| Biggar |
...
famed for It's People! (Continued) |
Literary
and political figures from more recent times are also associated
with Biggar. The popular author John Buchan and poet Hugh MacDiarmid
have strong connections with the burgh.
The
late John Buchan wrote over fifty books including some very well
known novels including Greenmantle, Prester John,
Witchwood, and - perhaps the most famous of all - The
Thirty-Nine Steps. Buchan, who was a Minister of Parliament,
later went on to become the Govenor General of Canada. He spent
much of his time as a child in the village of Broughton near Biggar,
where a museum maintained by Biggar Museums Trust commemorates
his work.
Doctor
Christopher Grieve was better known as Hugh MacDiarmid, the pen
name under which he founded a Scottish literary renaissance. The
poet lived just outside Biggar in Brownsbank Cottage for the last
twenty-six years of his life. Brownsbank Cottage has been preserved
by Biggar Museum Trust and is used as a base for a writer-in-residence
for most of the year.
Known
for a different type of creativity was James Gillray, whose home
was in Coulter, three miles from the Royal Burgh. He created over
1500 satirical artworks of political figures such as King George
III and Napoleon. James Gillray is regarded as having been the
first artist to create British political cartoons.
A
towering creativity that is still a prominent feature of the skyline
of Edinburgh, Scotland's Capital City, had its beginnings in Biggar.
The Scott Monument was designed by George Meikle Kemp, who was
originally from Hillriggs, Biggar. He was the architect for the
commemoration of Walter Scott, and his second design of the monument
was accepted in 1838. Sadly, Kemp did not live to see the full
dramatic effect of his architecture on the centre of Edinburgh
- he died before the monument was completed.
The
family of William Ewart Gladstone, who was once a British Prime
Minister, came from here, and the family name can be seen on Gladstone
Court museum, which portrays small town life as the old remember
it and as the young imagine it.
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