dumfries-1920/04-019

Transcription

INTRODUCTION
TO
INVENTORY OF ANCIENT AND HISTORICAL MONUMENTS
AND CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE COUNTY OF DUMFRIES

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

I.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.

DUMFRIESSHIRE is virtually the West March ¹ of old Border days, Galloway proper
being an outlying district in history as in geography. Its northern region is part
of the Silurian upland of southern Scotland, and is deeply trenched on the west
side by the valley of the Nith, which valley also marks a division between the
more monotonous high land to the east and the massive and boldly outlined
hills of Galloway. On the east side, too, a mountainous country extends between
the basins of the Esk and the Teviot. Southwards, towards England, Dumfries-
shire inclines first to a gently undulating country and then to a great flat, which,
along the shores of the Solway, offers a "Merse" or marshy tract, a mere fringe
of waste, however, in comparison with its nominal counterpart in Berwickshire.
Superficially, indeed, these two counties have much in common. Both pass
without serious obstruction into the north of England plain on either side of the
Pennine range. Both offer an open road round an extremity of the Cheviots, which
so effectually cover the intermediate shire of Roxburgh. But the western gate, if
flatter than the eastern, is also narrower. On the other hand, the lower Esk was an
even less serious obstacle then the Tweed. It offered no difficulties of fording. In
1745 the Jacobite army in its retreat from England passed across this river in a
column one hundred men broad, when "the water was big and took most of the men
breast-high." ² At low tide on the Solway there were crossings also far down the
channel of the river, where it is subject to overflow by the water of the firth, one
below the town of Annan to Bowness in Cumberland - where a railway line is now
carried over to the southern shore - and another from Dornock to Drumburgh. The
latter was known as the "Sandywathe," ³ while the regular ford on the Esk, the nearest
to the mouth and on that account the most important of the river fords, was of old

1 Ewesdale and even Eskdale are sometimes referred to as in the Middle march. Cf. Maxwell's
Dumfries and Galloway, p. 158.
2 Lord G. Murray's Journal.
3 Chronicon de Lanercost, Bann. Club, p. 272.

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