"Whenever I think of Paradise, to this day my mind runs . . on a clear stream birgling among trees of birk and ash that cower in the hollow of the glen from the South West wind." S. R. Crockett
This immemorial kingdom of Galloway (comprising the shires of Kirkcudbright and Wigtown,) is at heart as unknown almost as the wilds of Sutherland and Caithness. But no part of Scotland, scarcely, has flamed more fiercely in the pages of literature than this country of the Covenanters, of the smugglers and the raiders, and of age-long Border feud and strife, and it has received the homage of Scott, Burns, Stevenson and Crockett, who has rightly regarded it his province.
On first glimpsing Galloway the appeal is clearly “Hills and the Sea.” There is a refreshing, delightfully quiet coast – with coves and bays – that becomes superb with cliffs-scenes towards the Mull of Galloway. And there are a mountain hinterland to the wildest and most sterile solitude, gentler hills, enchanting lochs and streams and glens, vales of friendly woods and fields and marshes where the sea-pinks blow.
A quaint phrase connotes the extent of Galloway as –
“Fra the Brig en’ o’ Dumfries to the Braes o’ Glenapp.”And at all events the historic, royal burgh of Dumfries is on the threshold of Galloway. By the banks of the Nith winds a lovely walk that is said to have inspired “Tom o’ Shanter.” And over the same river is the 13th century bridge – linking Dumfires with Maxwelltown (not the subject of the immortal song) – built by the Lady Devorgilla (heiress of the Lords of Galloway) who founded Sweetheart Abbey, and also Balliol College, Oxford. A touching story tells of the abbey of red sandstone lying in the shadow of the isolated granite hill of Criffel and how it derived its name. When John Balliol died his widow Devorgilla had his heart embalmed and enclosed in a casket of silver and ivory, which was never to leave her side. At her own death the casket was placed upon her breast in the grave that the monks made for her before the high altar of the abbey – the abbey of “Sweet Heart.”
Through a wide sweep of fresh, open country – with the smell of the sea over it – and undulating to smooth, green or brown hills, where sheep browse – one’s impressions of Galloway begin to take shape, the pleasanter for one’s lighting upon such places as Dalbeattie with its handy, coastal haunts like Kippford, Rockcliffe and Colvend. Castle Douglas, too, the principal market-town of Galloway, into which the mountain shepherds for miles around bring their flocks to the great sheep fairs, is interesting and inviting. It looks out over Carlingwark Loch, placid and island-studded, and not far away on an island in the Dee stands the ruin of Threave Castle. North-ward sweeps the Ken Valley, but before one explores its various beauty some time must be spent in the old-fashioned town of Kirkcudbright at the estuary of the Dee, which overlooks an attractive bay, cliff-grit and sprinkled with islands, with woods reaching to the water’s edge. Behind, rise fields and wooded slopes to higher hills. There is something of the fishing-place atmosphere about it, and artists delight in capturing the subtle and changing tones around the bay. On St Mary’s Isle is the old home of the Earls of Selkirk, where Burns composed the laconic “Selkirk Grace.” An old Tolbooth in the main street is a grim reminder of the medieval days, and the roofless shell of M’Lellans castle rises above the Dee. An exhilarating walk along the cliff eastwards leads to bonny Auchencairn. Only a mile or two from the coast lies Dundrennan Abbey where the Queen of Scots spent her last night before sailing across the Solway to England.
On a day of wild squall and scudding, sunshot cloud, one feels the true spirit of the gaunt, surf-slashed cliffs, of the mysterious Barlocco caves, of Heston Island that Crockett made the “Isle Rathan” of “The Raiders,” of the Rocks of Ross with lighthouse guarding the Solway, of Dirk Hatteraick’s Cove, and of the screaming gulls over the marshes. And the Bay of Auchencairn itself, shadowed by Bengairn (1150 feet) is an unsuspected gem.
Westwards from Kirkcudbright runs that magnificent coastal road through Gatehouse of Fleet to Creetown – here sweeping through luxuriant glades with furtive vistas of the sea – there under shaggy hillsides, gorse and bracken-clad, and anon full open to the bay with views over the Solway, out to the Isle of Man and towards Mull.
From Creetown the road heads inland to Newton Stewart, the finest centre for the Galloway Hills. Whichever way is chosen leads in time to the solitudes and the wilds. The landscape is austere rather than beautiful, but romantic. The huge creatures hinted at from afar as hidden in darkness and shadow or in kindlier moments streaming out of blue and gold, are beheld as a stern reality. Glens break into them and foaming streams hurl torrents – such as the Grey Mare’s Tail – over rocks. Lochs lie in the hollows. Heather, grass, and bracken in parts relieve the naked stone. At the head of Bargally Glen stands an obelisk in memory of Alexander Murray, the shepherd land of Dunkitterick, who made an astounding mastery of several languages and became Professor of Oriental Languages in Edinburgh University. Through such country – the old Drove Road way – with views of Cairnsmore of Fleet and Cairnsmore of Dee – we come to Clatteringshaws, whence the outlook is dominated by an immense dam that supplies the whole of Galloway with electric power.
At New Galloway the valley of the Ken unfolds. Its lower reaches are remarkably enhanced by Loch Ken, affording fresh vistas at every turn, with Kenmure Castle, seat of the Lords of Galloway, in a beautiful setting, and beyond, the charming spots around Balmaclellan, Lochinvar and Dalry to the Glenkens, where burns break in from the Rhinns of Kells. Higher, cliffs and deep ravines, old mills and bridges and rustic cottages, lend variety to the river’s course.
The Water of Doon (from Loch Doon) unfolds its scenic treasures and at Carsphairn the atmosphere reverts to one of mountain and moor. The bleak, boulder-strewn summit of Cairnsmore – of Carsphairn (2612 feet, highest of the three) looks northward into Ayshire – alluring – if the mists keep off – and so one might drop over to Sanquhar and Moniave and make a slight detour to see Irongray churchyard where Helen Walker, the prototype of “Jennie Deans” of “Heart of Midlothian” is buried; the Benedictine Abbey of Lincluden, and the actual “Maxwlltown Braes” in Glencairn.
Around Carsphairn, the moors and fells roll in unbroken rhythm, wide open to the sky, and it is here that one falls under the real spell of the Galloway Hills. Back yonder, haunt of the mists and the shadows, rise some old rugged humps, set and solemn like spirits of the hills in conclave. Mystery lurks behind them and a gleam of light straying from the cloud but deepens it.
Villages are left, and even hamlets. One has discovered a kingdom utterly removed from the everyday world – in reality, the Kells. Its people are the shepherd-folk, rugged as the hills their sheep graze upon, but kindly-natured (if reticent), warm-hearted and innately courteous. Their homes lie deep in the mountain glens; low, white steadings or shielings with a solitary, walled, green plot – and somewhere near – a cow, and maybe a pony, and always a peat stack or two. There are mountain homes still miles from neighbours and out of reach by ordinary roads. Shadowing the wee hoose are Corserine and Millfire – hills akin to the Cheviots – with Loch Dungeon below them. And the weird, grey, boulder-strewn waste it looks our on – the watershed of the Dee and Doon – part of the old Forest of Buchan – is as desolate as the Isle of Skye. In keeping with the spirit of the place are the Black Water of Dee, the Lochs of the Dungeon, Nick or Cauldron of the Dungeon, Mulwharchar, “Hill of the Hunting Horn,” where the wild deer may still be spied; the Dow Spout of Craignaw, the “Wolf’s Slock,” the “Murder Hole” and the Merrick, the “Fingers of the Awful Hand.”
The way up to the Merrick is through the Nick and over the ridge to Loch Enoch. Loch Enoch is a solitary study in grey, particularly impressive when mists swathe but not obliterate the granite screes and the scattered granite boulders, and a thin rain stirs the sunless waters and patters eerily on the sandy shores.
The Merrick is distinguished as the highest hill (2764 feet) in Galloway and the highest on the Scottish Mainland, south of the Grampians, and looks out over its satellites and Kirkcudbright and Wigtown Bays, across the Solway, to the peaks of Arran and over to the Isle of Man and Ireland. Glen Trool may be reached along the mountain spurs overlooking Loch Neldricken (with dried-up pool, the “Murder Hole”), Loch Valley and Loch Dee, or by descending the saddle on to Benyellary and down to the shepherd’s cottage at Culsharg, whence a rocky path skirts the Buchan Burn into the glen.
In amazing contrast with the scene on the far side of the Merrick, a smiling loch with wooded islands lies like a jewel in the girdle of hills. At the finest coign of vantage stands the rough-hewn granite memorial to Robert the Bruce, King of Scots.
From the foot of Glen Trool a moorland road runs northward by the Water of Minnoch into Ayrshire. Through the flatter country of Carrick various ways lead to the coast, between Girvan and Ballantrae, where the bay receives the streams from the lovely valleys of the Stinchar and Glen App. But the Cree gives access to the moors of “The Shire” – peat-mosses for the most part, sprinkled with lochs, perfumed with bog-myrtle and threaded by old drove-tracks and with frequent traces of primitive man and with the inevitable “Covenanting stones.”
On a hillside, overlooking a bay, stands Wigtown itself, a quiet, clean and airy place that once had a busy harbour.
Across the Machars –farming flat-lands washed by the sea – a glimpse is afforded of Whithorn and the sacred Isle of Whithorn, where St Ninian built his little stone church, the “White House.” Beyond Burrow Head – conspicuous over a good part of the coast – and at the edge of the Sands of Luce, is Glenluce and its Cistercian abbey. A short neck of land forms a link with Stranraer, a historic and busy poet which serves as the market for the extensive dairy-farming districts of Wigtownshire.
Westwards, still, stretches the long peninsula – the “Rhinns of Galloway” – almost a detached kingdom, like an island. Its seascape is eloquently expressed around Portpatrick, where jagged cliffs and rocks and coves conjure up stirring scenes of a picturesque past. Here on Galloway’s most southerly outpost, one might, if not too unimaginative, catch subtly something of the delicious aroma in the wind and the waves.