Wigtownshire


Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-west Scotland. It is popularly known as and referred to as The Shire. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was one of the administrative counties used for local government purposes, and is now administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway. As a lieutenancy area, Wigtownshire has its own Lord Lieutenant, currently John Alexander Ross. In the 19th century, it was also called West Galloway. The county town was historically Wigtown, with the administrative centre moving to Stranraer, the largest town, on the creation of a county council in 1890.

Geography

Wigtownshire borders the Irish Sea to the west, the Solway Firth to the south, Ayrshire to the north, and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright to the east. Across the sea to the west lies Northern Ireland and to the south the Isle of Man, both of which can be readily seen on a clear day. Together the Stewartry and Wigtownshire are referred to as Galloway. The county is largely flat, with some low hills in the north, with Craigairie Fell being the county's tallest peak at a modest 322 m. The western 'hammer-head' peninsula of Wigtownshire is known as Rhinns of Galloway, and is split from the 'mainland' by Loch Ryan in the north and Luce Bay in the south; its northern tip is Milleur Point and its southern the Mull of Galloway, which is also the southern-most point in Scotland. Across Luce Bay lies the Machars peninsula, a roughly triangular-shaped land of low hills, separated from Kidcudbrightshire by Wigtown Bay, and culminating in Burrow Head. Machars contains a number of small lochs in its north, notably Dernaglar Loch, Whitefield Loch, Castle Loch and Mochrum Loch. The Scares, a group of very small rock-islands, lie in Luce Bay.

Transport

Major road links to the area comprise the A77 to the north, and A75 to the east. The European route E18 starts in Northern Ireland and runs from Stranraer, Wigtownshire – Gretna – Carlisle to Newcastle. It then re-joins at Norway, goes through Sweden, Finland and ends at Saint Petersburg, Russia. Like all European routes, it is not signposted as such in the United Kingdom. The European Union is partly financing "The Stranraer and Loch Ryan Waterfront Project", at Inch.

Ferries

The port at Cairnryan is Scotland's main embarkation point for ferries to Northern Ireland, with regular crossings to Larne and the Port of Belfast. These services formerly left from Stranraer.

Railways

connects the Glasgow South Western Line to Ayr, and Glasgow Central as well as, and for the West Coast Main Line to, and London Euston.
The Beeching cuts cut off the Castle Douglas and Dumfries Railway and Portpatrick Railway in 1965 resulting in an adverse mileage increase via the Glasgow South Western Line to reach Stranraer from Carlisle and the West Coast Main Line.

Proposed Irish Sea bridge

Wigtownshire has been one of the mooted location for a proposed bridge or tunnel linking Britain and Ireland. A 2010 report by the Centre for Cross Border Studies estimated building a bridge from Galloway to Ulster would cost just under £20.5 billion.

History

The 11th-century ex-King of Dublin and Mann, Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, had the title Rex Innarenn, "King of the Rhinns", attributed to him on his death in 1065 AD. The western sections of Galloway had been firmly aligned with the Isle of Man, and Norse and Gaelic-Norse settlement names from the 10th and 11th centuries are spread all along the coastal lands of south-western Scotland.
Most of Wigtownshire was still Gaelic-speaking at the beginning of the 16th century.

Archaeology

In 2012 the University of Glasgow led a community archaeology project in Inch, between Stranraer and Cairnryan, including a geophysical survey of the area to the north of the motte at Innermessan. It is a site with a very long history – from the early mesolithic, about 10,000 years ago, to a medieval town, now disappeared, which in its time was more important than Stranraer.
An unnamed detectorist found a gold lunula in a cultivated field near Garlieston, Sorbie in March 2011, the first Scottish gold lunula found in over 100 years. The lunula is a flat, crescent-shaped neck ornament thought to date from around 2300 – 2200 BC, and described by some archaeologists as a symbol of power. The gold sheet, probably hammered out from a bar, is very thin and decorated around its edges with incised and punched zigzags, lines and dots. It had been cut up and folded, and the two pieces do not join; together they amount to just under a third of the original collar. Initial surface analysis has shown that the metal contains 11% silver and 0.5% copper. Further analysis may indicate whether the lunula had been made of Irish or Scottish gold. Staff of Stranraer Museum and the Wigtownshire branch of the University of the Third Age walked the field looking for artefacts. Test pits were dug and Historic Scotland commissioned a geophysical survey. No more metalwork was found, nor any evidence for why the lunula might have been buried there.
From Glenluce Sands there have been recovered "more objects of antiquity than from any area of similar extent in Scotland". The relics range from neolithic to mediaeval times.
The fields between the mound and Dunragit village and Droughduil Mote, Old Luce, Wigtownshire, contain "one of the most important Stone Age sites in Scotland". Aerial photography and archaeological excavation of the henge has revealed the remains of three massive concentric timber circles; the outer circle was in diameter, almost six times the size of Stonehenge. Built c.2500 BC, this huge monument was a ceremonial centre and a meeting place for south-west Scotland's early farming communities. Funding for the dig was provided by Historic Scotland and the University of Southampton. The staff at Stranraer Museum assisted with computing and communications facilities and access to collections.

Civil parishes

Wigtownshire is divided into 16 civil parishes.