KIRKCUDBRIGHT

KIRKCUDBRIGHT, a county in Scotland, situated between 54° 43' and 55° 19' north latitude, and 3° 33' and 4° 34' west longitude from Greenwich, is bounded on the north by the shires of Dumfries and Ayr; on the east and south by the Solway Frith and the Irish Sea; and on the west by the county of Wigtown. It is in length from east to west about 48 miles, varying in breadth from 30 to 17 miles, and contains 882½ square miles, or 564,480 English

acres. This district is commonly called the Stewartry, not the shire, of Kirkcudbright, and its judge, whose powers and duties are the same as those of a sheriff, is called Steward. The appellation of stewartry had its rise in the ancient tenure by which it was held, and the subsequent forfeiture of its lords; but the distinction between stewartry and sheriffdom is in this case purely nominal. Kirkcudbright is one of the two counties comprehended under the general

name of Galloway; Wigtonshire on the west being the other.

About two-thirds of the surface is mountainous. A range of mountains stretches along the whole northern boundary in the form of a vast amphitheatre, embracing nearly half the county; on the boundary with Ayrshire they are not much inferior in height to any in the south of Scotland. There are also some considerable mountains on the southern extremity, such as Criffel, 1831 feet high; Cairnsmuir, 2597; and Cairnharrow, 1110. The high lands are for the most part covered with heath, except on a part of the northern boundary, where a narrow tract of green hills run out between the shires of Ayr and Dumfries; and many of them are wet and mossy. In the middle of the district, the declivity is so gentle, that the river Dee, at thirty miles from its mouth, is only 150 feet above the level of the sea; yet, even in the interior, there is no great extent of level ground, the greater part of the surface being occupied by rocky knolls, steep banks, and hills of a moderate elevation. On the coast, also, hills rise almost everywhere, to the height of several hundred feet. The district is studded with a great number of lakes, of which there is one or more in almost every parish, though few of them are considerable. As there is little full grown wood, and the plantations are but partial, and for the most part of not many years' growth, the general appearance of the stewartry is that of a bleak exposed country, on which labour has been but recently employed, and where its efforts must always be confined to a comparatively small field. Yet it contains many spots of great natural beauty, particularly on the coast, where the sea in several places has formed deep bays, surrounded with high grounds, some of which are fringed with coppice.

The soil of the lower grounds is, for the most part, of a hazel colour, sometimes inclining to red, and seems to be chiefly composed of argillaceous schistus in a state of decomposition. It is seldom of any great depth, and the rock, often rising above the surface, gives a rugged and sterile appearance to much even of the arable land. This soil is, however, in many instances possessed of great natural fertility, not soon injured by wet seasons, and affords plentiful crops and fine natural herbage. Clay is of no great extent, and found chiefly on the banks of the rivers. The smooth round hills accessible to the plough have, for the most part, a close subsoil, here called till, and do not, therefore, admit of being profitably cultivated but after an interval of several years' pasturage. Tracts of moss, commonly from four to eight feet deep, extend over a tenth or twelfth part of the whole county.

Much of the mountainous district is composed of granite. According to the Agricultural Survey, there are three several districts of this rock, which occupy nearly a fourth of the surface. Strata of very dissimilar substances, to which Dr Hutton has given the general name of schistus, prevail in the lower parts. Some are of a hard compact grain, of a blue or greyish brown colour, for the most part breaking irregularly, but often in parallel plates, of which coarse slates have been made. With these are in-

termixed layers of a soft argillaceous stone, which readily yields to the weather, and is popularly known by the name of slate band. These rocks, which also occupy a large part of the district, are sometimes traversed by dikes of porphyry, and also by granite. In the neighbourhood of Dumfries, the prevailing rock is sandstone. Limestone is found at Kirkbean, on the Nith, the only place in the county where it is wrought; and there are also promising indications of coal on the estate of Arbigland, near Dumfries. In the parish of Colvend, on the Solway Frith, there is a quarry which affords millstones. Lead mines were wrought in Minnigaff, on the western boundary, for many years, but have been discontinued. Iron ore abounds, but, from the want of coal and wood, is of little value. On the estate of Mr Murray of Broughton, near Gatehouse, copper has been lately discovered, and is now working by an English company.

The rivers are the Nith, which separates this county from Dumfries-shire, for about nine miles on the north-east; the Urr, which flows south-east by the village of Dalbeaty, and is navigable five or six miles for small vessels; the Dee, the largest river, which enters Loch Ken, a lake almost in the centre of the county, about eight miles long, and in some places a mile in breadth, and giving its name to the river which issues from the lake, falls into the Solway Frith about five miles below the town of Kirkcudbright. It is navigable for two miles above this town for vessels of 200 tons. In spring tides the water rises about 30 feet at Kirkcudbright, where there is a well-sheltered natural harbour, of easy access. For the last seven or eight miles of its course the banks of the Dee are planted. St Mary's Isle, near Kirkcudbright, is a highly ornamented spot, and the Little Ross, a beautiful island, is situated at its mouth. The salmon fishery on this river was rented, some years ago, at £900. The Fleet is remarkable for the picturesque scenery on its banks, and is navigable for small vessels to the village of Gatehouse, four miles from the sea. The Cree, a more considerable river, separates this county from Wigtonshire, and flows into the bay of Wigton, from whence it is navigable to the small harbour of Cartry, a little below Newton-Stewart. The stewartry is everywhere supplied with pure springs and rivulets. Chalybeate springs are also numerous, one of which, Lochenbreck, in the parish of Balmaghie, seven miles from Gatehouse, is said not to be inferior in medicinal virtues to any in the kingdom.

The landed property is not divided into large Estates. Out of 1043, their number in 1808, as given in the Agricultural Survey, 972 are stated to have been below £500 a year. The valued rent, which was taken in 1642, is £114,637, 2s. Scots; the real rent, in 1808, was estimated at £167,125 Sterling; and in 1813 at upwards of £200,000. Many of the smaller proprietors cultivate their own estates. According to the work just referred to, almost half the county is held under deeds of entail, many of which had been executed very lately. The condition of the peasantry, at a period not very remote, seems to have been much depressed, and the state of husbandry rude and barbarous in

the extreme." (Smith's Survey.) And in both these respects the stewartry is still behind most of the other southern counties of Scotland. Yet it was here that the improvements of modern husbandry were adopted, at a time when they were entirely unknown in the greater part of the kingdom. So early as 1750 Mr Craik of Arbigland practised the drilling and horse-hoeing of the celebrated Tull, which he ever afterwards continued to follow in the culture of beans and turnips. He inclosed and drained his estate, cleaned his fields by fallowing, applied calcareous manures, introduced sown grasses into his course of crops, and worked his plough with two horses. A few of the other proprietors followed in his steps, but their efforts were not seconded by the tenantry at large. It is only since the end of last century that modern husbandry has made any considerable progress, and it is far from being yet general. A regular alternation of what are called white and green crops is not always observed, and turnips are not so extensively cultivated as potatoes, though the latter must always be a very unprofitable crop in a thinly peopled district. The chief crops are oats and barley, with wheat on the better soils. Unlike other hilly tracts in Scotland, the land is almost universally inclosed, chiefly with stone walls, called Galloway Dikes. These dikes are built close, or double, as it is called, for part of their height, and afterwards single, the stones in the latter part being laid in such a manner as to allow the passage of the light through the wall. But it is now becoming a common practice to build the whole of the wall double, and, after laying a course of stones that project a little beyond its breadth on both sides, it is completed by a coping of stones laid on edge and closely pinned.

This county is chiefly celebrated for its cattle, which form by far the most important part of its agricultural produce. They are known in every part of Britain by the name of Galloway cattle. (See Agriculture in this Supplement.) Sheep are confined to the mountainous districts, where they are kept in great numbers. They are of the heath or black-faced variety, with coarse wool, and yield a very small return for the extent of their pastures, which, however, are in general of the very worst description in the south of Scotland, some large tracts being rented so low as 6d. an acre, or even lower. It has not yet become the practice to combine the rearing and fattening of sheep with the culture of arable land, by which the light soils of the other border counties have been rendered so productive. A small, hardy, and active race of horses, called Galloways, was formerly reared here and in Wigtonshire, the other division of Galloway, but a larger breed being required for the labours of modern husbandry, especially since two horse ploughs have become general, the old race is very rarely to be found in a pure state. The name, however, is frequently applied to horses below full size, wherever they are reared.

The first road act for the stewartry of Kirkcudbright was obtained in 1779. At that period there was scarcely any thing that deserved the name of a road, except the military road from Dumfries to

Portpatrick, which had been made about fifteen years before; but at present very few districts are better provided in this respect. The first good roads were made on the estate of the Earl of Selkirk, under the direction of his son Basil William, Lord Daer, to whom this county owes many other improvements. In 1796, by another act of Parliament, the assessments were allowed to be increased and tolls erected, and soon after a new road was made from Dumfries to Castle-Douglas, a distance of nineteen miles, through a hilly broken country, with so much attention to preserve the level, that it has seldom a rise of more than one foot in forty, and much of it is nearly a perfect level. All the principal roads made since have been done with equal judgment. The district is also well accommodated with bridges, of which the most considerable is one over the Dee at Tongland, about two miles above Kirkcudbright, which has an arch of one hundred and ten feet span. It is built of sandstone, brought partly from Annan in Dumfries-shire, and partly from the Isle of Arran, was finished in 1808, and cost upwards of £7000.

Manufactures have made little progress here. Those of soap and leather do not supply the wants of the inhabitants; paper is made at two small mills; and there are four cotton mills at Gatehouse, which have long ago ceased to be in full employment. In some of the towns and villages, a considerable number of weavers are employed by the manufacturers of Glasgow and Carlisle. Its commerce is confined to the export of cattle, sheep, wool, and grain, and the import of lime, coals, groceries, and manufactured goods, with wood from America, and occasionally wood and iron from the Baltic.

Kirkcudbright, the county town, and a royal burgh, contained, in 1811, a population of 2760. It is pleasantly situated on the Dee, and is noted for the information and urbanity of its inhabitants. Societies have been formed here for a purpose rather unusual, namely, the building of houses, not for sale, but for the use of the members who compose them. Every member makes a small monthly payment into a general fund, which is employed in erecting the houses, and these, as they are finished, are assigned to the members by lot, those to whom they fall paying 5 per cent. on the money which their houses have cost, in addition to their monthly payments; and this arrangement continues till all the members be supplied, and the societies dissolved. New Galloway, also a royal burgh, is situated at the head of Loch Ken, and contains only about 650 inhabitants. The principal villages are Creecourt, at the mouth of the river Cree, on the bay of Wigton; Gatehouse, twelve miles east from the former, on the river Fleet; and Castle-Douglas, formerly called Carlinwark, an inland place, about nine miles north-east of Kirkcudbright. The Galloway Bank was established at Castle-Douglas in June 1806. These three villages seem to be in a thriving state; the houses are for the most part of two stories, and, in other respects, they are superior to villages of the same extent in many other parts of Scotland. The others are Dalbeatty on the river Urr; Keltonhill, noted for its great cattle fairs

in June and November; and Maxwellton, on the Nith, which, though in this county, belongs by its situation to the town of Dumfries, from which it is separated only by the bridge over that river.

There are no regular assessments for the poor in the country parishes, but the ordinary kirk-session funds have been much augmented in some parishes, by charitable donations. Several sums have been also destined by individuals to the support of schools, particularly in the parishes of Borgue, Balmacellan, and Dalry.

The stewarty sends one member to Parliament, who is chosen by about one hundred and forty freeholders. In the elections for the burghs, Kirkeudbright joins with Dumfries, Sanquhar, Annan, and

Lochmaben; and New Galloway with Stranraer, Wigtown, and Whithorn. It is divided into twenty-eight parishes, of which sixteen belong to the presbytery of Kirkeudbright, and two to that of Wigtown, both in the synod of Galloway, and ten parishes to the presbytery and synod of Dumfries. An abstract of the census of 1800 and 1811 is given in Population. the annexed tables.

See Beauties of Scotland, Vol. IV. which contains some notices of the history, and a pretty full account of the antiquities of this county; Smith's General View of the Agriculture of Galloway, 1810; The General Report of Scotland; and Playfair's Account of Scotland, Vol. I. (A.)