On Saturday, more than 100 horse riders took part in a ride out to mark the 875th anniversary of the Royal Burgh of Lanark. Organised by the Lord Cornets Club the event included the replacement of two missing March stones, which, as the local paper reported, were cut by apprentice stonemasons in Lesmahagow.
This was a special occasion for Save Our Landscapes, too.
The ride-out crossed the land that would have been destroyed had Cemex been given permission to extend Hyndford Quarry into the Bonnington parkland – one of the four estates that combines to make the Falls of Clyde Designed Landscape. The riders arrived at Robbiesland from Hyndford Bridge along the Drove Road, with its Parliamentary Wall, through which the quarry was to have passed. Later they followed the route of the tradesmen’s road to Bonnington House, beside Robiesland bog. Both these features would have been removed by the quarry. The riders then galloped towards Bonnington weir, which allowed them to cross the River Clyde just above Bonnington Linn. Much of this spectacular fluvio-glacial landscape would have been under the bulldozer had South Lanarkshire Council’s decision to allow the quarry extension not been challenged successfully.
The event served as a reminder of the historic links between Bonnington and Lanark, and in a nice gesture, Lord Cornet Gordon Gray wrote on our Facebook page, “thanks to all your hard work we can hopefully mark our future anniversaries on this truly stunning part of town.”
We hope so, too!
SAVE OUR LANDSCAPES: NEW LANARK AND THE FALLS OF CLYDE 