Howwood ( sco, The Howewuid,The Online Scots Dictionary
/ref> gd, Coille an Dail)
is a village in

Renfrewshire Renfrewshire () ( sco, Renfrewshire; gd, Siorrachd Rinn Friù) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. Located in the west central Lowlands, it is one of three council areas contained within the boundaries of the historic county of Renfr ...

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 the ...

. It is between Johnstone and

Lochwinnoch Lochwinnoch (; sco, Lochineuch, gd, Loch Uinneach) is a village in the council area and historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. Lying on the banks of Castle Semple Loch and the River Calder, Lochwinnoch is ...

, just off the A737

dual carriageway A dual carriageway ( BE) or divided highway ( AE) is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation (BrE) or median (AmE). Roads with two or more carriageways which are ...

between the nearby town of Paisley and the

Ayrshire Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Re ...

border. It is served by Howwood railway station.

History

Its name is listed in the late 19th century Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland as ''"Howwood or Hollow-wood"''. Hollow-Wood is an anglicisation of the

Scots language Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonly ...

name ''Howewuid''. The Surname Database gives the following etymology for the equivalent surname 'Howood': a topographical name from residence by a muddy wood, deriving from the pre-7th-Century

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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

"horh", mud, slime, and "wudu", wood. Historically part of the

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 authority ...

of Lochwinnoch, it now supports its own

Community Council A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain. In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies. In ...

.Howwood Community Council
/ref> The chief industry in the village was formerly

bleaching Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color (whitening) from a fabric or fiber or to clean or to remove stains in a process called bleaching. It often refers specifically, to ...

and the finishing of cotton cloth and thread, particularly from the mills of Paisley and the other Renfrewshire villages. Two main bleaching works existed at Bowfield and Midtownfield, the former being the last to close in the 1960s. Overlooking the village on Kenmure Hill is the Temple, a circular folly built around 1760 and whose purpose is unknown. In the hills above Howwood also lie the remains of Elliston Castle, a

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...

once home to the Semple family. A battle took place between Government forces and

Covenanter Covenanters ( gd, Cùmhnantaich) were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. The name is derived from ''Covenan ...

s at Muirdykes on the 18 June 1685, led by the Cochrane family of Johnstone The Iron Age hillfort of Walls Hill lies on Whittliemuir with the Walls Loch lying to the west of it.

References

External links

Howwood village website
Villages in Renfrewshire {{Renfrewshire-geo-stub