place

Polmood

Peel towers in the Scottish BordersScottish BordersScottish Borders geography stubsTweeddaleVillages in the Scottish Borders

Polmood is a small settlement in southern Scotland near Tweedsmuir in the Scottish Borders, in the valley of the River Tweed. Polmood was for many centuries the centre of the Hunter family in the lowlands and the earliest record was a charter dated 1057 to Norman Hunter of Polmood. It was once a Peel tower, part of a chain of beacons running down the Tweed Valley. At the end of the nineteenth century the temporary Talla Railway was built close to Polmont to deliver building materials during the construction of the Talla Reservoir.The estate was acquired by Mitchell Mitchell-Thomson, an Edinburgh businessman and politician who took his baronetcy title from the Peeblesshire estate of Polmood which he had acquired before 1916. Polmood is commemorated in "The Piper of Polmood" a piece based on old Scottish folk-tunes by Victor Babin.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Polmood (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

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Latitude Longitude
N 55.533333333333 ° E -3.4 °
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Hearthstane


ML12 6QN
Scotland, United Kingdom
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Nearby Places

Crook Inn
Crook Inn

The Crook Inn is an inn in the Scottish Borders, near the village of Tweedsmuir on the A701 road between Broughton and Moffat. It is one of many claimants to be the oldest inn in Scotland. It was licensed in 1604. Robert Burns wrote "Willie Wastle's Wife" there. It has served as a coaching inn, a Post Office and source of employment. In the early 20th century a halt was built on the Talla Railway to serve it. The inn attracted much passing trade from the labourers who were building the Talla Reservoir, which the railway was built to serve. The hotel was refurbished in 1936 in the then-current Art Deco style, and retains many of the features installed at that time. It has also, over the years, become a place of pilgrimage for members of the Porteous family, visiting the site of nearby Hawkshaw, their former ancestral home on the hills above Tweeddale and the Fruid Reservoir. A reunion of Porteous family members was traditionally held at the inn every five years, attracting visitors from all over the world. The proposals to convert the historic inn into apartments met with much local opposition and the plans were rejected by the councillors of Tweeddale West in March 2008. Following refusal the present owner lodged an appeal with the Department for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA), a department of the Scottish Government. On 2 February 2009, following an appeal hearing on 18 November 2008, a decision notice was issued by the DPEA which finally dismissed the appeal. This meant that planning permission was not granted for the change of use of the historic Crook Inn to residential accommodation, giving scope for the inn to reopen once again if it could be purchased. In January 2013, after a lengthy campaign by the Tweedsmuir community to secure ownership of the Crook Inn in order to reinvigorate it, the Tweedsmuir Community Company raised the asking price of £160,000 and bought the property. The Tweedsmuir Community Company obtained a Development Grant from Big Lottery in 2014 to redesign and renovate the historic Crook Inn, with designs undertaken by WTArchitecture, Edinburgh. The plans obtained planning permission in 2015. The rest of the land at the site was purchased in 2015 with grants from the Scottish Land Fund, SSE Clyde Border and the Infinis Glenkerie Community Funds. Grants are being sought to create a multi-faceted Crook Inn Community Hub to serve the Upper Tweed community and tourism. Since then nothing has happened and the building continues to deteriorate. It is listed on the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland.

Broad Law
Broad Law

Broad Law is a hill in the Manor Hills range, part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. The second-highest point in the Southern Uplands and the highest point in the Scottish Borders, it has an elevation of 840 metres, a prominence of 653 metres (and thus is a "major") and an isolation of 81 kilometres. It is only 3 m (10 ft) lower than its parent, Merrick. Like many of its neighbours it is smooth, rounded and grassy, although the surrounding glens have very steep sides — country somewhat akin to the Cheviots or the Howgill Fells. The hill is most easily climbed from the Megget Stane to the south, beginning at an elevation of 452 m (1,483 ft), but is also frequently climbed from the villages near its base, or as part of a long, 50 km (30 mi) trek across the local area between the towns of Peebles and Moffat. On the summit is the highest VOR beacon in the UK, and also a radio tower. The summit of Broad Law is also the highest point (county top) of the historic county of Peeblesshire. It is also sometimes (erroneously) given as the county top of Selkirkshire. This is because in 1891, the area of Megget (a detached part of Lyne parish in Peeblesshire) was transferred to Yarrow parish in Selkirkshire. The administrative "county" boundary of Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire thus temporarily crossed Broad Law summit between 1891 and 1974. However, the historic county boundary remained several kilometres to the east, where Dun Rig is the county top of Selkirkshire.