page_title: Biggar, South Lanarkshire
section_title: Details
hierarchical_section_title: Biggar, South Lanarkshire / Details
caption_attribution_description: English: Biggar puppet theatre sign. Openwork iron sign, with christmas lights.
context_page_description: Biggar is a town and former burgh in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is situated in the Southern Uplands, near the River Clyde, on the A702. The closest towns are Lanark and Peebles, and as such Biggar serves a wide rural area. The population of the town at the 2011 census was 2,294, and the latest recorded figures in June 2018 estimate it had grown to 2,550.
context_section_description: The town was once served by the Symington, Biggar and Broughton Railway, which ran from the Caledonian Railway (now the West Coast Main Line) at Symington to join the Peebles Railway at Peebles.  The station and signal box are still standing but housing has been built on the line running west from the station and the railway running east from the station is a public footpath to Broughton, part of the Biggar Country Path network.
  The new Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum run by the Biggar Museum Trust opened in 2015 and the Biggar Gasworks Museum is the only preserved gas works in Scotland. Additionally, Biggar has Scotland's only permanent puppet theatre, Biggar Puppet Theatre, which is run by the Purves Puppets family.
  Biggar was the birthplace of Thomas Gladstones, the grandfather of William Ewart Gladstone. Hugh MacDiarmid spent his later years at Brownsbank, near the town. Ian Hamilton Finlay's home and garden at Little Sparta is nearby in the Pentland Hills. The fictional Midculter, which features in Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles novels, is set here. The town hosts an annual arts festival, the Biggar Little Festival. The town has traditionally held a huge bonfire at Hogmanay.
  In 2007 local estate agent John Riley, encouraged a group of Biggar residents to launch the Carbon Neutral Biggar project, with the stated aim of becoming the first carbon neutral town in Scotland. The launch of the project, covered in both local and national media, took place at the town's annual eco forum in May 2007.  The group has formed links with the town of Ashton Hayes in Cheshire, which has a similar group working toward carbon neutral status for the town.
  This town has two schools, one primary, and one secondary. The secondary school, Biggar High School, also admits pupils from surrounding small towns and villages. Biggar Primary is a small school, located on South Back Road, with a current roll of 238 pupils. Primary pupils have lunch just offsite in the Biggar Primary Sports Barn. The High School, located on John’s Loan and adjacent to the primary, shares its sports facilities with the primary school when the occasion demands it. The annual primary Sports Day is held on the High School playing field.
caption: The sign of Biggar's puppet theatre, the 'Biggar Little Theatre'
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4128", "Image ImageLength": "2322", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "GT-I9505", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "I9505XXUFNBA", "Image DateTime": "2014:12:30 15:54:42", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "226", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "512", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5104", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "36712", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "11/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:12:30 15:54:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:12:30 15:54:42", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "369989/65536", "EXIF ApertureValue": "57/25", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "857/256", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "57/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "21/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4128", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2322", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "4944", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "31", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "S13F0SAGI01"}