In a nice case of life imitating art, the hamlet of Tillietudlem in Lanarkshire is named after a fictional castle in an 1816 book by Sir Walter Scott. His historical novels were hugely popular in the nineteenth century, although they are generally regarded as hard going for modern readers.
Scott, who would now be described as multi-talented, was a poet, playwright and historian as well as being an advocate and a judge in the Scottish legal system. After staying at Craignethan Castle in Lanarkshire he appropriated the name of a nearby ravine called Gillytudlem to use in his novel Old Mortality. When it was published readers put two and two together and decided that Craignethan Castle was the basis of Tillietudlem, and Scott later conceded the two were similar.
His picturesque stories boosted the new pursuit of tourism, and visitors to the area increased so much that the railway company built a new station there in 1878. That in turn led to a few houses being built near the station. It closed to passengers in 1951 and to goods in 1960, but the people of the present-day hamlet of Tillietudlem still celebrate its naming. The ruins of the castle are still a magnet for tourists.
There was a Tilllietudlem Plate at Hamilton on 27 May 1927 (as well as an Old Mortality Plate), racing there having resumed the previous season after a 19 year gap. It continued till 1935. The Tillietudlem Handicap was run at Lanark’s spring meetings between 1957 and 1977, when that course closed. It returned to Hamilton from 1978-85.