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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

South Lanarkshire South Lanarkshire (; ) is one of 32 unitary authorities of Scotland. It borders the south-east of the Glasgow City council area and contains some of Greater Glasgow's suburban towns, as well as many rural towns and villages. It also shares bor ...

, 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 Tinto is an isolated hill in the south of the Central Lowlands just to the north of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It comprises little more than one top, which stands on the west bank of the River Clyde, some west of Biggar. The peak is a ...

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 The River Clyde (, ) is a river that flows into the Firth of Clyde, in the west of Scotland. It is the eighth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the second longest in Scotland after the River Tay. It runs through the city of Glasgow. Th ...

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. 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. 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 , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

of Kelso and the

Templars The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a military order of the Catholic faith, and one of the most important military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded in 11 ...

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 a coastal district in the north-east of Scotland, bounded by the Ythan and Deveron rivers. It was one of the original provinces of the Kingdom of Alba. It is now one of the six committee areas of Aberdeenshire. Etymology The ge ...

'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 list of c ...

(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 Parishes in Lanarkshire