Innerleithen
Innerleithen
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 Innerleithen
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| Innerleithen shown within the Scottish Borders | |
| Population | 2,586 |
| OS grid reference | NT334366 |
| Council area | |
| Lieutenancy area | |
| Country | Scotland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Innerleithen |
| Postcode district | EH44 |
| Dialling code | 01896 |
| Police | Scottish |
| Fire | Scottish |
| Ambulance | Scottish |
| EU Parliament | Scotland |
| UK Parliament | |
| Scottish Parliament | |
Innerleithen (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Leitheann) is a civil parish and a small town in the committee area of Tweeddale, in the Scottish Borders. It was formerly in the historic county of Peeblesshire or Tweeddale.
The name "Innerleithen" comes from the Scottish Gaelic meaning "confluence of the Leithen", because it is here that the river joins the Tweed. The prefix "Inner-/Inver-" (Inbhir-) is common in many Scottish placenames, such as Inverness. At this confluence, the Tweed flows approximately west-east, and the Leithen flows from the north.
The layout of the town is dominated by the surrounding hills. To the north the peaked hill of Lee Pen (502m), and its southerly spur Caerlee Hill (258m). To the east the rounded hill of Pirn Craig (363m) - locally known as "Rocky" - and its townward spur of Windy Knowe (155m), also known as "Pirn Hill", and to the south, beyond the Tweed, the extended of ridge of Plora Craig rises sharply from the southerly bank. Thus the town has grown in an inverted 'T' shape north up the valley of the Leithen and east-west along north bank flood plain of the Tweed.
The area occupied by the town has been inhabited since pre-Roman times. The remains of an Iron-Age hill fort are visible atop Caerlee Hill, in the form of defensive ditchworks. Ditchworks are also visible on the hill of Windy Knowe and, whilst there is some local speculation that these belong to an unusual round Roman hill fort, they are in fact typical of an indigenous Iron Age hill fort. Crop marks from aerial photographs of the 1950s suggest the existence of a semi-permanent Roman marching camp on the flood plain by the river Tweed at Toll Wood (near Traquair) and at nearby Eshiels.
The town is said to have been founded by an itinerant pilgrim monk called St. Ronan in A.D.737, who came to Innerleithen via the River Tweed in a coracle. Monks would certainly have travelled the natural route of the Clyde and Tweed valleys on their way between the religious centres of Iona and Holy Island. A Celtic stone carved with cup and rings/channels, known as the Runic Cross (although there are neither runes on it, nor any evidence that it was a cross shaft) was found on the slopes of the Leithen valley suggesting that a church existed during the Early Middle Ages. The stone can be viewed in the courtyard of the parish church on Leithen Road.
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Wikipedia