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 New Lanark |
 Lanark High Street |
 Leadhills |
Lanark is where the River Clyde begins the transition from the Southern Uplands to the Central Belt of Scotland. The town, like the river whose valley it overlooks, has one foot in the upland rural areas to the south, the other in the industrial heartland of Scotland to the north.
Lanark itself is an attractive town. The St Nicholas parish church, though only dating back to 1774, is home to the world's oldest bell, cast in 1130. Lanark is perhaps best known for nearby New Lanark. This complex of cotton mills built along and powered by the River Clyde comes complete with its own village, still providing people with homes in the midst of a World Heritage Site.
The Clyde Valley passes through extremely attractive countryside north of Lanark, and the signposted Tourist Route is well worth exploring. Other gems include secluded Craignethan Castle, on a bluff overlooking a tributary of the Clyde.
Twelve miles east of Lanark is Biggar, a traditional market town serving a large but sparsely populated hinterland. The town itself is home to at least six seasonally open museums covering interests as diverse as the Covenanters, puppets, and vintage Albion trucks and buses. Another museum is housed in the UK's only remaining coal-fired gasworks. Near the centre of Biggar is the attractive Biggar Kirk, rebuilt in 1546.
North east of Biggar the main A702 road generally follows the line of the Roman road built to serve the Roman fort at Musselburgh. En route it skirts the northern edge of the attractive village of West Linton. Further west lie the villages of Carnwath and Carstairs.
South east of Biggar is one of Southern Scotland's finest viewpoints, the 2304ft or 711m high Tinto. To its south you can see a broad swathe of the Southern Uplands, complete, in the distance, with the ribbon of the M74 as it starts to wind its way through the hills towards its eventual destination of the English border. To Tinto's west, just beyond the M74, is the ancestral home of the Black Douglas family, Douglas.
The uplands south west of Abington and Crawford offer some of the loneliest landscapes Scotland has to offer and are traversed by the Southern Upland Way long distance footpath. One point of entry is via the B740 road through Crawfordjohn. Another is the A702 heading south towards Dumfries, whichis an excellent way to see a great deal of very little as you traverse the Lowther Hills. Another alternative for the more adventurous is to take the even higher road, through Wanlockhead. At 467m or 1531ft this is Scotland's highest village and only exists because of the lead found in these hills. No surprises, then to find it is the home of the excellent Museum of Lead Mining. Nearby Leadhills is home to the Leadhills and Wanlockhead Railway.
