Wanlockhead is a village first mentioned in Dorothy Wordsworth's writing as she ecounters some children from the town, who she notes are barefoot but educated. After the children depart, the party soon comes across another child, who seemed malnourished and sick with "the itch." Wordsworth uses this child as an example of, "proof that there was poverty and wretchedness among these people, though we saw no other symptom of it." At the time, Wanlockhead was a minig town, which Wordsworth and her group remark on after seeing a large machine that hauled water out of the mines. In their usual condescending fashion, they adorn the village with descriptions such as "with some faculty of intellect," and even compare it to a "a giant with one idea."

       
Likely the machine Wordsworth encountered.

Today, Wanlockhead's claim to fame is the fact that it is "Scotland's highest village," as her days of mining wrapped up in the 1930's. These days, tourism is the main source of revenue for this town.