Coulter or Culter (both spellings in use, pronounced "Cooter" with no "l") is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It lies approximately south of Biggar. Some old maps and local modern houses also have the spelling Cootyre - "a safe place for cows." Nearby are two notable Scottish hills, Tinto and

Culter Fell Culter Fell is a hill in the Culter Hills range, part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It is the county top of the historic county of Lanarkshire, as well as the highest point in South Lanarkshire council area. It is the culmination of a ne ...

. The River Clyde is also nearby. Coulter Village at Culter House is on the watershed between the Clyde and the Tweed. The village has a mill which has been converted to a restaurant. The second recorded Mill some time about 1880. The site of the first since the burn, Culter Water, was diverted to its present course is unknown. Portrait of Adam Sim of Coulter Mains (1805–1868) by Daniel Macnee (1806-1882), in Biggar Museum

Portrait of Adam Sim of Coulter Mains (1805–1868) by Daniel Macnee (1806-1882), in Biggar Museum

The village is the likely location of the fictional Midculter from Dorothy Dunnett's 6-book series The Lymond Chronicles. Within that series, Midculter is the home of the Crawford Barons of Culter and of the protagonist,

Francis Crawford of Lymond The ''Lymond Chronicles'' is a series of six historical novels written by Dorothy Dunnett and first published between 1961 and 1975. Set in mid-16th-century Europe and the Mediterranean area, the series tells the story of a young Scottish noblem ...

. A possible location for their castle, Midculter Castle, is Coulter Motte. Coulter Motte lies some distance from the village on the side of the Clyde at Wolf Clyde, it is a small lump of ground adjacent to the river at a point where it is diverted by ditch toward the Tweed, to alleviate the flood water. Some enterprising person in the past had the idea of fully diverting the waters of the Clyde at this point toward the Tweed. It does not accommodate the descriptions in the Books of the Lymond Series of avenue of Trees, and surrounding hillsides- mention of the closeness to the major River do not appear. The

Monks A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

of Kelso and the

Templars , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

feature in the early history of Culter, many place, and farm names would enforce the latters presence. A more likely site of the Castle of Culter referred to fictionally in the books of

Dorothy Dunnett Dorothy, Lady Dunnett (née Halliday, 25 August 1923 – 9 November 2001) was a Scottish novelist best known for her historical fiction. Dunnett is most famous for her six novel series set during the 16th century, which concern the fictiti ...

would be Culter House (circa 1680) later of course than the date of the series but nonetheless the oldest inhabited house in the upper ward of Lanarkshire, with its attendant mile long avenue of trees, extant on Roys map of 1746/7, and mentioned in

Buchan Buchan is an area of north-east Scotland, historically one of the original provinces of the Kingdom of Alba. It is now one of the six committee areas and administrative areas of Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland. These areas were created by ...

's '' John Burnet of Barns''. One famous son would be

James Gillray James Gillray (13 August 1756Gillray, James and Draper Hill (1966). ''Fashionable contrasts''. Phaidon. p. 8.Baptism register for Fetter Lane (Moravian) confirms birth as 13 August 1756, baptism 17 August 1756 1June 1815) was a British caricatur ...

(1757-1815), a memorial to whom rests in the Kirkyard. Caricaturist - political satirist of the Georgian and Napoleonic period. Coulter Mains was built in the Elizabethan ''Gothic'' style in 1838, designed by William Spence (1806-1883). The local antiquarian Adam Sim (1805–1868) lived there with his large collection of objects, many of which are now in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh.

References

{{authority control Villages in South Lanarkshire