitants. This place is supposed to have derived its name, anciently Oxenham, from the number of oxen in the immediate vicinity. It formed part of the possessions of Gaufred de Percy, who granted a portion of the lands to the abbey of Jedburgh, then recently founded; which grant was confirmed by Malcolm IV. and William the Lion, Kings of Scotland. The parish is bounded on the south by the county of Northumberland; is about ten miles in length, and five miles in extreme breadth; and comprises 21,120 acres, of which 34S0 are arable, 650 woodland and plantations, and 16,990 hilly moorland, pasture, and waste. Its surface is strikingly diversified with hills and dales: on the south is a small part of the Cheviot range, to the north of which are various hills of conical form and verdant aspect. The valley of the Oxnam, traversing the whole length of the parish, is pleasingly undulated, and enlivened with the meanderings of its beautiful stream, whose banks are in many places richly crowned with wood. The scenery of the entire parish, indeed, is vai-ied, comprehending much natural beauty, and many highly picturesque and romantic features. Among the principal rivers is the Oxnam, which has its rise about two miles from the English border; it receives numerous tributary streams from the higher lands in its course, and falls into the Teviot near Crailing. The Coquet water, also issuing from the mountains on the border, skirts the parish on the south for nearly a mile, and, flowing through part of Northumberland, falls into the sea between Alnwick and Coquet isle. The Kale, whose source is in the same heights, runs through the upper portion of the parish, and, after a circuitous course of about seventeen miles, joins the Teviot at Eckford. The Jed flows along a rocky channel, and forms the western boundary of the parish for nearly two miles. There are numerous springs of excellent water, and a spring supposed to be chalybeate, but which, on being analyzed, was found to possess no medicinal properties whatever. The streams all abound with trout, and salmon are sometimes taken in the Oxnam. In this parish the soil is various, combining almost every kind of loam, clay, and gravel, with considerable portions of heath and peat-moss: the crops are oats, barley, wheat, potatoes, and turnips. The system of agriculture is in an improved state; the five-shift course of husbandry is prevalent, and the lands have been well drained and inclosed. Lime and bone-dust are applied to the soil, and the crops are generally favourable and abundant, the farm houses and offices substantial, and some of them handsome. Much care is bestowed upon the management of live stock: the sheep are of the Cheviot breed, with a few of the Leicester on the richer pastures; the cattle are of the short-horned breed. There are limestone, sandstone, greywacke, whiastone, and seams of clay-slate: the limestone, from its great depth and the distance from coal for burning it, cannot be worked to advantage; but the sandstone, of durable quahty and of a white colour, is quarried for building. The hills are mainly of trap rock; and clayporphyry affords an ample supply of material for the roads: it is interspersed with veins of quartz, and the cavities abound with beautiful crystallized incrustations. Greenstone is also found in some places, intersected with veins of jasper. A manufacture of tiles, for which there is clay of good quality, is carried on. The parish has facility of communication with Jedburgh, Kelso, Hawick, and other places, by means of good roads. A fair is held at Pennymuir in August for sheep and lambs, of which about 1400 are on the average sold; and on the 25th of March a statute fair is held for hiring shepherds and farm-servants. The annual value of real property in Oxnam is £76.54. Ecclesiastically the parish is in the presbytery of Jedburgh, synod of Merse and Teviotdale, and in the patronage of the Crown: the minister's stipend is about £227, with a manse, and the glebe is valued at £16 per annum. The church, erected in 1*38, is a neat and substantial edifice in good repair, adapted for a congregation of 260 persons. Oxnam parochial school affords education to about forty children; the master has a salary of £25. 13. 4., with £12 fees, a house and garden, and £4. 3. 4., the interest arising from a bequest by Lady Yester 'for gratuitously teaching poor children. Lady Yester also bequeathed some cottages, and £1000 Scotch, for the relief of the poor not on the parish list; one cottage is still remaining, and the interest of the money, £4. 3. 4., is annually distributed. There are some remains of the ancient chapel of Plenderleath, but the cemetery has long ceased to be used. Circular camps are to be seen in various parts: the most conspicuous of these is one on a height near Bloodylaws; and on a hill at Cunzierton is another, with a double rampart surrounding the level summit of the hill. On the eminence called Pennymuir are vestiges of a Roman camp of quadrilateral form, rounded at the angles, and comprising an area of about thirty acres; and the Roman Watling-street may be traced on the north-eastern boundary of the parish, passing near Pennymuir. There are two Druidical circles, tolerably entire, especially the smaller, sixteen yards in diameter; also remains of ancient strongholds and towers, erected during the times of the border warfare, as places of security, and for the concealment of cattle. To the west of one of these, called Heuwood, is a rising ground named Galla-Know, formerly the place of execution for criminals; it is now inclosed and planted. In the heart of a natural amphitheatre, near the Crag Tower, is an artificial tumulus supposed to have been a place for dispensing justice. Various relics of antiquity have been found at different times, and some coins, among which was a shilling of Robert Bruce.