Carluke, the Clyde Valley's largest town, sits on a high plateau overlooking the River Clyde.

Carluke has an excellent range of high street names and local shops.  It has a wide selection of cafes, restaurants and takeaways as well as specialist shops such as Ramsay's of Carluke,  the multi award winning family Scottish butchers who uses the traditional Ayrshire cure for their bacon.

The town has a selection of accommodation, including the Wallace Hotel and Burnhead Farm.

The town's location is also perfect for access to the garden centres of the Clyde Valley.

The town's gala day is in June.

History

Records show that the earliest inhabitants in Carluke, also known as Kirkstyle, were monks. A Roman road passed this way and a number of tower houses were built in the area.

It was chartered as a Royal Burgh in 1662 and by 1695 parish records report six families living in the area. In 1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie's army stopped off in Carluke during their retreat from Derby to feed and rest their horses.

By the 1800s the population had risen to 380 and the main industries were weaving and farming. The town exploded onto the map several years later with the building of the Glasgow to Carlisle trunk road and a train station.

Over the next two centuries Carluke became a prosperous town thanks to corn milling, cotton weaving, coal mining and the manufacture of bricks, glass, confectionery and jam.

Famous people

Major Thomas Weir was born near Carluke in 1599. Weir was an officer in the Covenanting Army of James Graham, the Marquis of Montrose. On retiring he was appointed to the honorary post of Captain of the Town Guard in Edinburgh. Weir lived in Edinburgh's Lawnmarket with his sister Jean. Dressed in a long cloak and always leaning on a staff, he was respected for his powerful preaching. It was sensational news, therefore when he confessed to sorcery, incest and other black crimes. He was convicted and sentenced to be strangled and burned at the stake. It was thought that his staff had a life of its own and when thrown onto Weir's pyre it burned with great difficulty. Jean was later convicted of witchcraft and hanged in the Grassmarket.

Surveyor and cartographer, Major General William Roy was born at Miltonhead in 1726. Following the Jacobite Rebellion led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, Roy was directed to produce a map of Scotland. It took him eight years and the hand-drawn result is exhibited in the British Library, London. Roy was later commissioned to set up the network on which all subsequent surveying is based. He wanted to set up a UK organisation for surveying and mapping but Ordnance Survey wasn't created until a year after his death. Roy also studied Roman remains and his book Military Antiquities of the Romans in Scotland was published three years after his death.

Peter Kid, originally from Fife, became one of Carluke's Covenanting ministers in 1672. He twice refused to observe Charles II as head of the Church and was imprisoned on the Bass Rock in 1685. He was released the next year due to failing health and old age and moved back to Carluke. He is buried in Carluke Parish churchyard.

The sculptor Robert Forrest was born in Carluke in 1790. He began as a stone mason and his work includes a statue of William Wallace in Lanark and the statue of Henry Dundas, the Viscount Melville, which tops the Melville Monument in St Andrew's Square, Edinburgh.

Milton Lockhart, two miles west of Carluke, was the home of John Lockhart, born in 1794. He was the biographer of Sir Walter Scott and in 1897 the remains of Milton Lockhart House were transported to Japan and re-erected near Tokyo.

Doctor Daniel Reid Rankin, who was born in 1805, dedicated much of his life to helping the people of Carluke and was a doctor in the town for more than 50 years. He wrote and published a history of Carluke in 1875 and was a noted geologist and palaeontologist (some of the fossils he collected are now housed in the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh). Rankin died in 1882 and was buried in the old churchyard.

Not far from Carluke is Larkhall, which is set in the Avon valley, and is also only minutes from the Clyde Valley Tourist route.