Paisley

Paisley (Scottish Gaelic: Pàislig) is a town and former burgh in the west-Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is situated on the northern edge of the Gleniffer Braes, straddling the banks of the River Cart. Paisley is the administrative capital of the Renfrewshire council area, and forms a continuous urban area with Greater Glasgow, Glasgow City Centre being 6.9 miles (11.1 km) to the east. Paisley was once reckoned to have been the site of the Roman fortification of Vanduara (or Vandogara) chronicled by Ptolemy. The identification of the site of modern Paisley with this fort is based principally on the similarity of the name of the station to the Brythonic Gwen-dwr ("white water"), which was inferred to have been the name at that time of the White Cart Water. In the 12th century, a priory was founded at Paisley around which a settlement soon grew. Within a hundred years of its foundation the priory had achieved the status of an Abbey. The town became famous during the 18th and 19th centuries for the production of cloth, especially cotton with the distinctive Paisley Pattern. Paisley is the largest town in Scotland. Whilst smaller than Scotland's major cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee, it forms the fifth-largest settlement in the country, having a greater population than Inverness or Stirling, which both have city status. Paisley forms much of the south-western part of the Greater Glasgow conurbation.