Biggar | |
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Biggar shown within South Lanarkshire | |
Population | 2,301 (2001) |
OS grid reference | NT045375 |
Civil parish |
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Council area | |
Lieutenancy area | |
Country | Scotland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Biggar |
Postcode district | ML12 |
Police | Scottish |
Fire | Scottish |
Ambulance | Scottish |
EU Parliament | Scotland |
UK Parliament | |
Scottish Parliament | |
Biggar (Scottish Gaelic: Bigear) is a town and former burgh in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is situated in the Southern Uplands, near the River Clyde, on the A702. The closest towns are Lanark and Peebles, and as such Biggar serves a wide rural area. The population of the town at the 2011 census was 2294 although by the mid-2014 estimate it had grown to 2320.
The town was once served by the Symington, Biggar and Broughton Railway, which ran from the Caledonian Railway (now the West Coast Main Line) at Symington to join the Peebles Railway at Peebles. The station and signal box are still standing but housing has been built on the line running west from the station and the railway running east from the station is a public footpath to Broughton, part of the Biggar Country Path network.
The new Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum run by the Biggar Museum Trust opened in 2015 and the Biggar Gasworks Museum is the only preserved gas works in Scotland. Additionally, Biggar has Scotland's only permanent puppet theatre, Biggar Puppet Theatre, which is run by the Purves Puppets family.
Biggar was the birthplace of Thomas Gladstones, the grandfather of William Ewart Gladstone. Hugh MacDiarmid spent his later years at Brownsbank, near the town. Ian Hamilton Finlay's home and garden at Little Sparta is nearby in the Pentland Hills. The fictional Midculter, which features in Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles novels, is set here. The town hosts an annual arts festival, the Biggar Little Festival. The town has traditionally held a huge bonfire at Hogmanay.