Stow of Wedale, or more often Stow, is a village in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian an ...

area of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

(historically

Midlothian Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh, ...

), north of

Galashiels Galashiels (; sco, Gallae, gd, An Geal Àth) is a town in the Scottish Borders with a population of around 12,600. Its name is often colloquially shortened to "Gala". The town is a major commercial centre for the Borders region with extensive ...

. In the 2011 Census the population was 718. It is served by Stow railway station.

The name

The name Stow is an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

word '' stōw'' meaning 'holy place' or 'meeting place', whilst Wedale is probably derived from the words '' wēoh'' (or ''wīg'') meaning 'shrine' and '' dæl'' meaning 'valley'.

History

There has been a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

at Stow since the 7th century, but the earliest example still visible today was built in the late 15th century on the site of the Church of

St Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...

which was consecrated on 3 November 1242. The church used today, St Mary of Wedale, was built in 1876 and features a 140-foot-high

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

. Our Lady's Well is situated south of the village and was rebuilt in 2000. A rare example of a

packhorse bridge A packhorse bridge is a bridge intended to carry packhorses (horses loaded with sidebags or panniers) across a river or stream. Typically a packhorse bridge consists of one or more narrow (one horse wide) masonry arches, and has low parapets so ...

, built in the 1650s, can be found in Stow. Stow of Wedale Town Hall was completed in 1857. In 1870,

James Thin James Thin was a Scottish bookseller, stationer and publishing company. It was, until 2002, the principal academic bookshop in Edinburgh, with its main premises opposite Old College, University of Edinburgh on South Bridge. It also had branch ...

purchased a plot of land in the village and had a house built which was completed in 1873 and was named Ashlea. This house is still a private residence but is not owned by the Thin family.

Famous residents

*Sir John Rose Cormack (1815–1882), born and raised in Stow *Sir Walter Mercer

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soc ...

(1890–1971) orthopaedic surgeon

Gallery

File:St. Mary's of Wedale Parish Church - geograph.org.uk - 2232233.jpg, St. Mary's of Wedale Parish Church File:Pack-horse bridge over the Gala Water, Stow - geograph.org.uk - 3148811.jpg, Pack horse bridge across the Gala Water, at the south end of Stow File:Stow Town Hall (geograph 5401009).jpg, Stow of Wedale Town Hall

References

Sources