1 10 6 https://glenkensarchive.scot/glenkens_archive/files/original/4/473/GG_Bk_6_Ken_Words_single_page_AW.pdf eb64859abda5b35af0d9bc6eb64b92ee Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 6 - Ken Words Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Booklets Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available GGLP Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Ken Words an anthology of writings curated and edited by Jane McBeth Galloway Glens Address 5 St Andrew Street Castle Douglas Dumfries & Galloway DG7 1DE Website https://gallowayglens.org Social Media @gallowayglens ISBN 978-1-7395875-3-6 published April 2023, by Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart edited and curated by Jane McBeth text © individual contributors graphics © Martha Schofield Design https://marthaschofield.co.uk The Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme: 2018 - 2023 2 The Galloway Glens Scheme focused on the Ken/Dee river catchment in South West Scotland, flowing from source in the Galloway Hills to the Solway, including the settlements of Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright. The Galloway Glens Scheme was an initiative of Dumfries & Galloway Council’s Environment Team and ran from 2018 to 2023, aiming to ‘connect people to our heritage’ while boosting the local economy and supporting sustainable communities. Primarily funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the scheme worked with a range of partners and was supported by the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere. One of the projects facilitated through the Galloway Glens Scheme was ‘Ken Words’ – a community-based writing initiative, match-funded by Creative Scotland through Glenkens Community & Arts Trust (GCAT) and by CatStrand. Between 2018 and 2022, the volunteer steering group – Angus Macmillan, Laura Rimmer, and convenor Andrew Mellor – and part-time Project Coordinator, Jane McBeth, evolved the project to offer regular Writers’ Cafés, Word Ceilidhs and Poetry Walks with accompanying writing workshops – settings in which many folk have been able to develop their writing, engage imaginatively with the landscape, and benefit from the hospitality and good company they found in Ken Words’ midst. Their monthly Writers’ Café continues to be held in the CatStrand café and anyone with an interest in writing is welcome. From their Poetry Walks have come four beautiful exhibitions, sharing their work with the wider local community, and now, within this Galloway Glens booklet, an anthology of writings by participants in the project. We hope you enjoy reading their work. Galloway Glens Area Map ii 4 contents Foreword ................................................................................. p.1 Anthology ........................................................................ p.2 – 43 Writers' Cafés .................................................... p.3 – 16 Word Ceilidhs .................................................. p.17 – 22 Poetry Walks / Writing Workshops .......... p.23 – 42 Afterword ............................................................................. p.44 Writing Prompts .......................................................... p.45 – 47 Notes ............................................................................. p.48 – 49 Contributors & Thanks ..................................................... p.50 Photos by John Smith, Andrew Mellor and Jane McBeth Galloway Glens / Ken Words / An Anthology of Writings foreword Like a handful of river pebbles, gleaming wet, the writings collected here are but a small selection from the literally hundreds of pieces of original material that have come through Ken Words Writers’ Cafés and Word Ceilidhs; from the many lines that have come about only because of Poetry Walks, their accompanying writing workshops, and ensuing exhibitions. Many currents have run through the years 2018 – 2022, from which this anthology draws, and some of these are mentioned in poems or the passages written by contributors to accompany their original work. Together, the writings speak from this place and time, of all that our imaginations can meet, and make, of the world when we pay close attention to it and our experience of it. When we let ourselves be here, now – watching the river . . . Jane McBeth Ken Words Project Coordinator, 2018 – 2022 jane.kenwords@gmail.com 1 If you wish to speak to the waters in the river . . . an anthology of writings from Ken Words Writers’ Cafés, Word Ceilidhs and Poetry Walks You can say anything to water. It listens better, Closer to you than you are yourself. A word can begin Its travels on the pool, can carry on to the river from ‘Writing on Water at Hart Fell Spa’ by Valerie Gillies 2 Galloway Glens / Ken Words / An Anthology of Writings / Writers' Cafés January A night when the air tears the corners of the sky. Clouds shred like tissue. February Fat, yellow moon sits, Held in the grasp of a beech Before floating free. March Snowdrops linger, still, among the mossy roots of beech and wild garlic. April Brilliant light sun warm air. Shadows of dykes underline the fields. 3 May Rain. Rain that drips from shining leaves. Rain that blackens branches, earth and sky. September Brambles droop from the hedge. Black pearls of shining damp clustered together. June The warm night air hums with potential mysteries unsolved by dawn light. October Skybright light over green moors. Under beech trees grass littered with leaf-fall. July Swifts surf the rooftops in the early morning. In the eaves, sparrows. August Warm wet sticky mud clings to the footpath as if nowhere else to go. November Raw, icy sharp wind slices the sunlight into shafts of brittle white. December Sparrowhawk sliding through the beech wood; flickers in and out of sunlight. As I was starting to re-invigorate my efforts at writing, I hit upon the idea of writing a haiku/short poem on a daily basis. I knew this would produce some dross but hoped that something useful and satisfactory would come out of the process. Herewith a selection from the 365! You judge. Writers Cafés and Poetry Walks have been an inspirational part of my writing and the interchanges between participants had a seminal effect on the production of my haiku poem sequence and poetry-writing. CatStrand proved to be a venue that allowed me time and space to struggle with the numerous sheets of paper that ended up in the rubbish bin before a satisfactory result came about. The discussions and suggestions that arose from talking to other writers there helped me to persist in seeking the form I was searching for. In this, Jane has been critically important in helping me find and develop that form, and the results I have achieved are largely due to her tolerance of my questions and patient, critical acceptance of my efforts. Ken Words has been such a kick-starter for my writing that it is gratifying to believe one of the results may become a part of a ‘Galloway Glens’ legacy. John Priestley 4 Jar of Jam Opening a tight lid on a new jar of jam there is often a breath, inward or outward I do not know. It is the first breath in which all our breaths are to be found and which we will meet again, when we go. 5 Sometimes an image lodges in your mind apparently from nowhere. What you do with it is up to you. For over thirty-five years I was a member Parish Priest in the Anglican Church. Life and death came together — I remember visiting for the funeral of a child in one house and then later, further along the street, visiting for a baptism. And at any funeral, a child’s cry can unite a whole congregation in a common humanity. Finding a way of putting this understanding into words by focusing with a poem came as a gift. Whether I had just opened a jar I cannot remember but I became aware of the memory of the sound of the rush of air when a new and tightly-lidded jar is opened. Often there has been a struggle and then comes a sense of release as the lid is freed from its mooring. What has contained us all these years of our living? Could it be as simple as a single breath? When we meet ourselves as we truly are, who will be there to greet us? Could it be something as simple and trusting as a breath? Don’t worry about the kind of jam it is; the jam is immaterial. The sound is focal. I hope reading the poem encourages the kind of trust that is about ‘jam today’. Roland Parker 6 Illogical ramblings She keeps writing back do you think she likes me we’re completely out of size 12 I open the book the pages are blank my mind is elsewhere… as an after-thought try the appendices Sanity is all relative Einstein obviously had a problem The sky is always overcast I was going to sell the sunglasses then the moon rose… Sitting here waiting… three thoughts arrive at the same time … did you see, the lines are getting longer k n i c k e r e l a s t i The flow of the river has slowed perhaps I should go down to the doc c On the road to recovery sat-nav is useless I'm going round the bend recovery isn't a real place after all and I thought it was in Michigan I can't stop doing this maybe there's a job at The Mirror 7 This brief collection has the title ‘Illogical Ramblings’ – you might well ask what’s different from normal… Well, our mutual good friend Jane McBeth loaned me a copy of 'Braided Creek' by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison. It’s a collection of 300 short poems exchanged between the two authors over many years. I loved the humour of the observations and read the book from cover to cover in one afternoon… The title 'Braided Creek' perfectly captures the nature of the contents – up a creek… and follows many strands of thought connected with life and location. Reading it in one go is quite a shock to the system and I found myself rambling illogically afterwards. In response, Angus Macmillan commented, ‘I’m a great fan of illogicality myself, and I think it’s key to having a poetic mind, which takes you away from the mundane both in perception and in the writing of it.’ John Smith 8 The sun may yet shine! A Side Order of Doggerel If, as ever, Robert’s right, Then in this process I, too, may write And that same sun which shone on him May light on me To help me strive to play. for the re-opening of The Writers’ Café at CatStrand 12 August 2021 Note: Just weeks before he died Burns was at the Ruthwell home of the founder of the Trustee Savings Bank, and Mrs Duncan went to draw a curtain so as to keep the sun out of the poet’s eyes and he gently asked her to let the sun shine on him still a little longer. That was the starting point for my thinking about Robert Burns and his place in so many people’s lives and his place across so many years of sunshine. 9 I came to write And share the buzz That feeds all busy bees Like us! I’m just so busy, Just so tired It’s hard to know If I’m inspired Or not? To write What walks into my head — Just tosh and rot! No matter what I’m here Again to say It’s time to write On every day! Our happy band of Café writers and would-be writers first gathered together about five years ago under Jane’s innovative and imaginative leadership. In an introductory Café workshop at CatStrand, the poet Tom Pow gently encouraged us to respond to an exhibition of photographs by Allan Wright by creating our own special places in words. At the subsequent first Writers’ Café, I shared conversations with others about how Robert Burns, on jumping out of the boat that brought him to The Holm by Balmaclellan, had declared ‘This place would make a blockhead into a poet.’ In time, Covid and lockdown and other life events made it necessary to find other ways of meeting and sharing our written words. By various electronic means we managed it somehow and so when the in-person Café started up again in summer 2021, I wrote my side order of doggerel. Why? Because for me writing from the head and heart (and perhaps many other places too) is essentially a form of playing first begun in my childhood especially with rhythmic and essentially ‘delicious’ words. And I am still that child in a world where there is still so much to marvel at. Alison Chapman 10 Gifts The glint of the sun on the water The silvered swans the loch The lap of the waves on the shoreline And willows' whispering sough The dancing of ozone-charged atoms Alive in the thunderous force The clouds of white blossom petals As the waning storm runs its course The desolate cry of the seagulls Far inland from harbour or sea The rippling wind through the grasses And the change of light on the lea The abacus of starlings Like beads on the overhead wires A loud iridescent gathering A chirping and chattering choir The sudden loud hiss of the rain From the umber and purple clouds The air charged with hair-raising tingle And the thunderclap long and loud The glint on the aureate water The lowering sun on the loch The liquid gold on the shoreline And the willows' whispering sough 11 During lockdown, I joined the online ‘home’ version of the Writers’ Café, receiving a very warm welcome there. I then began to write more than I had ever done, carrying a notebook with me on my walks. ‘Gifts’ took form during such walks beside Carlingwark Loch, where I found a renewed appreciation of the restorative power of nature. Writing there brought me closer to the everchanging moods of water, weather, and skies, and I have tried to capture these moods in the poem. It was aired at a Café in March 2021 before being recorded for the CatStrand ArtsCast as a Ken Words ‘Paired Reading’, partnered with a fellow Café attendee. It then found its way into a book called 'The Great Scottish Canvas', instigated by the World Wildlife Fund who asked the Scottish People to respond, through art and poetry, to the current climate and nature emergencies. The book was used to stimulate discussion amongst delegates and attendees at the COP 26 climate negotiations in Glasgow. There was a concurrent exhibition of the contents, which remains online till September 2024. wwf.org.uk/updates/great-scottish-canvas Had I not joined the Writers’ Café, I don’t think I would have written this poem. Nowadays, my notebook still goes with me! Betty Craig 12 Wind harp White-boned, flayed by the long sea a driftwood log lies stranded high on the litter-strewn tide. Two vestigial limbs reach skyward stiff in rigor mortis, a tortured supplication. It doesn’t look much – I’ve passed without a second glance many times. Now some spark – a young guitarist perhaps – has strung the bark-stripped arms like a harp: diagonal strings, top to bottom, rusty-nailed to scourged wood, tuned to the elements. 13 I watch as the green wind hears the call, curious, comes to investigate. Circling left at first, then right, her long fingers unfurl and begin to play, caressing, lingering ripples and rills, seeking the angel touch. The sound to me of her song by the stones and sea: it’s enough to bring God home back home to these stained shores. ‘Wind harp’ is set in the South Machars, at the end of the Whithorn pilgrim way on the shore by St Ninian’s cave. It’s where I live - a beautiful, austere and peaceful place, rich in spiritual history both Christian and Pagan - the green wind in the poem is clearly a nature elemental. I think of ‘Wind harp’ as being set roughly around Easter, or the beginning of Spring. I enjoyed bringing the poem, set as it is on a lonely shore by the Irish sea inhabited by seals, driftwood and peregrines, up into the Galloway hills and the Writer’s Café, a very different environment, for comment. I think it survived the encounter! At the time I was new to Dumfries & Galloway, seeking the stimulation of like-minded poets and quite prepared to take the time to travel long distances to meet them. In the end, I helped develop a poetry circle closer to home in Wigtown. But I’ve still managed to maintain connection with some of those poets I met up at the Writer’s Café - poetry has, and must have, no borders, artistic or geographic. Mark Thomas 14 Vespers Why do we want to hold them close before they sleep? What is this vespers we feel we have to keep? Each night we watch them go into a forest where we cannot follow, each night a dry run for the day they try the wide world on for size, and step down off the pavement, while we stand and cover up our eyes. When they disappear through that dark door we kind of pray, because we kind of know that it's a kind of going away. And all that we can do is weave a love and wrap it round them, hoping it's enough. 15 That love’s the ball of yarn that Ariadne gave to Theseus outside the labyrinth, which brought him back out, blinking, under blinding Cretan skies. She couldn’t follow where he went holding on was all that she could do. And so must you. Hear them laughing down the bannister, lithe otters waking into morning’s cold bright stream, then surfacing and shaking off a silver spray of dreams already fading from the night before, and leaving river mud, in paw prints all along the kitchen floor. Putting my daughters to bed had always felt significant, and this poem attempts to consider why. It originally began with a section describing my own experiences growing up, but at the Writers’ Café, Jane (correctly) suggested that it might work better as two poems. I am aware of my tendency to explain, to make sure the reader gets the clever point I’m making, but advice from Café readers encouraged me to reduce the nervous t-crossing and i-dotting. This, the original second half, has had a further eight-line section ruthlessly excised, but I’m getting over it. OK, kill your darlings - but the otters stay. Word Ceilidhs provided invaluable experience in reading the poems to an audience. Specifically, as a person who stammers, they reinforced my fragile confidence that I could do this at all. The importance to me of such positive experiences cannot be overstated. They also helped me consider how much contextualisation a poem requires. And the answer is, I hope, not much. So, I’ll sit down now - the poem would like a word with you. John McIntosh 16 Galloway Glens / Ken Words / An Anthology of Writings / Word Ceilidhs The Writer The old wooden observatory sits alone at the far end of the garden. Unseen clouds scud overhead. The chill, moonless night means the clouds are only defined by the lack of stars. In a moving skyscape, stars become visible and are again lost behind the patches of impenetrable dark. Suddenly a flash. A shooting star, but all too brief; others would remain unseen. On the lawn beside the observatory waits an old wooden deck chair with stripes; and beside it a small telescope on its tripod. The chill of a winter night dispels any hope of warmth. Terry walks slowly down the garden towards his viewing chair, his carer supporting one arm and his wife the other. They seat him gently in the chair one checking his fingerless gloves and the other his woolly hat. One of them wraps him carefully in a blanket, leaving his arms outside but tucking it up under his white beard, whilst the other places a head torch around his hat and switches it on to a red glow. One of them places a sketch pad in his left hand and a pencil in his right, while the other one places a gentle kiss on his cheek. They leave him to walk back to the house. “Enjoy the meteor shower, Terry.’’ The words drift away on the breeze. No reply is expected from the empty shell where Terry used to be. The great writer, who can no longer write, is now alone; sitting beside his much-loved telescope that he no longer remembers how to use. The two women take turns watching over him from an upstairs darkened window. Time passes. Eventually they return, turn off his torch and remove the blanket. “Time to go in now.” They 17 gently encourage him to stand and his body complies, except for his head which twists to look skyward. No-one sees the marks on the pad. Seven small spots in the shape of a saucepan and several straight lines, pointing to a spot just below it. The pad and pencil fall to the damp grass, unnoticed. They reach the door; Terry’s head lowers, no longer looking upwards. More clouds gather overhead and the stars go out, one by one. I came late to writing fiction. Already past sixty, I woke one morning with a complete story in my head and it continued from there with no active decision by me. My style has developed to write, with empathy, about people with differences and very much using 'show don’t tell'. My chosen style can perhaps best be described as 'pathos' and it has been encouraged by those who attend the Writers' Café. This story was inspired by reading a short article about Terry Pratchett, his love of astronomy and his battles with dementia. This story is not about him, but is the result of me thinking, 'I wonder...' Previously, if I was to read a piece aloud, I would practise enough times to be able to get through it without the emotion of the tale getting to me. However, when I was to read this piece at a Word Ceilidh (amongst friends), I practised it only a couple of times so that my own emotions would still show when I read it. I choked a little and the audience generally agreed that this added to the drama of the piece. Paul Goodwin 18 The Lime Tree last night I dreamt the plants in your house had died and the lime tree you keep inside the porch had curled in on itself like the hand of a corpse this morning I woke to the scent of lime sweetening the air the leaves green and glossy the fruit plump and sticky but when I turned to tell you there were dust motes in your place suspended in the sunlight as your papery hand briefly cupped my face 19 I was actually keeping a lime tree in my own porch when I wrote this, and was amazed at how well it thrived here. The ‘papery hand’ of the poem belongs to my mum, who died some years ago but whose presence I still sometimes feel. When I read the poem at one of our first Word Ceilidhs, I had next to no experience of reading my work aloud to a group and I found the prospect daunting and very nearly didn't turn up. But I’m glad I did. The feedback I received on the night helped me rid the poem of a redundant word here and an awkward line there; but moreover the warm response to my reading gave me the confidence to be able to do it again - without my knees shaking or feeling as much stomach-churning apprehension as that first time. I have gone on to share my work at other public readings and I remember on the drive home from the Southlight magazine launch event at BigLit (Gatehouse of Fleet), the elation I felt at having been able to achieve this. I revisited this poem recently and brought it along to a Writers’ Café, with a few ideas as to how it might be improved. I was (pleasantly) surprised when all of my suggested revisions were tactfully dismissed. I had overthought it. At the same time, another Cafégoer made a suggestion (a rearrangement of words within a sentence) which, years on from its first airing, improved the poem no end. Laura Rimmer 20 Three Winters a story a back-end sun beech leaves making way for distance I the crow moves along its branch to the end with less rain— who keeps an eye on who all through the winter II this winter last winter’s same two crows more familiar— who knows, these dark days, how we are, my dear 21 III always, the two crows keep an eye on each other, and the magpie will be seen off the branch, again not to keep sorrow from my door, but it is winter, and in the cold hope is made simple, primal winter morning an unseen song that sounds like spring Making a story by sequencing poems was prompted by a Ken Words ‘Story Ceilidh’ session, although our stories – the crows’ and mine – had been mingling for some time, since I first really noticed them as a presiding pair in the vicinity of the house. Over the years, the pair became familiar to regular Writers’ Café-goers as each happenstance poem was brought, winter by winter, for discussion. And it was encouraging, when I read the threaded piece aloud to a ceilidh audience at the Ken Bridge Hotel, that people commented on different story layers resonating for them, even in so relatively few words. I like the long, thin, arrangement of the piece on the page, topped and tailed as it became, with haiku – my ‘home’ poetic form and one I love for its far reach in simple, direct language. For the way it can expand the frame of a story beyond, and hold open a space for reflection. the crow you know when a voice is unmistakable Jane McBeth 22 Galloway Glens / Ken Words / An Anthology of Writings / Poetry Walks and Writing Workshops December Gloombusters Grey, misty wet with smurr Shelfie, feltie, cushie doo Blackie, goldie, jaickie too Barking jackdaws about the lums Not long now Spring is edging near Silver, glinting lark song links — tumbling down to me 23 I have a local patch that I walk several days every week, especially in the darker months when everything outdoors is compressed and often home-based. Gentle exercise is the main objective, but I also love to watch bird behaviour in the context of the season’s progress. Since childhood I have enjoyed reading poems occasionally and often wonder at the poet’s skill in conjuring an image or a memory. In joining Ken Words poetry walks along the same route, I marvelled at others’ observations and impressions of landscape and nature along the way. Rewardingly, I also really enjoyed the poetry workshops following these walks and beyond. I was fascinated by the various ‘birdscapes’ and other creations that told of our individual and shared impressions, and of our collaboration in collective pieces. In ‘December Gloombusters’ I was keen to capture the conditions, bird encounters and rhythm of stepping out on a dreich day, but also the colour and shared experience in looking forward to spring. The haiku form, to which I was introduced at the Ken Words spring workshop, develops this theme and allowed me to borrow someone else’s likening skylark song to a silver chain. Chris Rollie 24 Springtime in Late March 2022 Poetry Walk, Dalry Dumfries & Galloway Bucha, Western Ukraine with Igor’s mother, Nadya Savran ‘Every drop of dew on every blade of grass – as far as the eye can see.’ Every drop of blood on every blade of grass… into infinity a formation of buzzards, warm in the sun… the ridge still flecked with snow crows rise, fussing; the chatter of sand martins above riverside burrows a single Scarab cruises in the cold brittle air, an urgent screaming alarm… Igor, you must go the rattle of gunfire, … go hide in the hollows spooked flight of collared dove, hustle of wind – rushing, a stumble on uneven ground trees bare-knuckled … gazing into the blue 25 the kindling of accommodation: glass underfoot… try not to make a sound … in the last springtime of his life In memory of all those who gave up their lives on 20th March while we were walking on Holm & Hill. Every drop of dew, from ‘The washing never gets done’, by Jaan Kaplinski. A Scarab is a Russian Cruise Missile. Poetry-walking in a time of war When I joined the poetry walk on 20 March 2022, I came to it reflecting on the newscasts… conscious of how differently the Springtime in Ukraine was unfolding. Then… literally out of the blue… a WW2 Spitfire droned overhead… Powerful conjunctions: the reality of the Glenkens in Spring… an aircraft from another war… and hearing the name of a soldier’s mother in those newscasts. Parallel universes that gave me both the material and the structure of this poem. The context of our lives is ever present and poetry walks have been way-markers where the here-and-now finds a place within that longer journey. The temptation is to be infatuated by pretty descriptive words, rhyming couplets and pastoral soliloquies, but, to be true to our human condition, I need to be more than a camera and a carefully composed picture; more even than a reflection. I need to be fully engaged — me and who I am, in this particular time and place, and as a part of the continuum of life with all its memories, loves and fears. For me, going on poetry walks has been an essential part of the revelations of life’s journey, revealed in the here-and-now. John Smith 26 Flight Waiting to fly, sitting in a departure lounge. Flyers stock up, a three-hour flight south awaits. Eleven a.m. breakfasts, beers, bottles of water and juice. In-flight refuelling will be available and taken. Early this morning, I watched sand martins. 27 ‘Flight’ brings together my experience of two very different days which were also strangely close – one waiting for a morning flight in a busy departure lounge at Prestwick airport, the other, a few days earlier, on a Ken Words poetry walk in Dalry. After I read the poem at the ‘Over Holm and Hill’ exhibition launch at The Smiddy, I was surprised when someone in the audience came up to me and told me how much they had enjoyed it and the way I read it. Both of these things are difficult for me to believe. Reading and spelling have been a struggle for me since childhood, on top of which, my West of Scotland dialect and accent can be difficult for some people to understand. Folk who have got to know me at the Writers’ Café and Word Ceilidhs have been very encouraging about improvements in my writing and in their company my self-confidence has grown a bit and I can now stand up and read without relying only on a good sense of humour to get me through. I honestly appreciate that. Faith de Sancha 28 unbidden While reading a poem about birds at the launch event for our Over Holm and Hill exhibition at The Smiddy, I became aware of birdsong flooding through the open door that balmy evening – the door having been left open to allow just that. This was around the time that a friend had remarked on the number of birds that appear in my poems. And so, this poem somehow felt inevitable… they come to my poems, unbidden, birds of elusive meaning, winging by, or perched briefly on a line, hesitant, not knowing whether to stay or go sometimes they flare colour into my dullness, but at times they albatross my similes while I seek and scour for the true flight of metaphor feather-fine, unflinching, sharp as the eagle’s committed eye Angus Macmillan 29 30 Galloway Glens / Ken Words / An Anthology of Writings seann sgìtheach a’ sheasamh gu sìochad am meadhan na deanntagan an aghaidh na craobhan chònach eilthireach old hawthorn standing alone in the midst of the nettles in defiance of the foreign conifers 31 I guess the beauty of a poetry walk is that it engages other parts of the consciousness that are not frequently exercised. Normally, I’m firmly in ‘prosaic mode’ but I was glad to be reminded of the following musings that accompanied my poem-lines, written after walking onto Waterside Hill from Dalry. — At the beginning, the King’s Meadow, smooth fat fields full of white sheep across the river. A river with black-dark and deep pools where eels conceal themselves amongst hidden rocks. Then we walked beside the river past dead ash trees and alder with phytopthera disease and an old oak full of yellow acorns. We climbed under the sun, past Craiggubble, the rock of the mares, then through a small hidden glen. Suddenly we arrived at an old hawthorn tree, it didn’t do anything but stand, waiting for the surrounding of alien trees. — This old tree had seen decades come and go, sheltering new born lambs as it quietly gazed over the glen towards The Mulloch. But unbeknown to it, financial decisions had been taken elsewhere which would change its situation irrevocably. Lucrative commercial afforestation grants had been approved for Waterside Hill. I imagined the hawthorn steeling itself against the impending surrounding Sitka. Michael Ansell 32 Wintering, Poll Madaidh In these short days of frost and ice life has stilled, and we can only dream of sun and spring rain and greening. We are running out of seasons. Once, there was a time of sun, four seasons, the rhythms of growing and harvest, the hills always there, secure in their own name: Crois-Rinne, Maol Donn, Maol Liath. There are few of us left now – too old to work the fields where the women no longer sing, the songs gone from their hearts. Once, this was where what mattered happened: all our living and dying was here. The river will carry on flowing but it flows only the one way. The new road has passed us by with its straight lines into the future. Our village paths are grassed over in need of living feet. My grandfather talked of wolves lurking, watching – now, I hear the howl of the wind, animal, as if the wolves were back, there, on the hill. There are fewer footsteps on the pack road, and the inn has gone quiet: sorrow is now our meeting place. I throw more peat on the fire. 33 I had the pleasure of leading three poetry walks and workshops based on the abandoned village of Polmaddy. On each walk, I encouraged participants to bring all their senses to bear on the experience of being there, trying to create a sense of presence from which they would be encouraged to write. However, it was also necessary to draw attention to the inescapable feelings of absence in this setting, given the history of the village, from which, equally, people could be free to write. In doing this, by imagining what life might have been like for villagers, through pleasures and hardships, we create a kind of mythic space, reaching and extrapolating beyond what physically remains, to conjure a sense of life in this alluring place. I have written several poems about Polmaddy – the one I offer here imagines a time when it was becoming hard to cope with changes in village life and its abandonment felt increasingly imminent. Angus Macmillan 34 Snow shower upon snow shower piling in from the Rhinns The keen north-west wind brought them, turning the Rhinns ridge blue-black Then white as the showers passed, soon they descend on Baile nan Sac Turning the golden ground white also, coating the sides of the old Ash trees with crusts of white Suddenly they pass over, away towards Glenshimmeroch Sunlight flooded back again, briefly but boldly, with strength Melting the new snow cover, until the next storm cloud approached All that were left now were drifts of snow in the lee of tussocks Suddenly all was quiet, still, the lull before the impending storm The fox that had been sheltering on Knockbuie, reappeared inquisitively, sensing Wondering whether to restart his hunt, before slinking down behind the dyke As the blue-black clouds come again 35 Growing up in the Glenkens, Na Rinnean (The Rhinns of Kells) were an ever-present feature in life – sometimes brooding, sometimes fierce; green with early summer grass, brown after a desiccating drought; sometimes be-ribbonned with cascading water spouts and above all, white with snow for what seemed like most of the winter. I remember one year the last snow patch on A’ Chroisrinn (Corserine) didn’t melt until after the school shut for summer holidays. Co-dhiù, eventually I experienced the thrill of walking these mountains, finding the sheltered lochans of Achadh na bPùt, the almost vertical fissure of Geàrr Inbhir and the great corries of Meall Liath, Loch Daingean and A’ Chroisrinn from where mini-glaciers had advanced. This poem was conceived on a poetry walk at the deserted late medieval clachan now called Polmaddy. I imagined its former name was ‘village of the sacks’ reflecting the output form the meal mill on site. The clachan is wide open to the north-west wind sweeping over the Rhinns of Kells. These polar maritime winds bear sudden intense showers, interspersed by warm bright spring sunshine. It was such a day at Polmaddy, Michael Ansell 36 Poll Madaidh Rowans red with berries, bracken turning fox-brown, forest's green sentinel line above old deserted stones. Dry bones of a village, grey marks laid down where people once worked, lived, raised voices in greeting. Now a new group, strangers discover, walk old paths where ghosts lightly laugh at near-miss guesses of how things were. 37 ‘Poll Madaidh’ was written on a beautiful September day of warm sunlight and mild breezes. A day that is among my most treasured memories. From my seat on the hillside opposite the abandoned 'ferm toon' I looked over its ruins and let my imagination wander. This is the result. Of course, the poem would never have been written had it not been for the special assistance of the bus driver who took us to the site, and everyone else who made it possible for me to experience being there that day. I have mobility problems, so it was an even greater pleasure to find such kindness from all concerned. Anne Micklethwaite 38 The Matter The past isn't dead, it isn't even past. William Faulkner the what that is this at your shoulder always is here is the heft of hills remembered and that weight of question the clouds gaff-rigged imagine their scudding rafts of shadow so somewhere yonder still slipping from the hand the way that's lost and found the well that's plumbed the dark of woods and silence with the voice that whispers all the names that scrape the riven surface of a past that may be yours and its thanks ungiven 39 What matters? The poem is written about a walk I didn't take. I had booked to go on the final Polmaddy Ken Words poetry walk but the date changed due to atrocious weather. I couldn't make it and I walked alone in London instead. But I was haunted by the landscape I was missing and by the sense of all landscapes being internal, geographies of the imagination, tracked by spectres. The Polmaddy walks were my introduction to Ken Words and opened the door to the Café and Ceilidhs and to a poetic home in a Galloway that I had just re-arrived in. I couldn't not pay my respects to this concluding outing. I like to think that the sense of doubleness is present in the layout of the poem and the way the two sections tail off. Certainly, the feeling of displacement and inconclusiveness is around whenever I revisit these words: is this quite finished, I wonder. No, of course not. Robin Leiper 40 The Last Landlord What did you see as you closed the door that final time on your crumbling howf with its fading echoes of villagers and voyagers sharing idle gossip, music and rhyme? What I see here and now is golden sun and autumn fullness painting patterns on a place that only short millennia ago was an ice-scraped canvas waiting for returning life 41 And I see the stones of an old clachan adding texture to the land and telling of a futile struggle against Galloway dreichness And I see a blackcap flitting through the rowans in a place that just now seems perfect in its warmth, its peace and the fullness of life What we see is what we are – but I cannot know if your eyes were filled with tears or fixed upon a hopeful star There is a sign by the side of the dusty road that leads from Granada to the sea that reads, Puerto del Suspiro del Moro. Here in 1492, Boabdil, the last Moorish King of Granada, paused, looked back on the city and its beautiful palace from which he had been driven - and sighed long and loud. Hearing this, his mother is reported to have berated him, “Weep, weep like a woman for that which you have not been able to defend as a man,’’ heaping scorn onto the misery of loss. This fragment of history came to mind as, during a pause on one of our Poetry Walks, I sat by the Polmaddy Burn looking at the crumbling walls of the Inn, the last building in that little place to be abandoned. Polmaddy was no Alhambra. The remains of the kilns that were needed to dry out rain-sodden harvests are testament to the hard life of the villagers. But, taking part in Ken Words writing activities, I have learned how to accept as a gift the mix of emotions such places can evoke. With the skilled guidance of a lead poet, the writing techniques offered in workshops and input from fellow participants, the human stories hidden in a pile of stones start to be revealed. Andrew Mellor 42 Galloway Glens / Ken Words / An Anthology of Writings 43 afterword As Andrew Mellor’s poem evokes with such poignancy, change comes, and with it, the inevitable backward glance. To coordinate Ken Words and curate 'If you wish to speak to the waters in the river. . . ' has been a privilege and, for me, this booklet is a project made manifest: a brief summation not only of written material to be valued in itself, but four years, and more, of process. Years of, one way or another, holding open the Ken Words Writers’ Café door every month; of seasonal Word Ceilidhs, Poetry Walks, writing workshops, exhibitions and readings – all of which have nurtured local people, their writing and their confidence to share, perform, and publish their work in the world. Work that carries forward. The river may flow only one way, but see – the river keeps coming. what remains. . . the gable-end stones warm to my touch Jane McBeth 44 Galloway Glens / Ken Words / Writing Prompts writing prompts Letting the words speak There are many ways in which the Café helps my writing through sharp editing with someone else’s eye. This may involve cutting out or reducing phrasing that is prosy and baggy, or eliminating word-repetitions, like ‘and’ and ‘the.’ All of that helps with smoothing the whole piece. It’s easy to develop blind spots, even for poems which have been around in one form or another, for some time. We can also become overly-attached and cling to particular words or phrasings – sometimes whole verses – which turn out not to be crucial at all. All that helps develop focus and tightness in writing. As a member of another writers’ group some years ago, we developed a motto of A poem shared is a poem halved. A good credo to have… being at the Café enables, afterwards, in between sessions, in addition to the process within the Café itself. I have often paused mid-session at a Café and listened to the hum of voices talking – not about the weather, politics or the day’s news – but about writing, the how and the why of it, its frustrations and elusiveness at times, and the pleasures it can bring when it flows. A glimpse of the Café’s quiet and understated alchemy. The following poem was pared down through a Café session – it reflects how a particular word (or phrase) can spark off writing from a place of stuckness / lack of creativity, as the words bring their companions with them, and they begin to jostle and push each other In a wider sense, the Café has helped in a quite different around. And if a fight breaks out, fine – I’m no longer way, often at times when I’ve not brought any of my own looking at a blank page. writing. By becoming immersed in someone else’s work, it helps, amongst other things, to clarify and articulate, for example, what is ‘poetic’ and what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t. I’ve found that doing that opens up a vein of thinking – going sideways, aslant – or a particular mental space that pushes me to engage or re-engage with writing of my own afterwards. So it's about what Angus Macmillan 45 Key-words I trust the pencil sometimes a word unpicks the lock of the blank space each one a cue for the next and the next and the page that slammed shut in your face slowly opens To bring a group of poets or writers together is maybe asking for trouble. Anything sharp needs to be left outside the door. This is with the exception of pencils, not that these will be used as weapons but more as a pin for releasing the sap. Angus Macmillan Roland Parker Each month for several years I have been attending a monthly Writers’ Café – we have spent time apart so there is opportunity for something fresh to happen when we meet. There is always a gentle unintrusive formula for our time together. People can gently bid for time to explain and explore their piece of writing. Meeting in small groups gives each person time to explore various roles, writer, critic, audience. The focus is on the activity of writing itself. No one is outside the ring standing in judgement. We all share that confidence in writing is a rare commodity. As the culture of groups grow, you never swim in the same group twice, so the admiration grows both for people’s writing and their underlying life experience. A sense of trust and mutual endeavour supports you even when you are not at the meeting and alone with your pencil. 46 Wild writing Wild, or flow, writing is when you just write and don’t stop to pause or think just keep writing even if you only have three minutes at the back door before work and it doesn’t make sense and you can hardly read your own scrawl but it doesn’t matter as long as words are still coming and your mind is loosening because this is how other words might come through and something else might become of it or not and it doesn’t matter as long as you’re still writing and noticing how breath responds to weather writing and noticing the way a female blackbird jabs at the pile of old leaves, hunts Jane McBeth 47 notes 48 Flow If you wish to speak to the waters in the river, do it now: they’re not coming back Angus Macmillan 49 contributors & thanks What Ken Words has been able to make happen has involved the imaginative input, time, care, resources and energy of many people, and thanks are due to them all, including: The poet Valerie Gillies, for her inspiration to start a Writers’ Café. Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership for their generous four-year funding which made Ken Words’ envisioning a reality, and individual members of the Galloway Glens team – McNabb Laurie, Helen Keron, Jan Hogarth, Jude Crooks, Anna Harvey and Debbie Marshall – for their behind-the-scenes practical support and encouragement throughout, and beyond, the four years. GCAT for equally generous match-funding through Creative Scotland, and for giving the project an ongoing home at CatStrand. Also staff – especially Aidan Nicol, Helen Keron, Peter Renwick, Gill Warnock, Brian Edgar, and CatStrand volunteer Rhoda Rugg – for their assistance in many, many ways, large and small. The support and friendship of Ken Words steering group members Angus Macmillan, Laura Rimmer, and convenor Andrew Mellor. Contributors, as named in the booklet, for their writings and reflections. Participant-photographers John Smith and Andrew Mellor, for always being there and catching so much on camera. Also, all other participants in Ken Words sessions – every one of them has brought something of their own that has been of value. Chris Rollie, bird expert and educator, for sharing his knowledge and love of birds with such generosity of spirit in a series of four walks Over Holm and Hill on the Donald Watson Bird Walk. Michael Ansell, place-name researcher, for bringing his wealth of local knowledge and passionate curiosity about Gaelic and Scots etymology, to bear upon our sense of place. Angus Macmillan, poet, for teasing out so thoughtfully the deeper layers of poetry-walking Polmaddy, the old Pack Road, and – always at our shoulder – Na Rinnean. Also, for facilitating the accompanying writing workshops and subsequently giving his time and aesthetic eye to co-curating Ken Words exhibitions. Graphic design and artwork by Martha Schofield www.marthaschofield.co.uk who has brought elegance and colour, as well as patience and persistence, to making this booklet the lovely thing it is to behold. John Burns Print, for making it something you can hold in your hand and enjoy reading. Jane McBeth, with gratitude May, 2023 50 BOOK 6 Ken Words curated and edited by Jane McBeth A Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme publication designed by Martha Schofield Design https://marthaschofield.co.uk printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart ISBN 978-1-7395875-3-6  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 6 - Ken Words Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GGLP_14 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Description An account of the resource An anthology of writings. GGLP written word https://glenkensarchive.scot/glenkens_archive/files/original/4/472/GG_Bk_5_Place_Names_single_page_AW.pdf 418674217c4ba49d70793f9a8134e47e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 5 - Glenkens Place-names Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Booklets Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available GGLP Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Glenkens Place-Names A Window on our Past by Gilbert Márkus Galloway Glens Address 5 St Andrew Street Castle Douglas Dumfries & Galloway DG7 1DE Website https://gallowayglens.org Social Media @gallowayglens ISBN 978-17395875-5-0 @gallowayglens Published by Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership, 2023 text © Gilbert Márkus graphics © Martha Schofield Design https://marthaschofield.co.uk edited by Sarah Ade sarah.ade@gmail.com printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart The Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme: 2018 - 2023 2 The Galloway Glens Scheme focused on the Ken/Dee river catchment in South West Scotland, flowing from source in the Galloway Hills to the Solway, including the settlements of Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright. The Galloway Glens Scheme was an initiative of Dumfries & Galloway Council’s Environment Team and ran from 2018 to 2023, aiming to ‘connect people to our heritage’ while boosting the local economy and supporting sustainable communities. Primarily funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the scheme worked with a range of partners and was supported by the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere. One of the projects supported through the Galloway Glens Scheme was called ‘The PlaceNames of the Galloway Glens’. Working in partnership with researchers in Celtic & Gaelic at the University of Glasgow, the project collected and analysed the place-names in seven parishes in the Glenkens. The research was predominantly done by the author of this booklet, Gilbert Márkus, and the work was overseen and contributed to by Professor Thomas Owen Clancy and Dr Simon Taylor. More than 2,000 names were published on an online, searchable database designed by Brian Aitken, also of the University of Glasgow. A series of events were held between 2020-23 to highlight what has been uncovered. The project was a great example of harnessing national expertise from the University of Glasgow to better interpret and understand Galloway’s heritage. This booklet is part of a series of publications which record just some of the remarkable discoveries and projects undertaken through the Galloway Glens Scheme. Galloway Glens Area Map Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter X ii CONTENTS 1 Introduction .......................................................................page 1 2 Layering Languages ..................................................page 2 - 6 3 Running Water............................................................page 7 - 9 4 Animal Life ...............................................................page 10 - 13 5 What Grows - Plants and Trees ..........................page 14 - 16 6 Living on the Land .................................................page 17 - 20 7 A World in Colour ..................................................page 21 - 23 8 Saints in Space .....................................................page 24 - 26 9 People and Stories .................................................page 27 - 30 10 Thank You to All Our Supporters ............................page 31 11 Bibliography and Further Reading ..........................page 32 Images on pposite page, clockwise from top left Rhins from Fintloch Dalry Bridge New Galloway Community Garden New Galloway Kirk This page, Galloway Glens Biosphere Exploreers Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 1 1 INTRODUCTION When we refer to a place by its name, we are actually quoting someone else. We are speaking words which were first uttered by another, whether it was two or two thousand years ago. As we speak those words we are offered a unique glimpse into that person's world, and into another time. Through this booklet we will step into that other world as we explore some of the place-names of Galloway, asking what they mean and what they tell us about the people who coined them. We will be travelling through centuries of peoples' lives, looking at the languages they spoke and the words they used. Galloway has an interesting languagehistory, with many different tongues having left their mark. People named some places according to the animals or birds, the plants or trees, that they saw there. Places were seen as having colours or textures too, which are also represented in names. They named some places – as we still do, of course – after the people who lived there or owned the place. As many of our name-giving peoples in the area were farmers of some sort, they named places after the kinds of farming that were practised there. Some places were named according to a perceived association with saints, or with fairies or deities. The names offered here are all taken from a searchable online database which was prepared as part of the Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership, now freely accessible at https://kcb-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk/ There you will find nearly 3,000 names identified, analysed and discussed. Some of these names appear nearly two millennia ago, a lot more in the Middle Ages (many of them still surviving) and a few first appeared in the nineteenth century. 1 2 LAYERING LANGUAGES Brittonic In the place-names of Galloway we can track changes in the languages spoken by the people who lived in the region. The earliest surviving names show that a Celtic language was spoken, more specifically a northern dialect of Brittonic (sometimes called Brythonic or British). This is the language ancestral to modern Welsh, and we have evidence of it as early as the second century. The Greek-speaking geographer, Ptolemy, recorded the Novantae and Selgovae as two tribes in this area around AD 150, possibly relying on sources from almost a century earlier. The name of the Novantae is formed on the base of Celtic nov- ‘new, fresh’ (and perhaps by extension ‘lively, vigorous’), while the Selgovae had a name which refers to hunting (see proto-Celtic selga‘hunt’; Welsh helgud, and hela; Gaelic sealg). Ptolemy also names the River Dee as the Deva, a Celtic name meaning ‘goddess’ (see discussion on page 7). Image, Dalry Fountain 2 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 2 Old English The old Brittonic language survived the Roman occupation of much of Britain, but by the seventh century we can see traces of a new language in our area. Bede records that the Northumbrian king Æthelfrith began to expand his power: “He more than all the rulers of the English devastated the British people... for no-one among the military leaders nor among kings had made more of their lands either tributary to the English people or places for them to dwell, having exterminated or subjugated their people.” 1 Æthelfrith may not have conquered as far west as the Dee before his death in AD 616, but his successors certainly had within a few decades. The Northumbrian dialect of Old English (a Germanic language rather than a Celtic one) left its mark early. Glenswinton, for example, though it is a Gaelic name containing gleann (‘valley’), also contains an earlier Old English place-name, *Swinton, which is swīn tūn (‘pig farm’ - think of English swine and town). The parish of Parton is also Old English, perhaps from pearr-tūn (‘enclosure farm’ - Parr in Lancashire may have the same origin), or pere tūn (‘pear farm’). On the northern boundary of Parton is Shirmers, which appears to be scír-meare (‘shire boundary’), perhaps marking the early boundary between the Old English shire to the south and the British (or later Gaelic) territory to the north. During this period of Northumbrian settlement we can assume that most people in our territory continued to speak their native Brittonic tongue – it probably continued in this area until the tenth or eleventh century. It seems that Old English was concentrated in the southern coastal areas, on more fertile ground, in centres of lordship and in the lower parts of the main river valleys, during that period of Northumbrian dominance. 3 1 HE i, 34. Image on opposite page, Torrs Path Norse At the end of the eighth century, coastal settlements and churches in Britain were suddenly assailed by violent raids conducted by Norsemen. In some parts of Britain these Viking attacks resulted in the extermination of entire local populations, so that the native language and the native place-names simply disappeared. In some cases the Norse invaders colonised and subjugated local people who remained in place. In other cases they settled and took land but assimilated into local communities, learning to speak Gaelic, becoming Christian and inter-marrying with local kindreds. entirely on the southern coastal plain. It does not extend inland, or uphill. It may be that these Norse names are associated with places of lordship, suggesting that Norse-speakers were in positions of power at the time these names were coined. Norse assaults on Britain were renewed in the 870s, seizing large swathes of land in north-eastern England and establishing the Viking kingdom of York. Meanwhile Vikings had already established themselves as rulers of Dublin and were extending their control around the Irish Sea area. The result of this new political reality was a sustained period of Norse influence throughout the area, including Galloway, and this is reflected in the presence of Norse place-names. Several such place-names survive on the Solway coast: Kirkdale, Kidsdale, Almorness, Eggerness, Bagby, Appleby, Corsby and Sorbie. Gillian Fellows-Jensen identified thirteen settlement-names in Galloway coined in Old Norse. The distribution of these Norse names however, is rather restricted, being almost 4 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 2 Gaels and Gall-Ghàidheil Out of this world of Norse-speakers settling among Gaelic-speaking lordships and kingdoms, and adopting their language and customs, there appeared a new ethnic group known as the Gall-Ghàidheil (in older Gaelic Gall-Goídil) – a name which means ‘the foreign Gaels’. Although people of this name first appear in Ireland in the 850s, the term appears mostly in the historical record a century or two later with reference to people in northern Britain. Thomas Clancy has discussed the name and its significance and outlined its shifting spatial location (Clancy 2008). It seems to have referred initially to people in the outer lands of the Firth of Clyde, with a gradual shift southwards into Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, and down to the Solway coast. At this southern extreme, the modern name Galloway is itself simply a later spelling of the name Gall-Ghàidheil. In the twelfth century the name seems to have referred to an extensive territory from the Clyde in the north (Strathgryfe for example, and possibly even Bute, Kintyre and Cowal) to the Solway coast. Only later, as the kingdom of the Scots expanded its area of control, did the Gall-Ghàidheil territory shrink dramatically, until the name came to refer only to the area now called Galloway. It is not entirely clear what the term Gall-Ghàidheil meant to those who coined the name, nor whether it 5 was originally used by the actual members of the GallGhàidheil group, or whether it was used about them by others - it would be slightly surprising for them to regard themselves as ‘foreign’ (gaill). It is clear that in this compound name, Gall-Ghàidheil, the noun should be in control: they are Gaels. They speak Gaelic. Perhaps there are other implications to the word as well – does it imply some kind of treaty or alliance with other Gaels? Does it imply that they shared the Christian faith of the other Gaels at a time when many of the Norse did not? But we must also ask what was ‘foreign’ or gall about these people. Did they continue to speak Norse as well as Gaelic? Does the term refer in part to their genealogical descent – to Norse-speaking ancestors – whether real or fictional? Does their ‘foreign-ness’ refer to their affiliation with Norse rulers elsewhere in the Irish Sea area, or even ultimately to kings in Scandinavia? Did they use Norse legal processes, or pay tribute to Norse-related overlords? These Gall-Ghàidheil communities lived in an area which was heavily influenced by Dublin, the Lords of the Isles and the Kingdom of Man during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. These were also Norse-descended dynasties, but gradually became more Gaelic-speaking Scots and English as they became enmeshed in the region’s culture and politics. It may not always have been clear where the line was drawn between Gall-Ghàidheil and other Gaelicised Norse-descended lordships. In any case, it is to the GallGhàidheil that we owe most of the old names of the Galloway Glens project area; they are Gaelic, because the Gall-Ghàidheil spoke Gaelic. Beginning in the later Middle Ages the dominance of Gaelic in local speech was gradually eroded by the growth of Scots, the Germanic descendant of the older Northumbrian dialect of Old English. The similarity of the two languages means that we cannot always be certain whether a place-name was coined in Old English or in Scots – Old English tūn (‘a settlement, farm’) is hard to distinguish from Scots toun. And Scots itself blurs over time into what we might call modern Scottish Standard English – what most people speak today – and this is the language underlying the last great period of place-name formation. It is not always easy to know whether a name was coined in Scots or in Scottish Standard English. Nor if this is even a meaningful distinction. Gall-Ghàidheil Gall-Goídil the foreign Gaels 6 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 3 3 RUNNING WATER RIVER DEE The great defining feature of our landscape is the River Dee. For thousands of years it has been a corridor connecting travellers between the coastal area and the interior. It is one of only eighteen rivers in the whole of Scotland named by the Greek-speaking geographer Ptolemy in his survey of around AD 150. He recorded the river’s name as Deva which means ‘goddess’. So, like so many rivers around Europe, she was a living and divine being, born in the hills and flowing down to die in the Solway Firth. We encounter such goddess-spirits in many river-names in ancient Europe – Sequana, for example, now the Seine in France. There are early GalloRoman shrines inscribed deae Sequanae (‘to the goddess Sequana’), all of them near the sources of the Seine, and many of them associated with offerings deposited in or beside the river. The offerings suggest that she was associated with healing. There may have been similar offerings left to the goddess of the Dee – a bronze ponycap (second century BC), a bronze mirror (first century AD) and a cauldron have all been found in the low-lying lands around this river, which we should remember used to flood dramatically and suddenly over the surrounding area. Could they have been votive offerings to the Deva? Might they even have been offered by early farmers begging her not to flood their fields? 7 Ptolemy’s informant probably knew only the lower reaches of the river. There are several significant tributaries which form the Dee, however. The Blackwater of Dee flows into it from the west, the River Deugh from the north, and the Water of Ken from the north-east. Which of these was regarded as the headwater or source of the Dee is now impossible to say. THE WATER OF KEN The upper part of our project area is commonly known as the Glenkens. Its plural form with final -s is quite modern, and it is not clear why it took that form, nor why it attracted the definite article. The earlier records are always singular in form: Glenkan 1181 Glenkarn 1186 (probably a scribal error) Glenken 1276 Glenken 1369 Glenkene 1510 The name is Gaelic. It is the gleann or ‘valley’ of the Ken, the river that flows from the north-east into the River Dee. And this river-name gives rise to interesting questions. What language does it come from? In this area, and given that river-names are often very resistant to change, even when everything around them is changing, the name is most likely Brittonic. Given that the earliest forms have an 'a' rather than an 'e' in their final syllable (Glenkan and Image, High bridge of Ken Glenkarn), I would suggest that the most likely origin is in a Brittonic word can meaning ‘white, bright, brilliant’ (whence modern Welsh can). Could the Water of Ken have been seen as a ‘bright’ or ‘white’ river? Might it even have been seen in this way in contrast to another river which was seen as darker? The Ken flows into the Water of Deugh, a name which probably comes from Gaelic dubhach (‘dark, gloomy’), probably so named because it flows down from peaty hills and often washes great quantities of peat away, making its water tremendously dark. Could the Ken and the Deugh therefore be seen as a contrastive pair, the ‘bright one’ and ‘the dark one’? 2 2 Albeit coined in different languages unless Duach represents a Gaelicised version of a name in Brittonic containing du (‘black’) and presumably therefore also independently of each other. URR WATER The name first appears in the twelfth century in a charter by Uhtred, son of Fergus, granting rights to Holyrood Abbey in the territory “from the river of Urr (a flumine Hur) as far as the River Nith (ad flumen Nith)”. It appears again on Blaeu’s map of Galloway (1654) as Orr R and on Roy’s map (c1750) as Water of Orr. It is likely that the name comes from Old Gaelic or (edge, boundary, margin). Part of the Urr does actually form the boundary between Kirkcudbrightshire and Dumfriesshire, but more significantly it was also the boundary for church purposes between the dioceses of Galloway (to the west) and Glasgow (to the east). That seems to have been an important political boundary in the twelfth century – perhaps between Cumbria and the Gall-Ghàidheil who gave their name to Galloway. 8 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter X POLMADDY This is a Gaelic name, poll madaidh, ‘hound burn’.3 It flows through an area that was once a royal hunting forest, so perhaps the ‘hound’ in the name refers to the hunting dogs that were used in the pursuit of deer and other quarry (see further discussion on forests with reference to Polmaddy on p19). The burn is Polmaddy Burn on modern maps, and Polmaddy village once thrived on its northern shore, with several mills and corn kilns and even its own inn – all now in ruins, but well worth a visit. There are numerous burns in this part of Scotland called Poll-, and this is slightly strange. The word poll in Gaelic usually means ‘pool, hole, pit, hollow, wet miry meadow.’ But in much of southern Scotland poll refers to quite lively streams – there are at least 35 such names in our area. It is not clear why the word’s meaning has shifted in this way, but it is likely to be due to the influence of Northern Brittonic *pol having this meaning (in contrast to its modern Welsh descendant pwll ‘- pool, pit, hollow’). Among our poll-names are: 3 Note that madadh allaidh is a ‘savage wild dog’ or ‘wolf’, while madadh ruadh is ‘a fox’. It is less likely that either of these is concerned here. Above image, Polmaddy Burn Image on opposite page, Pine Marten, photo © Iain Leach 9 • • • • • Garple, garbh poll, ‘rough burn’ Polcardie, poll ceàrdaich, ‘burn of the smithy’ Polharrow, poll na h-airbhe, ‘burn of the wall or fence’ Poljargen, poll deargain, ‘kestrel or hawk burn’ (or perhaps some other ‘little red’ thing) Polshagg, poll seabhaig, ‘peregrine falcon burn’ 4 ANIMAL LIFE WILD ANIMALS Place-names often point us towards the presence of wildlife and other aspects of the natural world which are no longer present. Such place-names reflect the responses of our ancestors to the animals and birds around them. This may sometimes have been practical – watch out for the fox and the eagle! Sometimes there may have been a particular story about some event involving an animal. But most often such names probably reflected merely the natural curiosity and appreciation that people have who live and work alongside birds and beasts. Gaelic names include: • • • • Clashbrock, clais [nam] broc ‘badgers’ ditch or hollow’ Auchenshinnoch, achadh nan sionnach ‘field of the foxes’ Craigower, creag gobhair ‘goat’s rock or cliff’ Alwhat, ail chat ‘wildcats’ rock or cliff’ Scots-speakers also recorded the animal world in their place-names: Otter Isle is a small island in the Barlay Burn. Fumart Liggat is perhaps more obscure. The fumart is a ‘polecat’, while 10 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 4 Deers Den, Goat Burn, Cat Craig, Tods Hill a liggat is a ‘self-closing gate’ – often one separating arable land from grazing land. This animal also appears in Fumart Glen. Deers Den, Goat Burn, Goat Craig all refer to wild animals which still commonly graze the hills in our area. Hare Cleuch is a ravine or hollow where, according to the OS Name-Book, hares used to hide (though note that hare can also mean ‘grey, hoary’). Some Scots names commemorate the same animals as our Gaelic names: Cat Craig (wildcat – three places of this name) and Tods Hill (fox) which, according to the NameBook ‘takes its name from the Fox which is often seen crossing this hill from an adjacent wood’. Snake Bank is on a nice south-facing slope, which is just the kind of place where snakes like to bask in the sun. The OS Name-Book, however, has a more elaborate explanation of the name (the grammatical peculiarities are in the original): “Two Girls whose Surnames were Grame and Ramsey (domestics in Bogue farm house) and a young Shepherd called Grame (brother to one of the females) was out collecting the Ewes to the Bughts (pens or enclosures) for 11 the purpose of the young Women to milk them, possibly the Shepherd had been longer than his wonted time of arriving with them. As the two Girls had lay down on this Bank and fell fast asleep. As the Shepherd approached he observed something creeping into the Mouth of his favourite Mary Ramsey, which he instantly awoke them and immediately got about a scotch pint of milk drawn from the Ewes and sternly ordered Mary, to drink it. She drank it and immediately vomited up a Snake. The Shepherd drew it instantly away and buried it in a Moss which was at hand, even R and his own sister saw not it. Not many Months afterwards Grame & his Sweetheart got married and as soon as the secret was told her by her husband she immediately fevered and died.” It may be that other place-names referring to animals or birds also have a story like this lying behind them, sadly now lost. BIRDS Some of the birds referred to by place-names are still part of the landscape, while others have disappeared. Scots names abound: Gouk Thorn is ‘thorn tree of the cuckoo’, while Cuckoo Stone celebrates the same bird under a different name. Cock Knowe is a hillock where cocks are seen (perhaps grouse, blackcock or such-like game birds), while Cockplay must refer to the ‘lecking’ of such birds when the males clear a place and flap and display in order to attract a female during mating season. Corvids abound of course; Ravens Craig and Corbie Craig (corbie ‘crow’) may refer to birds nesting on the steep rocky slopes, or merely to their gathering there. Pyatthorn is ‘magpie thorn-tree’ - the house of Pyatthorn is shown beside a clump of trees on a map of 1853. Heron Strand was presumably a stream where herons fished. We have Goose Isle (formerly Goose Isles in 1797) in the River Dee, and a Cushie Craig (cushie is a ‘dove or woodpigeon’) where presumably pigeons nested. Another bird that must once have been common here is the red kite. Various place-names refer to them under the Scots name of glede (a local variant of the more usual gled); we have a Glede Bog, a Glede Hill and two places called Glede Craig. This bird was long ago hunted to extinction in Galloway, but it has been reintroduced in recent years and is now often seen and heard in the southern part of our area. Gaelic place-names also record the presence of birds. Polshagg is poll seabhaig (‘burn of [the] hawk’), seabhag usually referring to the peregrine falcon. Craigenellie may be creag na h-ealaidh, ‘rock of the swan’, while the second part of Petillery seems to be iolaire (‘eagle’), which fits with what we know of the former abundance of eagles in the area until they succumbed to persecution in the nineteenth century. Dunveoch is dùn nam fitheach (‘hill of the ravens’), birds which we fortunately still have with us. Polshagg poll seabhaig burn of the peregrin falcon 12 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 4 FISH The River Dee and its catchment was once famous for its fishing. Many medieval charters mention fishing rights as a significant part of the estates being granted, while writers over the last few centuries have stressed the economic value of salmon above all – the most valuable and perhaps the most plentiful fish in its time. But as far as I can see only one name seems to refer to this fish – Lanebreddon, a stream-name which is probably lèana bradain (‘stream of salmon’). Other fish may be referred to by Loch Brack, from Gaelic loch breac, ‘loch of trout’, breac meaning both ‘speckled’ and ‘trout’ (the speckled 13 Image, Trout fish) – it would be strange for the loch itself to be regarded as ‘speckled’. The Scots name Eel Spring Strand refers to the European eel, anguilla anguilla, once very common and an important part of the diet, though it has declined by 95% nationally in the past 40 years. Though the pike is not a popular fish for the oven today, it was once widely eaten. Its significance to people in Glenkens is attested by place-names containing the Scots word for the fish, ged; Ged Strand, Ged Burn and Ged Point. 5 WHAT GROWS – PLANTS AND TREES The Glenkens has historically been well-wooded. The parish-name of Kells is Gaelic coille, with the suffix -as, meaning ‘wooded place’. Placenames also reflect the different kinds of trees which grew here. Perhaps the most important was the oak, and Gaelic place-names containing darach (‘oak’) point them out to us; Knockindarroch is ‘hill of the oak, or of the 'oak wood’, while Arndarroch is earann nan darach - ‘share or division of the oaks’. Scots and English names continued, after the decline of Gaelic, to celebrate the presence of oak woods and trees sometimes using aik (‘oak’) or aikey (‘abounding in oak’) in Scots, and sometimes using the more familiar modern oak: • • • • • Big Oak of Earlston Akey Bush Aikey Hill Oakenbog Oak Knowe (three of these, in Kells, Dalry and Balmaclellan) Birch trees are fast-growing ‘pioneer’ species in Scotland, the first significant tree that takes over land which is returning to natural regrowth. In Gaelic the birch is beith, while beitheach is ‘belonging to Image, River Ken, near St. John's Town of Dalry 14 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 5 or abounding in birch’. Pulbae Burn is poll beithe (‘burn of [the] birch tree’), while Drumbay is druim beithe (‘birch ridge’) and Craigenbay creagan beithe (‘little rock of birch’) or creag na beithe (‘rock of the birch’). Largvey, now lost, is probably learg bheith (‘slope of birch trees’). In Scots and English birk and birch also bear witness to the tree: Birch Hill, Birk Green. Thorn trees, both hawthorn and blackthorn, are commonly mentioned in place-names. In Scots and English place-names these are hard to distinguish, as both trees are simply called 'thorn' – though in most cases hawthorn is more likely to be the tree named. In Gaelic place-names the two trees are easy to distinguish; the hawthorn or whitethorn is sgitheach (earlier scé), while the blackthorn is droigheann (earlier draigen). The hawthorn is not a particularly valuable tree for timber, but it was used for fuel and there are also a number of traditions around it which suggest it was significant as a marker for gathering-places, as a place where legal proceedings might be conducted, or as a boundarymarker between adjacent lands. Knockskaig is probably cnoc sgitheig (‘hill of a small hawthorn’), Barskeoch is bàrr sgitheach (‘hill-top of hawthorns’), Polskeoch is poll sgitheach (‘burn of hawthorns’), and Marskaig (earlier Marskeogh) is apparently marg sgitheach (‘mark-land of hawthorns’). A reference in Scots to the hawthorn also occurs at Old Haws. The Blackthorn appears in two places, Knockdrinan and 15 Knockdronnan, both meaning ‘hill of the blackthorn thicket’, cnoc droighnein. In other references to thorn trees it is impossible to tell whether hawthorn or blackthorn are being mentioned, though hawthorn is more likely: • • • • • • • Thorny Hill Bogle Thorn – ‘thorn tree associated with a ghost, fairy or goblin’ Gouk Thorn – ‘cuckoo thorn’ Pyatthorn – ‘magpie thorn’ Craigythorn Shiel Thorn – ‘thorn by summer grazing land’ Pattiesthorn – a personal name The rowan tree is common throughout Scotland. It may appear in Drumwhirn, druim a’ chaorainn (‘ridge of the rowan’), and Knockwhirn, cnoc a’ chaorainn (‘hill of the rowan’). It certainly appears in the following Scots names where rowan and an older roan are used: • • • • Clint of the Rowantree Rhonepark Roan Hill Rowantree Burn The alder tree is one that prefers to grow in wet ground on riversides, in marshy hollows or on flood-plains, and the names referring to alders reflect that watery preference; Big Alder Pool, Little Alder Pool and Carsphairn, which is Gaelic cars feàrna ‘water-meadow of alder’. The willow, in Gaelic seileach, earlier sail and saileach (related to Latin salix), is also found in place-names. Older references are Darsalloch (daire saileach - ‘grove of willows’), Knocksallie (cnoc saileich - ‘willow hill’) and Barnshalloch (perhaps bàrr an t-seileich - ‘willow hill-top’), while Willowbank appears in the nineteenth century. Craigencolon is ‘rock of the holly’ (creag an cuillinn, or in modern form creag a’ chuillinn), and Cullendoch is probably cuillionnach (‘place abounding in hollies’). Holly Island in the Black Water of Dee speaks for itself. Other trees are remarked, perhaps because of their fruitbearing potential; Cherry Hill (the native gean or wild cherry, prunus avium), and nearby Crabtree Hill (crab apple, malus sylvestris). Carnavel is càrn abhaill (‘apple tree cairn’), which might refer either to the crab apple or to the domesticated orchard apple malus domestica. Parton, as we have seen, might be pere tūn (‘pear farm’). Hazelbush Burn also promises a bit of nourishment at a certain time of year. Before commercial plantations with alien species such as Sitka spruce, the reference to ‘pines’ or ‘firs’ in placenames must refer to the Scots pine, pinus sylvestris. Loch Goosie has nothing to do with geese, but is loch giuthsaich (‘loch of the pinewood’), while Fir Hill had a large pine near its summit. Image, hawthorn 16 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter X 6 LIVING IN AND ON THE LAND Where people settle in a landscape they use their language to name their dwellings. Brittonic trev (Welsh tref) meaning ‘farm, dwelling, settlement’ appears among our earliest names in the now lost Treuercarcou and Threave. Incoming Northumbrians used their equivalent word tūn to name Parton. It was during the period of Gaelic settlement, perhaps in the thirteenth century, that baile became the preferred word to name ferm-touns, extended farm communities, and gave us names like Balmaclellan, Balmaghie, Balgerran and Ballingear. When smaller parts of larger estates are named we find other terminology. Gaelic earrann (‘a division’) appears in two significant clusters – a northern one, many of them containing a family-name, and a southern one, many of which refer to aspects of church life. Another word for smaller land-units (and settlements) is achadh (‘field’): • Auchenshinnoch, achadh nan sionnach ‘field of the foxes’ • Auchenvey, achadh a’ bheith ‘field of the birch’ 4 • Auchreach, achadh riabhach ‘striped or variegated field’ Many names refer to land-use in a farming economy. One of these, which is still for me a little obscure, is White Hill. There are as many as forty-five places called White Hill in the seven parishes of our survey! They are almost all clustered in the lower ground on farmland, in the river valleys and near farmsteads. The name, so common in these parts, must designate a particular function in each farm – perhaps the grass was left to grow long for winter use, going ‘white’ when it dried out in the autumn, giving rise to the name. 17 Other names reveal various other aspects of farming that were going on: • Knocklae is cnoc laoighe, ‘calf’s hill’ • Knocklearn may be cnoc làiridhean, ‘mares’ hill’ • Airie gets its name from Gaelic àirigh, ‘summer grazing or shieling’ - usually on hilly ground which is too exposed for winter grazing, but sometimes on low ground which is too wet in winter. The same word appears in Clenrie which is claon àirigh, ‘sloping shieling’, while Garrary is garbh àirigh, ‘rough shieling’. • Shiel appears in various compounds, and also means ‘summer grazing’, the Scots equivalent of Gaelic àirigh. There are eighteen names containing this element. • Knockgray is cnoc greighe, ‘horses’ hill’ in older Gaelic, later ‘hill of the herd or flock’. • Ironlosh is earrann loisgte, ‘burned division’, referring to burning off rough growth to allow farming. Loskie also contains this word for ‘burned’, loisgte. It is worth noting that there is little evidence in these medieval Gaelic names of sheep farming. The economy at that time was largely a cattle economy with arable farming in the valleys. There are a large number of names that reflect a later shift into sheep farming, all in Scots and English, confirming the impression made by the first Ordnance Survey map which has ‘sheep rees’ (a Galloway term for sheep pens) marked all over the hills: • Hog Hill (six of these – a hog is a young sheep) • Lamb Rig (six of these – a ridge of land grazed by lambs) • Sheep Hill • Washing Pool (in the Water of Ken, ‘where sheep have been washed annually’ according to the OS Name Book • Shepherd’s Rig (twice) • Tup Knowe (a tup is a ram) • Stell Knowe (twice) and Stell Head refer to stells, ‘sheep shelters’ • Wether Hill (twice) – a wether is a castrated ram Blairmuck is blàr muice, meaning ‘pig field’. Sadly the place was ‘gentrified’ in the nineteenth century and it was re-named Blairmichael. It is a bit less mucky than it was, but the original name gives us a glimpse of another kind of animal farming. And we may recall that Glenswinton incorporated an Old English swīn tūn (‘pig farm’). 4 Using the older, masculine form of the noun. Image on opposite page, sheep on the pack road 18 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 6 Place-names also point to some of the crops grown. • Fauld o’ Wheat, a quaintly antiquarian re-naming of what was Wheatfield in 1853 • Orchard Hill • the 'forest' remained. Place-names reflecting its deerhunting history include: • Nether Forrest and Upper Forrest, two settlements in the heart of the Forest area Garryhorn, probably Gaelic garadh eòrna, ‘barley field’ • Loch of Forrest (1654, now called Loch Harrow) • Forest Lane (a burn that flows into Polmaddie Burn) • Lint Holm – ‘riverside land where flax is grown (or processed?)’ • Polmaddie, originally the name of a burn, poll madaidh, ‘hound’s burn’ • Corn Hill • • Knockskellie may be cnoc sgilidh, ‘hill of winnowing’ where the grain and husk of the corn were separated, in Scots a shilling hill, though other explanations are possible. Castlemaddy, also referring to the madaidh or ‘hounds’ • Eldrick (west of the Glenkens in Minigaff parish) is eileirig, ‘deer trap, place to slay deer’ • King’s Holm on the Polharrow Burn may reflect royal control of the forest • High Park and Parkrobbin down in the valley of Glenkens represent parks or enclosed ground where deer could be gathered and constrained. Another significant use of the land was hunting. Deer in particular were hunted – at least by the powerful people of the region. A series of names in the northern part of the Glenkens are survivals of a medieval royal ‘forest’ – not a tree-covered area, but an area designated for hunting – called the Forest of Buchan. This was a swathe of upland territory stretching from Glen Trool in the north of Wigtownshire into Carsphairn and Kells parishes in the upper parts of the Glenkens. It was probably called Forest of Buchan because it had belonged to the Comyns who were also earls of Buchan. The triumph of Robert the Bruce over the Comyns in the early fourteenth century brought an end to their presence here, but the name and 19 Alongside farming and hunting, of course, there was a range of ancillary industries which also left their traces in the landscape: • Kiln Knowe, Kiln Hill, Kil Hill (using the older Scots form of the word) may refer to corn-drying kilns, lime kilns, or other sorts. • Peat Hill, Peat Rig, and at least 34 place-names containing the word moss all refer to peat-mosses, the ground which provided a vital fuel which was regularly cut, dried and burned. Most of the places called Moss are called after the farm whose occupants had extraction rights, such as Smitton Moss, Barend Moss, Culmark Moss, Sunkhead Moss and so on. • In cloth-making the process of fulling, or in Scots waulking, involves soaking and beating wool to thicken and felt it. It appears in Walker Hill and Waukers Linn (‘waterfall of the fuller’). • The art of the blacksmith is well represented: Derrygown is Gaelic, doire gobhainn, (‘blacksmith’s wood’), while Drumgowan is druim gobhainn, (‘blacksmith’s ridge’) and Carsgown is cars gobhainn, (‘blacksmith’s carse’). Pollcardie, the name of a burn, is probably poll ceàrdaich, (‘smithy burn’). In Scots we have Smithy Hill, while Smetoun (now Smittons) is ‘smith’s toun’. • Mollance probably contains Gaelic muileann, (‘mill’), while Scots or English names include Bank Mill, Dubbidale Mill, Grennan Mill, Mill Hill, Milnmark (‘markland of the mill’), Millquarter, Milton, Newmill of Culmark. • Drumtuter is druim an t-sutair - ‘ridge of the shoemaker or cobbler’. • Quarry Hole reflects the extraction of stone for buildings, farm dykes or roads. Drumtuter druim an t-sutair ridge of the shoemaker or cobbler 20 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 7 7 A WORLD IN COLOUR A great many place-names reveal to us how people saw their surroundings in terms of colour. We have already seen that there are several dozen places called White Hill in our project area, reflecting perhaps the long pale grasses of winter where land has not been grazed or ploughed. It is possible that Fintloch is simply the Gaelic expression for the same kind of feature, fionn tulach (‘white hillock’, Fyntelauch in 1541 and Fintilloch in 1654). Whiteness is also reflected in names like Craigbane (Gaelic creag bhàn - ‘white cliff or rock’) and Fingland (fionn ghleann - ‘white glen’), though the whiteness of these places is probably not to do with the long wintry grass. As we have seen the Water of Ken may contain Brittonic can (‘white, bright’), and it may be significant that White Burn flows into one of its tributaries. White Cairn in Dalry parish is recorded in the nineteenth century as an ancient burial mound whose stones are covered with ‘a kind of whitish moss’. and it may have been named in deliberate contrast to the ‘white’ or ‘bright’ water of Ken with which it joins. It does indeed flow off very peaty hills and its water can be opaquely black after heavy rain. Likewise we have the Blackwater of Dee, Black Burn (three occurrences), Black Water and Black Strand. Loch Dow is Gaelic loch dubh (‘black loch’), and we also have a Black Loch in Kells parish though it is now called Mossdale Loch, which is significant because Mossdale means ‘peaty division’, suggesting that the dark peat of the moss was the cause of the blackness of the loch. Almost as common as whiteness, blackness or darkness features in perceptions of the landscape as seen through place-names. This can appear as dubh in Gaelic or black in Scots, and the blackness may often reflect the darkness of peaty ground – or in river-names, the blackness of peat which is washed into the water by heavy rain, darkening it dramatically. It may also refer to dark vegetation covering the ground. As we mentioned above, the Water of Deugh is probably dubhach (‘the dark or gloomy one’), Blackmark is a farm-name, a ‘markland’, perhaps with noticeably black soil.5 We may suspect the same of Black Croft Knowe, Black Hags (close to Black Burn), Black Hill, Blacknook, Black Rig, Black Bank, Black Castle, Black Craig of Dee and Black Knowe. Blackpark in Kells stood in the middle of the peaty marshland of Mossdale Flow, so was definitely a peaty place. Not so many farms have Gaelic dubh (‘black’) in their names, but Dullarg does: it is dubh learg (‘black slope’). 21 Clachandow is clachan dubha (‘black stepping stones’) which cross the Black Water at this point. The Black Water may be peaty, and perhaps that darkens the stones. Or perhaps the stepping-stones are composed of a naturally dark rock. Image, Rhins from High Carsphairn If some places are named for the colour of their soil, others might be named for other colour features, such as their vegetation. We have many places described as ‘green’, which is surely testimony to their fertility, but generally these are in Scots or English names: Green Cleuch, Green Gair, Green Hass (hause - ‘defile, narrow place’), Green Knowe, Greentop of Margree (and two other Greentops), Green Dass (dass - ‘ledge on a hillside or cliff’). Oddly we also have Green Strand (strand - ‘stream, burn’) and Green Burn, and we might want to ask whether the burn itself was seen as green or perhaps there was good grass or other vegetation growing on its banks. One Gaelic name may imply greenness: Corseglass may be cars glas (‘green riverside ground’), but glas can also mean ‘grey, pale’ so we may reserve judgement on that one. Places described as yellow may have been covered in yellowish grass, or broom or gorse or some other yellow flowering plant. Knockbuie is Gaelic cnoc buidhe (‘yellow hill’), while Yellow Craig is a cliff or rocky slope, which rather suggests that the rock itself may have been seen as yellow. Knockower is cnoc odhar (‘brown hill’), and we also have Brown Knowes and Brown Rig. Redness appears in Dunjarg, which is Gaelic dùn dearg (‘red hill’), while we also have Red Hill, and Red Cleugh (cleugh - ‘ravine, gorge, steep crag’) which the OS Name Book states ‘is of a red colour’, referring to the colour of the rock itself. 5 A mark is a unit of currency, two thirds of a pound, used as an assessment of land value in the Middle Ages. 22 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter X Millyea is Gaelic meall liath (‘grey lumpy hill’), while Ben Li (now obsolete but shown on Roy’s map circa 1750) may be beinn liath (‘grey mountain’), and is probably the hill now called Fell Hill. Gaelic has colour-words which refer not only to a particular colour, but also to patterns of colour. Breac for example means ‘speckled, spotted’ (hence its application as the name of the trout, the spottiest of fish). We find it in Benbrack - beinn bhreac (‘speckled mountain’) - where its speckled-ness may refer to patterns of rock interspersed with vegetation, or vice versa. Another colour-pattern word appears in our place-names; riabhach (‘brindled, grizzled, striped’), but also with a plainer colour-meaning of ‘grey, drab, yellow-grey’. In its ‘striped’ guise it may refer to patterns of growth in ground-hugging plants which grow in hollows to shelter from the wind, while the higher ground is blown bare. Here we have Knockreoch and Knockreavie (cnoc riabhach - ‘brindled hill’), Auchreoch (achadh riabhach ‘brindled field’), and Ringreoch (rinn riabhach - ‘brindled point’). Image on left, Rhins of Kells Image on opposite page, Balmaghie Church 23 8 SAINTS IN SPACE Our landscape is also marked by the faith of medieval Christians over many centuries. The old name for Balmaghie Church was Kirkandrews (Kirkanders 1287; Kirkaundres 1346). The first thing to note about this is the dedication to Andrew. Remember that this area came under Northumbrian English overlordship in the seventh century, and that St Andrew was the patron saint of Hexham, whose bishop probably claimed authority over Galloway in the late seventh century before Whithorn was erected as an episcopal See. The bishop of Hexham had relics of St Andrew, and promoted his cult (perhaps promoting him in the church of St Andrews in Pictish Fife at the same time), so the dedication of Balmaghie to St Andrew may well be a result of Northumbria’s interest in this part of Galloway. We could say much the same of Kirkcudbright. That name means ‘the church of (Saint) Cuthbert’, and Cuthbert was also a great Northumbrian saint – the great Northumbrian saint we might even say – and his cult at Kirkcudbright must also reflect Northumbrian dominance in the area from the seventh century. But a little warning is in order here. Though kirk has its origin in Old Norse (kirkja - ‘church’) this is probably not a Norse name, nor for that matter an Old English or Scots name (though both those languages also used kirk of course, under Norse influence). We can tell this because 24 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 8 the words are in the wrong order for Norse, Scots or English - the name would have been Andrewskirk (in Norse or Scots) or Andrewschurch (in English). In the case of Kirkcudbright we can see this quite clearly. It is Cuthbrictiskhirkche in an English source around the year 1160, showing the English word-order, but it is Kirkecutbrid around 1190 and Kircudbriht in 1210. That order, kirk followed by the saint’s name, is distinctively Celtic, and almost certainly Gaelic. We can compare it with other place-names using Gaelic cill (‘church’) followed by a saint’s name – Kilbride (Bridget), Kilwinning (Uinniau), Kilmartin (Martin). Kirkcudbright is one of a whole series of names in Gaelic word-order, but using a word of Germanic origin – either directly borrowing Norse kirkja, or borrowing a form of Old English church that had in its turn been re-pronounced as kirk under the influence of Norse kirkja. So we may regard Kirkcudbright and Kirkandrews as interesting examples of Galloway churches with Northumbrian patron saints, named in Gaelic, using a word borrowed from or influenced by Norse. What better evidence could there be of the rich intermingling of cultures that this area has enjoyed over the centuries? For more on this, see Clancy 2022. Other saints whose names mark the Glenkens include the archangel Michael, commemorated at Crossmichael (Gaelic crois Mhìcheil - ‘Michael’s cross’), who was according to medieval tradition the angel God used to defeat the powers of darkness, to cast down Satan and to guide the souls of the recently deceased to heaven. 25 He was a popular saint, and is commemorated in placenames all over Scotland. John the Baptist is commemorated at Dalry – Saint John’s Town of Dalry – where there is also a stone called St John’s Chair. Nineteenth-century commentators thought that the saint involved was John the Gospel-writer (‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’), and even wondered if he had been here to preach the Gospel. A record of 1428, however, refers to ‘John Beton, rector of the church of St John the Baptist of Dalrey’, so clearly the original dedication of the church had been forgotten or suppressed after the Reformation. The idea that either of these two saints from Judea ever came to Galloway is a complete non-starter, however. There is a Saint Ninian’s Well in Chapelbrae Wood near Parton House, commemorating the supposed early preacher of the Gospel in Galloway, ‘St Ninian of Whithorn’. There are considerable doubts over the historicity of Ninian (or at least over his name), and the dedication is probably quite late. The well is shown on the 1852 OS map simply as a ‘spring’ with no name, and the dedication is probably quite modern. We might wonder if it is related to the local memory of one of the most important lairds of Parton, the sixteenth-century Ninian Glendinning (Glendinwin, Glendynwin, etc.) who appears in many charters for the area. At some point the Glendinning family became Catholics, and this may have encouraged interest in the idea of a ‘saint’s well’. Or perhaps the dedication of St Ninian’s Well reflects the modern notion that medieval Parton church was dedicated to that saint – though there is no evidence for this conjecture, and it is rather unlikely. There are a number of early medieval carved crosses in the area surveyed, all of them found in the far north of the territory, in Carsphairn parish. Two have almost certainly been moved from their original positions. One was formerly at Dalshangan, another is now just to the north of Carsphairn village, but two others lie in a remote spot on the south-west side of Braidenoch Hill – probably still in their original positions where they have perhaps been since the ninth century. It is not easy to explain this distribution. It may be that these crosses marked the boundaries of church land or sanctuary, or were perhaps burial markers. But another possibility is that they marked an important routeway from the Glenkens, over the pass at Loch Doon (loch dùin - ‘loch of the castle’) and down into Ayrshire. The two on Braidenoch Hill certainly stand beside the old pack-road, the medieval routeway through the area. And they stand close to the place which is recorded in the eighteenth century as Kiltersin. This might contain Gaelic cill (‘church, chapel, burial ground’), which would fit with the nearby crosses. The second element might be tarsainn (‘crosswise, across’), or perhaps ‘crossing’. Perhaps this ‘crossing’ refers to the pack-road which crosses the mountains here, or perhaps a point nearby where the pack-road going north crosses over another track going east-west. Image, Dalry Kirkyard 26 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 9 9 PEOPLE AND STORIES Finally we might look at some of the place-names that commemorate individuals, or their families, and sometimes stories about what they did or what happened to them. The stories are, it must be admitted, not necessarily accurate (consider the story told above about Snake Bank for example). But they are no less interesting for that reason. Even a made-up story tells us something about the person who made it up, and the imaginative world he or she lived in. Several place-names simply assign a particular family to a place, and many of these contain surnames which are common enough in Galloway over the centuries. Cannon (Cannon’s Craig), Chesney (a shortening of MacChesney, at Barchesney) and Gordon (at Gordon’s Knowe and Gordonstoun) are all well-established Galloway names. Balmaclellan is the ‘farm of the sons of Gille Fhaoláin’, baile mac Gille Fhaoláin – and Gille Fhaoláin means ‘servant or devotee of (Saint) Fillan.' Our earliest recorded version of the name is in 1408, but it probably goes much further back than that. 27 In 1466 the lands of Balmaclellane were granted to John MacLellan (M’Lelane), but the place-name shows that the family’s association with those lands pre-dates the grant of 1466. Balmaghie is ‘the farm of the sons of Aodh’, baile mac Aoidh. It is an ancient name in Galloway and in Dumfriesshire. The final -dh is silent in more modern Gaelic, but its older dental sound still appears in some of the early forms, Ballemcgethe in 1348, Balmageth in 1515. We also have members of the McGhie family present in the records of Balmaghie as early as 1426 – though clearly they were there much earlier in order to have given the place its name. Aside from family-names, there are numerous stories about individuals, named or un-named, which are supposed to explain some place-names. There is often a tragedy or distress of some sort embedded in these stories – perhaps there is something about the psychology of local story-telling which is prone to this kind of explanation. The stories which follow are all culled Balmaclellan baile mac Gille Fhaoláin the farm of the sons of Gille Fhaoláin from the Ordnance Survey Name Book – the handwritten records of the surveyors who prepared the first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (see Williamson 2015). Allan’s Cairn: ‘Mr Wilson says that it is handed down by Tradition that a packman or pedlar called Allan was murdered and interred here’. Dead Man’s Well: ‘It took its name in consequence of a dead man being found in it’. Jean’s Wa’s (wa is a Scots word for ‘ruined building’, literally ‘walls’): ‘It is handed down by Tradition that a woman called Jean Gordon (daughter to one of the Gordons of Shirmers who were relatives to the noble family of Kenmure) who had trusted much to the constancy of one Lyndsay a courtier from Ayrshire, she trusted and was deceived, which almost broke her heart. From thus (sic) the deceived Jean was determined never to trust to man again. At length she decided to build a cottage in some solitary glen, and devote the remainder of her days to devotion. She obtained this spot of ground to her mind from the Gordons then of Holme, her domicile was erected, & she took up her abode in it some time in the beginning of the 17th century’. Bell’s Pool: ‘It is said to have been a favourite pool of a person (while angling) named Bell’. Bargain Strand: ‘It is handed down by tradition that formerly an old woman who had lived convenient to this stream sold herself to the Devil’. Catherine’s Pool: ‘A middling deep pool in the Black Water opposite Backside of Glenshimeroch where many years ago a woman whose christian name was Catherine used to lift water’. 28 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 9 Duncan’s Pantry: ‘A small crevice in a rock at the bottom of a precipice and close on the northern side of Garpel Burn. It took its name from a man named Duncan who had rescued himself by hiding in it from Graham of Claverhouse & his dragoons during the period of the Scottish persecution’. Fiddler’s Bog: ‘It is said that the covenanters once held a marriage here which was accompanied by a fiddler’. My Lord’s Cleugh: ‘A small precipitous portion of land on the western side of Garpel Burn overhanging with wood. It is said, whilst Lord Kenmuire was in the act of hunting one very strong and nimble deer or roe which was observed to lie frequently in the small portion of ground called Deer’s Den, the deer some way or other had come in contact with Lord Kenmure & pushed him over this precipice, which from that it has retained the name My Lord’s Cleugh’. Chapman’s Stone: ‘A considerable granite stone on the farm of Lochside, situated on the East side of the road leading from New Galloway to Lowrieston. It is said a chapman (‘merchant or trader’) had been murdered & robbed’. Pattiesthorn: ‘A farm house and out houses in good repair with a farm of land attached, occupied by Ebenezer Shaw, the property of Captain Saunderson of Glenlochar Lodge. It is said that a hawthorn once grew near the house and that a man called Peter had strangled himself on it. Hence the name Paties thorn’. Butterhole: ‘The ruins of a Cot house on the farm of Craigencore where it is traditionally handed down a woman lived who was considered to have been a witch and who used to make Butter wanting a Cow or Cows, and hide it in a hole convenient to the house’. 29 Beggar’s Lake: ‘The origin of its name is from a poor man, which had been found dead convenient to it’. Englishmen’s Dub: ‘A deep pool in Lowran Burn out of which two Englishmen had been got drowned’. Gold Wells: ‘a number of springs, two in particular are known [by] the name of Gold Wells, the water of which is salubrious, these are the wells, (with other streams on this and the adjoining hills) which tradition states that a Mr. Dodd collected a quantity of gold from, but was disturbed by the agent of the government, in his quiet & lucrative retreat’. The Score: ‘A small oval shaped portion of land on the farm of Waterside. It is about 8 ft by 4 marked by a small trench about 12 inches by 6. Tradition says that at one time while a farmer was on his way home from Dalry, he had halted about the church and disturbed the fairies (it is said in those times that the chapel had been a haunt of Fairies) from which they pursued and overtook him at this place. It appears he had a sword with him which he immediately drew and scored this small portion of ground (& remained in till morning) in the name of the almighty and the fairies immediately fled out of his sight.’ The foregoing shows just how rich a source of information and insight our place-names are, helping us to understand the societies and cultures of the past, and the environment in which we live. For fuller discussion of the place-names mentioned in this booklet and of thousands more, the elements they are composed of, their locations in the landscape, and numerous early forms, see the website at, https://kcb-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk/ Image, Green Well, photo © Bratach Dubh 30 Galloway Glens / Glenkens Place-Names / Chapter 10 A BIG “THANK YOU” TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS 10 Thank you to everyone that helped with the project and this publication, including: Thomas Clancy, Simon Taylor and Brian Aitken from the University of Glasgow, local place-name and history experts Alistair Livingston, Ted Cowan, Michael Ansell and and everyone that contributed their thoughts and time. Ted & Alistair were great supporters of the project, as they were of the history of Galloway generally. Alistair passed away in 2018, just after the project started; and Ted passed away in 2022. We are all so grateful for their input. Image, from left to right, Alistair Livingston (local historian), Simon Taylor, Gilbert Márkus, Thomas Clancy – all studying a map in the Galloway Glens Offices 31 11 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING A final thank you to everyone involved in making the resources listed below publicly available. Ansell, Michael, Ronald Black and E. J. Cowan (eds) (2022), Galloway: The Lost Province of Gaelic Scotland (Aberdeen) Maxwell, Herbert (1930), The Place-Names of Galloway (Glasgow) Clancy, Thomas Owen (2008), ‘The Gall-Ghàidheil and Galloway’, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 2, 19-50 OS Name Books, ‘Ordnance Survey Name Books’, on line at https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnancesurvey-name-books Clancy, Thomas Owen (2022), 'Place-names and Gaelic in Galloway: names in cill and kirk', in Ansell et al. (2022), 1–26 Fellows-Jensen (1990), ‘Scandinavians in Southern Scotland’, Nomina 13, 41-60 HE Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Judith McLure and Roger Collins, (Oxford 1994) [translation of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, other translations are available] Márkus, Gilbert (2012), The Place-Names of Bute (Donington). Márkus, Gilbert (2017), Conceiving a Nation: Scotland to AD 900 (Edinburgh) Owen, Hywel Wyn, and Richard Morgan (2007) Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales (Llandysul) Place-Names of the Galloway Glens https://kcb-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk/ Taylor, Simon, with Gilbert Márkus (2006-12), The Place-Names of Fife (five volumes, Donington) Watson, W. J. (1926), The Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh) Williamson, Eila (2015), ‘“Hence the name”: Berwickshire parishes along the Anglo-Scottish Border as described in the Ordnance Survey Name Books’, Journal of Scottish Name Studies 9, 83-96 32 BOOK 5 Glenkens Place-Names by Gilbert Márkus A Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme publication designed by Martha Schofield Design https://marthaschofield.co.uk edited by Sarah Ade, sarah.ade@gmail.com printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart ISBN 978-17395875-5-0  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 5 - Glenkens Place-names Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GGLP_13 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Description An account of the resource A window on our past. GGLP language https://glenkensarchive.scot/glenkens_archive/files/original/4/471/GG_Bk_4_Air_Crashes_single_page_AW.pdf 89ce7643e0c2ac393229b6a908fff473 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 4 - Last Flights Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Booklets Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available GGLP Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Last Flights A history of plane crashes in the Glenkens by Paul Goodwin Galloway Glens Address 5 St Andrew Street Castle Douglas Dumfries & Galloway DG7 1DE Website https://gallowayglens.org Social Media @gallowayglens ISBN 978-17395875-4-3 Published by Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership, 2023 text © Paul Goodwin graphics © Martha Schofield Design https://marthaschofield.co.uk edited by Sarah Ade sarah.ade@gmail.com printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart The Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme: 2018 - 2023 2 The Galloway Glens Scheme focused on the Ken/Dee river catchment in South West Scotland, flowing from source in the Galloway Hills to the Solway, including the settlements of Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright. The Galloway Glens Scheme was an initiative of Dumfries & Galloway Council’s Environment Team and ran from 2018 to 2023, aiming to ‘connect people to our heritage’ while boosting the local economy and supporting sustainable communities. Primarily funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the scheme worked with a range of partners and was supported by the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere. Forming a large part of the Galloway Glens area, the Glenkens and its surroundings played a vital role in times of both war and peace as a location for military flight training. The terrain, weather and thinly spread population have made the area ideal for challenging exercises in elements of low level flying and navigation in preparation for operational flying and combat. For all that it is ideal for aircraft training, the risks of such exercises are in evidence throughout the uplands of this corner of South West Scotland. Although of historic interest and a source of inspiration for upland exploration each one of these accident records of crash sites has a human dimension in terms of lives lost. Knowing Paul's expertise as recorder and historian of air crashes in the area the Galloway Glens team are pleased to be able to help in bringing this history together in one place. The book presents a valuable and accessible record of mainly military air crashes and is fitting tribute to those who have given their lives to aviation. Galloway Glens Area Map About the author... Paul Goodwin has been researching plane crash sites in and around the Glenkens for 16 years. As an active member of the Glenkens community, and a former military man, Paul took an interest initially in identifying, recording and researching local war memorials and the men and women listed on them. This, along with his interest in hill walking and as a member of the Mountain Rescue Team, led to the researching of poorly recorded crash sites across the Glenkens and neighbouring areas. Image above, Paul Goodwin by Kat Goodwin Paul's work on memorials has been commended by organisations including the Scottish Military Research Group and records are now available for all through their online Commemorations Project. Right, clockwise from top, Avro Anson, Flight Magazine B29, Wikimedia Commons Spitfire, Wikipedia This publication is dedicated to those who have lost their lives to air crashes in the Glenkens and surrounding areas. ii CONTENTS 1 Introduction ......................................................................p. 1 - 2 2 Air Crashes on Corserine ..............................................p. 3 - 7 3 Air Crashes around Loch Doon ..................................p. 8 - 9 4 Air Crashes to the North of Carsphairn ................p. 10 - 14 5 Air Crashes in the East of the Glenkens ................p. 15 - 18 6 Loch Skerrow Memorial ............................................p. 19 - 20 7 Dundrennan Tragedy .........................................................p. 21 8 Other Nearby Crashes ................................................p. 22 - 25 8 Appendix ........................................................................p. 26 - 29 8 Thanks to All Our Supporters ........................................p. 30 WARNING "The remains of all aircraft which crashed while in military service, whether on land or at sea, are protected by the Protection of Military Remains Act 1968. It is an offence under this act to tamper with, damage, move or unearth remains unless the Secretary of State has issued a Licence authorising such things to be done, and they are done in accordance with the conditions of the Licence.” - Ministry of Defence iii Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 1 1 INTRODUCTION Galloway has a long history as a flight training area. The area's appeal for this rests on a number of factors such as the wide variety of terrain, the fact that it is so sparsely populated and that there is relatively little in the way of civil aircraft using the airspace. This makes it ideal for low-flying aircraft training, although there are relatively few aircraft to be seen training nowadays in comparison to years gone by. Despite its choice as a suitable training area, our high hills such as Corserine, Carlin’s Cairn, Meikle Millyea and Cairnsmore of Carsphairn are often shrouded in cloud which, ironically, creates terrain fairly hazardous to low flying aircraft. This was especially true before the advent of modern satellite navigation and ground mapping radar which aircraft these days are able to benefit from. L O CH DOON St. John's Town Dalry Kells Balmaclellan CL AT T ERI N G S H AWS New Galloway CH KE N 1 Carsphairn LO This publication includes a total of 22 air crashes which have occurred over the years, the majority of which have been in and around the Glenkens (a chronological list can be found in the Appendix on page 26). This book is dedicated to those who lost their lives in these crashes. Dalmellington Map of Glenkens Crashes by Paul Goodwin Image above, Typhoon, Wikimedia Commons 2 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 2 2 AIR CRASHES ON CORSERINE Situated in the Parish of Kells, Corserine is the highest hill of the Rhinns of Kells with a summit height of 814 metres or 2,670 feet if you prefer. In a little over eight years, five separate aircraft crashed on this hill with a shocking loss of sixteen young lives. On the 9th of January 1939, Avro Anson serial L9153 had left Prestwick on a navigation exercise (NavEx) flight when it crashed into the Western Slope of Corserine, near Downies Burn, killing Flying Officer Iain Shields, Mr Norman Duff, Leading Aircraftman Gordon Betts and Leading Aircraftman Henry Briggs. The wreckage was found still smouldering the next day by local shepherd William McCubbin. Following this incident, Tiger Moth serial L6932 set out from Prestwick on January 10th, 1939 to search for the crashed Anson. Due to poor weather conditions, unfortunately this plane also crashed, very close to the original crash site. Incredibly, Pilot Pete Barrow and his photographer escaped uninjured. Various pieces of wreckage remain at the crash sites. The 23rd of October 1942 saw another Anson crash, this time just 150 metres north west of the summit of Corserine. Anson Serial DG787 was on a night NavEx from Jurby, on the Isle of Man, when it failed to return. Two days later a Home Guard unit in the area notified RAF Wigtown of a crashed aircraft and a search-and-rescue team from Wigtown recovered the bodies of Sergeant Joseph Millinger, Sergeant Charles Lunny, Sergeant Petr Haas (who was from Czechoslovakia) and Flight Lieutenant Vaclav Jelinek (who was also from Czechoslovakia). The site was cleared of all large wreckage but some small burnt fragments can still be found. 3 Aircraft types, crashed on Corserine Images above, Avro Anson, Flight magazine Mosquito, Internet Source (uncredited) Page Opposte, Map by Paul Goodwin Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 3 4 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 2 Map by Paul Goodwin 5 Aircraft types, crashed on Corserine On the 20th of January 1944, Mosquito serial DD795 was on a cross-country training exercise from RAF High Ercall, in Shropshire, when it flew into high ground on the south eastern side of Corserine, near Scar of the Folk. Flight sergeant Kenneth Mitchell and flight sergeant John Aylott were both killed in the crash. The Mosquito was known as the 'wooden wonder' and most of the aircraft was burt in the incident, with very little debris remaining. Immediately following the crash, the wreckage was covered with snow and, despite four other aircraft searching for the craft along its route, it was not located until the 11th of February - some three weeks later. The wreckage was eventually found, again by local shepherd William McCubbin, who had discovered the first crash site five years earlier. On the 10th of April 1947, a Belgian Air Force C47 (military version of the DC3 airliner) was on a ferry flight from Belgium to Prestwick, with three passengers and a crew of three, when it became lost in poor conditions. The plane crashed just to the north of Corserine, on Carlin's Cairn. Captain Roger Loyen, adjutant Andre Dierick, adjutant Felix Curtis, captain Olivier Lejeune, adjutant Michel Cardon and adjutant Andre Rodrique all died in the accident. Little, if any, wreckage is to be found at the crash site although, like the other crash sites, the scar is still visible. Images above C-47 by Steve Homewood, Tiger Moth by Wolf Cocklin Nb In the Belgian Air Force, adjutant is a junior officer. 6 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 2 Image above, FO MacTavish, Loch Doon area, Wikitree Right, Map by Paul Goodwin Opposite page, top to bottom Spitfire, Wikipedia Hurricane, Bonhams website (uncredited), Piper Cherokee, Wikipedia 7 3 AIR CRASHES AROUND LOCH DOON Two of the three crashes in this area were wartime crashes while the third, within living memory of many local residents, happened in 1975. On the 24th of October 1941, Spitfire mark IIA serial P7540 left RAF Ayr (Heathfield) on a training flight. It was reported that the pilot made a low pass over Loch Doon but as he banked away, a wing caught the surface of the water which caused the aircraft to crash into the loch. Although the RAF searched for the aircraft and pilot at the time, no trace was found. The pilot was First Officer Frantisek Hekl of 312 Czech Squadron RAF and as his body was not recovered. He is commemorated on the Runnymede memorial. In 1977 a serious search for the aircraft began by members of the Dumfries Sub-aqua Club and other clubs working with the Dumfries & Galloway Aviation Museum. The search would take five years before the aircraft was finally located and recovered by experts in 1982, operating under a RAF license. The search was exhaustive, involving an incredible total 567 dives by 109 individual divers. This aircraft has been partially restored and is on display, together with documentation including a photograph of the pilot, at the Dumfries & Galloway Aviation Museum. SPITFIRE HURRICANE Aircraft types crashed near Loch Doon PIPER CHEROKEE 8 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 3 On the 18th of March 1944, Hurricane mark IV serial LD564 was on a navigation exercise from RAF Ayr (Heathfield), piloted by First Officer Roswell Murray MacTavish of 439 (Tiger) Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force. The aircraft was flying at 3,300 feet when, for reasons that have not been discovered, it descended steeply through clouds and impacted the ground, killing the pilot. First Officer MacTavish was 24 years old and came from Vancouver, Canada, and is buried in Ayr Cemetery. Remains of the aircraft can still be found in a fire break in the forest. On the 28th of September 1975, Piper Cherokee serial G-BATP was flying over the Glenkens with the pilot and three passengers on board. The plane was en-route from Prestwick to Blackpool when it struck high ground at Bow Hill, Carsphairn, killing all on board. A plaque commemorating the crash is fixed to a rock at this very remote site. The following were killed in the crash of the Piper Cherokee: Neil Pomfret, Gerald A Gibson, Maurice G King and David Evans. Image, Memorial on Bow Hill Opposite page Map by Paul Goodwin 9 4 AIR CRASHES TO THE NORTH OF CARSPHAIRN The first of these incidents was a Spitfire which crashed on the north east of Cairnsmore of Carsphairn on the 23rd of May 1942, killing the sole occupant, Pilot Officer David G Hunter Blair. David was only nineteen years old when he died and was the son of Captain Sir Edward Hunter Blair, Baronet of Straiton. Unusually for a crash in the Glenkens, this was an operational flight rather than a training mission. David served with 242 Squadron and was one of several pilots sent to provide top cover for the Queen Mary, which was arriving in the UK laden with US soldiers. The plane was a spitfire Vb AD540 'Blue Peter' and had been paid for by funds raised in Newmarket and was named after the 1939 Derby winner. The pilot blacked10 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter X Blue Peter Memorial (original condition) Image by Bob Peace Blue Peter Memorial (after re-instatement) Image by Sarah Ade out due to a fault with the oxygen, but came to in time to bail out. Unfortunately, his parachute failed to open correctly and he was severely injured and died shortly after being found. He landed close to where the plane had crashed on the Cairnsmore of Carsphairn, and only 15 miles from his family home. The aircraft wreckage was discovered and parts were recovered in 1993, with the assistance of a Royal Naval Sea King helicopter from HMS Gannet in Ayr. The engine has subsequently been restored and is on display at the Dumfries & Galloway aviation museum. There is also a small memorial at the very remote crash site and another marking the spot where the pilot died. There are several well-written articles on the internet - just type ‘Blue Peter Spitfire’ into your favourite search engine. The recovery of the wreckage was also covered by the TV programme Blue Peter, because of the coincidence of the name, and you can view this episode of the programme on YouTube. In March 2020, a local walker discovered that a new logging road was under construction and one of the memorials could not be found as it had been accidentally bulldozed. It was gratifying to find that those responsible for creating the road were apologetic and subsequently went back to uncover the memorial and reinstate it. The second crash in this area was an Avro Anson serial DG575 which crashed on the 5th of December 1942 in 11 Blue Peter Memorial (detail) by Sarah Ade B29 Memorial. Image by Paul Goodwin Carsphairn forest, almost exactly six miles north of the village of Carsphairn. All five crew were killed - Pilot Officer J Sawyer, Pilot Officer P R Allen, Sergeant R M Woolley, Sergeant W A Edwards and Leading Aircraftsman W T Whiting. Ansons were used for general transport and also to train crews on flying multi-engined aircraft and in navigation. The final air crash in this area is by far the largest aircraft, as well as the most recent crash and therefore, arguably, the most memorable. On the 7th of July 1951, Boeing B29 Tanker serial 44-83950 crashed into the field to the south of where Brockloch Tower now stands, killing all eleven men on board. This was a US Air Force Superfortress, similar to the type used to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but this one had been converted to a tanker for air-to-air refuelling. In addition to the usual crew, often it also carried a refuelling boom operator. The men killed were First Lieutenant A O’Leary, First Lieutenant G M Foote, First Lieutenant C J Hayden Jr, Sergeant N M Poppoff, Captain T A Metz, Corporal J B Simpson, Corporal J P Finnegan, First Lieutenant J W Kern, Sergeant H H Hill, Sergeant W L Scott and Corporal R Y Russell. USAF Boeing KB-29P 44-83950 took off from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk at 9.17am for a Radar Navigation Flight, which was to be followed by four hours of air-to-air refuelling practice with a Boeing B-50 (a very similar aircraft). At 11.03am the aircraft contacted the controller at Prestwick; the pilot reported they were at an altitude of 14,500ft. Seven minutes later the aircraft was seen by witnesses on the ground descending out 12 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 4 of cloud at 1,500 - 2,000 feet over Carsphairn on a NNW course. The aircraft turned onto a SE course, stalled and entered a spin from which it did not recover. It impacted the ground in a deep gully at the edge of a field. The fuel tanks, containing an estimated 8,000 US Gallons, exploded and completely destroyed the aircraft, scattering it over a considerable area. A memorial was unveiled on 21st September 1952 by Mrs Evelyn McMillan of Brockloch (and latterly Lamloch), Carsphairn. The memorial is situated in a dyke to the South of Brockloch tower and facing the tower but the actual crash site is about 100 yards to the West. Image above, RAF Sea King recovering 'Blue Peter', Dumfries Aviation Museum Right, top to bottom, Avro Anson, Flight Magazine Spitfire, Wikipedia B29, Wikimedia Page opposite, Unveiling B29 Memorial, Galloway News - commons, unveiling 13 14 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 5 5 AIR CRASHES IN THE EAST OF THE GLENKENS There were three air crashes on the eastern side of the Glenkens. The first of these losses was on Beninner, a hill about a mile south east of Cairnsmore of Carsphairn. On the 8th of November 1939, Bristol Blenheim IV serial P4848 was on a ferry flight from RAF Perth, Scone, to RAF St Athan, Cardiff, along with three other Blenheims and a Fairey Battle. The Battle landed at Blackpool due to poor weather, while three of the Blenheims arrived safely at St Athan. However, one was reported overdue and was not found until more than a week later. This twin engine light bomber was normally operated by a three-man crew but this was a ferry flight, so the pilot (Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Norman Masters Eyres) was the only one on board. His body was found in the wreckage and he is buried at Stranraer Glebe cemetery. The Blenheim was known to have problems with icing up in cold weather and the flight instruments were mostly obscured by the control yoke, so this was probably a difficult aircraft to be in during poor weather conditions. The plane was part of the Special Duties Flight which was testing radio and radar equipment for the Air Ministry, so there must have been some relief when the plane with its secret equipment was found. A guard was provided by staff from West Freugh while the ‘special installation’ equipment was recovered by staff from the Air Ministry Research Establishment; this was probably a Mk II Airborne Interception Radar. 15 Map by Paul Goodwin 16 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 5 BLENHEIM DORNIER DO 217 LYSANDER The second crash in this area was the only enemy aircraft to crash in the Glenkens. On the 25th of March 1943 a Dornier 217 (serial U5-JR) twin-engine bomber, with a crew of four, suffered engine failure during a bombing mission near Edinburgh. It crashed at Cornharrow, about six miles east of Carsphairn, although what it was doing this far south west is anyone’s guess... Three of the crew bailed out and were subsequently captured and held as prisoners of war. The body of the fourth crew member, Oberleutenant Martin Pischke, was found in the wreckage of the aircraft. He is buried in Troqueer Churchyard, Dumfries. The prisoners of war were taken initially to Dalry police station. One of the prisoners had lost a boot in the bog where he apparently landed and, on arriving at the police station, he handed his remaining boot to Police Sergeant Hugh Harvie as it would be of no further use to him. Local legend has it that the boot stayed on the windowsill of the police station for several years afterwards; whether Sgt Harvie had hopes of finding the other boot is not recorded. Sgt Harvie’s wife received some mild criticism for feeding the prisoners before they were taken away, but she explained “they were just wee boys”. The final crash in this area occurred on the 25th of February 1942 beside the Ken Bridge Hotel. A Westland Lysander, serial number V 9472 of 309 (Polish) Squadron, was involved in practice dive-bombing attacks on a gun position. The pilot was Flight Officer Piotr Dunin and also on board was Flight Officer Jerzy Homan. The plane failed to pull out of the dive and crashed in the road, killing both men; they are buried in St Andrew’s cemetery, Dumfries. An investigation showed that a system malfunction was the cause of the crash. The Lysander is most renowned as the plane used to smuggle members of the French resistance into and out of occupied France. 17 Opposite page left to right; Blenheim, Aircrew Remembered Dornier DO217, Wikipedia Lysander, Wikipedia This page Map by Paul Goodwin 18 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 6 6 LOCH SKERROW MEMORIAL Near Loch Skerrow, or more accurately in the woodland to the west of the site of the Little Water of Fleet Viaduct, stands a crude mortared cairn surrounded by twisted remnants of an air crash. There had been rumours of the crash site but very little was known, so in August 2008 Paul Goodwin, together with Bob Peace, a fellow member of Galloway Mountain Rescue Team, decided to visit the site to photograph it and record the exact position. Research by Paul over several months, assisted by members of Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum (especially Alan Leishman), determined that this was the site of a crash of a Hawker Typhoon serial JR 439 on 18th March 1944. Canadian Pilot Kenneth Osborne Mitchell, of 440 Squadron, was killed in the crash at just twenty-two years of age. He is buried in Ayr cemetery. At the time, 440 Squadron were based at Prestwick and in training prior to moving down to Kent in the fighter bomber role. The story of the crash site is that it was only discovered when local workers were called to investigate a power outage in the area caused by the aircraft crashing into cables, and the story of the cairn is that the pilot’s parents had requested some form of memorial at the crash site. Efforts to contact the family in 2008/09 were unsuccessful. It should be noted that, in 2008, there was nothing at the site to show what had happened there, or when; just the cairn and wreckage. However, Paul decided that the memorial should remain anonymous no longer and, in fine weather on the 18th of March 2009 (the 65th anniversary of the crash), with a small group, he revisited the site and placed a plaque on the cairn giving details of the crash and the pilot who died. Present on the day were Morris Service, Davie Reid and Drew Porteous from the Dumfries & Galloway Aviation Museum, as well as Paul’s wife, Betty. The plaque also bears the phrase “Until the day break, and shadows flee away”, which is the phrase the pilot's parents had chosen to have inscribed on his gravestone. The memorial is at OS Map Ref is NX 58306 66954. Image on opposite page, Loch Skerrow cairn and Typhoon wreckage by Paul Goodwin 19 20 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 7 7 DUNDRENNAN TRAGEDY One of the saddest tales is of a crash which happened near Dundrennan. On the 18th of July 1944 a Bristol Beaufighter, serial number JL 893, crashed on a house in the village killing the crew of two - Sergeant Pilot E M Young and Navigator Flight Sergeant H A Wiles. Also killed were four of the Hamilton family who were in the house at the time; parents James and Georgina, along with children Henry and Agnes. The sole survivor was daughter Georgina (known as Ina) who was badly injured. There are stories of the sound of the aircraft circling, presumably looking for somewhere to land, before the crash. There was no memorial to this tragedy until 2010, when one was at last unveiled beside the parish church. Daughter Ina attended the unveiling on the 66th anniversary of the tragedy. In the photograph, Ina (then Wood) is the lady in the blue jacket, with the lady beside her being Jean Brown who was the driving force behind getting the memorial erected. Top, Bristol Beaufighter, Wikimedia Commons Below, Unveiling of Dundrennan Air Crash Memorial, Paul Goodwin 21 8 OTHER NEARBY CRASHES The final selection of air crashes around the Glenkens includes the earliest and most recent crashes. Athough situated outside the Glenkens, these sites are all (bar one) within the Stewartry, so not far away. The one exception (the first) is included for its interest and because it links to another near Dalbeattie. I had heard of a First World War airship crash on Lamachan Hill near Glentrool. Research has shown this to have been SSZ Class Airship – Public Domain airship SSZ 11 which crashed on the 20th August 1917. Although there was a brief mention of the crash in the book The Merrick and its Neighbouring Hills, the crash had not made its way into any of the various published sources for aircraft crashes, either in books or online. The pilot was Flight Sub-Lieutenant Harris. Having lost power to its single engine, the airship was blown by strong winds into Larg Hill and then blown over the top 22 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 8 towards Lamachan Hill, finally coming to rest at a height of 1,500 feet. Incredibly, the pilot and crew members were injured in the crash but all survived and eventually recovered from their injuries. There is some discrepancy about the exact crash site, although there seems little doubt that the initial contact was with Larg Hill, but one can imagine the airship being then dragged somewhat further by the wind. If you are trying to imagine the airship, don't think of something grand like a Zeppelin or the R101; this was a Royal Navy Airship of the SSZ class of which 77 were built. Carrying a three-man crew, it was of the 'blimp' type, with a wooden fuselage and a single pusher propeller. They were used mainly for spotting U-boats in in-shore waters and could sometimes be seen escorting the Stranraer/ Larne ferry. Douglas Dragonfly – BAE Systems In the week following the crash, the airship was dismantled and moved down to Auchinleck Farm on horse sledges, along the Penkiln Burn. This airship was taken back to base, reassembled and put back into service. SSZ 11 would eventually go on to complete 1,610 flying hours - more than any other airship of her class - before being scrapped along with all her sister ships in October 1919. Both of these incidents took place during wartime so the Defence of the Realm Act ensured that nothing was reported at the time. By an odd coincidence, another airship of the same class - SSZ 13 - crashed at Castle Point in Auchencairn Bay on the 30th of August 1918 and, despite efforts of men and boats from Kippford and Rockcliffe, it was badly 23 damaged so never went back into service. Some details of this latter crash are held by the Dalbeattie Museum. A notable crash of a civilian aircraft happened on the 2nd of February 1937 when a De Havilland Dragonfly, serial number G-AEHC, crashed on Darnaw hill, near Clatteringshaws. The twin engine aircraft belonged to the Daily Express and was being used to prove a safe air route from Glasgow-Renfrew to Liverpool-Speke. After the aircraft failed to arrive, a search and rescue operation was instigated and it was found that the aircraft had crashed in poor visibility. The exact cause of the accident is unknown, but it is assumed that the pilot descended below safe limits, perhaps in order to follow what he believed to be the coastline of the Solway Firth. Sadly, all four on board were killed and there is a memorial at the crash site; Leslie Thomas Jackson (Pilot, aged 32), Archibald Francis Philpott (Wireless Operator, aged 35), Major Harold Charles Pemberton DSO (passenger, aged 47) and Reginald Charles Wesley (passenger, aged 22). A more recent crash was that of a US Air Force F-111E (Aardvark) swing-wing supersonic bomber. The crash happened on the 19th of December 1979, when the aircraft was on a training exercise from Upper Heyford, and flew into a rockface on Craignaw hill. Both of the crew - Captain Pilot Richard Alfred Hetzner and Captain WSO/Navigator Raymond Charles Spaulding - were killed in the crash and there is a memorial at the site. The final local crash may well be remembered by some readers. On the 3rd of June 1997, a RAF Harrier II Mk 7, serial number ZG861, crashed on Bengairn, Castle Douglas, just two fields away from Ingleston Motte. The aircraft had been one of four from RAF Honington, Suffolk, taking part in Exercise Hill Foil 97/1. Fifty minutes F111 – Public Domain 24 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 8 after take-off, the aircraft suffered engine failure due to compressor blade failure and the pilot ejected safely at 700 feet. He was taken by Sea King helicopter to Newcastle hospital, which is standard procedure following the stresses of an ejection. The plane crashed into open ground shortly after the pilot ejected. One widely used air crash website describes the crash site as being in woodland, five miles SE of Newton Stewart, but this is incorrect. The actual crash site, verified by a local who is familiar with the site and visited it at the time, was on Bengairn; also, the photo of the crash clearly shows it to be in open ground and not in woodland. There are many more crash sites further afield in the Stewartry which I will leave to others to research and write about. A few in particular which may be intersting for someone to cover are the eight crashes on Cairnsmore of Fleet and a Dornier crash on Cairnharrow. Harrier Crash – Aviation Safety Network 25 9 APPENDIX Serial No. Type SSZ 11 Squadron Air crashes in the Glenkens and surrounding area Approx. Location Grid Reference Cause of crash Date Facilities Airship Lamachan Hill NX 435 766 Lost control 20 Aug 1917 none SSZ 13 Airship Dalbeattie Lost control 30 Aug 1918 none G - AEHC Dragonfly Civ Cairn Darnaw NX 515 765 Crashed into hill. Memorial at site 02 Feb 1937 Pilot Leslie Thomas Jackson Wireless Operator Archibald Francis Philpott DSO Major Harold Charles Pemberton Reginald Charles Wesley L9153 Avro Anson 1CANS Meikle Milyea NX 488 865 Flew into hill in bad weather on navex from Prestwick 09 Jan 1939 Pilot Flying Officer Iain Douglas Shields Wireless Operator Norman Hector Duff Navigator (u/t) Leading Aircraftman Gordon Eric Betts Navigator (u/t) Leading Aircraftman Henry Gilbert Stewart Briggs L6932 Tiger Moth 12EFTS Hunt Ha Hill NX 488 865 Crashed looking for Anson L9153 10 Jan 1939 none P4848 Blenheim IV SD. FLT Ben Inner NX 605 970 Flying Perth to St. Athan. 08 Nov 1939 Flt Lt Kenneth Norman Masters Eyres P7540 Spitfire 312 Loch Doon NE of Graigencolon NX 500 990 Crashed in loch while low flying. Recovered and displayed at D&G Aviation Museum 25 Oct 1941 F/O F F Hekl (Czech) 26 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 9 Serial No. Type Approx. Location Grid Reference Cause of crash Cause of crash Date Facilities V9472 Lysander 304 Ken Bridge NX 641 784 Failed to recover from dive 25 Feb 1942 Flight Officer Piotr Dunin (Polish) Flight Officer Jerzy Homan (both buried in Dumfries) AD540 Spitfire 242 Cairnsmore of Carsphairn NX 604 991 Dived into ground out of cloud. Recovered 17/7/93 and displayed at D&G Aviation Museum. 2 memorials at site 23 May 1942 P/O David Gasphard Hunter Blair DG787(J) Anson ANBS Corserine NX 498 873 Navex from Jurby 23 Oct 1942 Pilot Sergeant Joseph Gerard Millinger, Navigator / Wireless Operator Sergeant Charles Lunny, Navigator (u/t) Flight Lieutenant Vaclav Jelinek (Czech), Navigator (u/t) Petr Haas Sergeant (Czech) DJ575 Anson 10BGS Nr.Brownhill Farm. Carsphairn NX 560 027 Lost control on Navex & dived in 05 Dec 1942 Pilot Officer Jack Sawyer Buried Aldershot Civil Cemetery, Pilot Officer Peter Robert Allen Navigator Buried Dumfries (St Andrew's) RC Cemetery, Navigator Sergeant Robert Mayer Woolley Buried Troqueer Cemetery, Dumfries, Wireless Operator Sergeant William Alfred Edwards Buried Kensal Green (St Mary's) RC Cemetery, London, Wireless Operator (u/t) LAC William Thomas Whiting, Buried Brighton and Preston Cemetery, Sussex. 27 4365 Dornier U5-JR 2ST/7K Cornharrow NX 667 928 Shot down by Beaufighters, 3 survived 25 Mar 1943 Pilot M Pishchke DD795 Mosquito 60OTU Corserine NX 506 872 Night intruder execise from High Ercall 20 Jan 1944 Pilot Flight Sergeant Kenneth Mitchell Navigator Flight Sergeant John Jeffrey Aylott LD564 Hurricane 439 Loch Doon NX 490 920 Dived into ground. Crater in fire break 18 Mar 1944 F/O Roswell Murray MacTavish JR 439 Typhoon 440 Loch Skerrow NX 583 670 Flew into ground 18 Mar 1944 PO Kenneth Osborne Mitchell JL 893 Beaufighter 9(C)OTU NX 747 474 Crashed into house, cause not determined Young 'Ina' Hamilton was injured but survived. Memorial outside Dundrennan church 18 July 1944 FS Henry Arthur Wiles FS Eric Molson Young James Hamilton Georgina Hamilton Henry Hamilton Agnes Hamilton K-14 C 47 Carlins Cairn NX 498 881 Flew into hill 10 Apr 1947 Capt Vl Roger Loyen (pilot) Adj VI André Dierickx (navigator) Adj Félix Curtis (radio) Capt Vl Olivier Lejeune Adj Vl Michel Cardon Adj Vl André Rodrique RBAF 28 Galloway Glens / Last Flights / Chapter 9 44-83950 B29 2AF Nr. Carsphairn Village NX 539 959 Dived into field & exploded. Memorial at site 07 July 1951 Pilot 1st Lieutenant Joseph A. O'Leary, Co-pilot 1st Lieutenant George Merrill Foote, Navigator Jr 1st Lieutenant Claude Jacques Hayden, Engineer Staff Sergeant Noel M. Poppoff, Radar Operator Captain Tennant A. Metz, Radio Operator Corporal John B. Simpson, Scanner Corporal John P. Finnegan, Boom Instructor 1st Lieutenant Jack W. Kern, Boom Operator Technical Sergeant Henry H. Hill, Boom Operator (u/t) Staff Sergeant Wallace L. Scott, Boom Operator (u/t) Corporal Russell Reginald Y. G - BATP Cherokee Civ Bow Hill NX 506 927 Flying Prestwick Blackpool. Memorial at site 28 Sep 1975 Neil Pomfret Gerald A Gibson Maurice G King David Evans 68-0003 F-111 20TW Craignaw NX 414 766 Flew into rock face. Memorial at site 19 Dec 1979 Pilot Captain Richard Alfred Hetzner Raymond Charles Spaulding Captain WSO / Navigator ZG 861 Harrier 3 Bengairn, Castle Douglas (2 fields from Ingleston Motte) NX 981 651 Engine failure, pilot ejected and survived 03 Jun 1997 none 29 A BIG “THANK YOU” TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS 10 I would like to thank the Galloway Glens for facilitating the production of this book. My thanks for help with research by supporters of the Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum. Especially my thanks for help with research from members of the Scottish Military Research Group. If anyone does wish to carry any of this further, I can be contacted at aircrashes@paulgoodwin.me.uk Regards Paul Image by Betty Goodwin 30 BOOK 4 Last Flights - A history of plane crashes in the Glenkens by Paul Goodwin A Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme publication designed by Martha Schofield Design https://marthaschofield.co.uk edited by Sarah Ade, sarah.ade@gmail.com printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart ISBN 978-17395875-4-3  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 4 - Last Flights Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GGLP_12 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Description An account of the resource A history of plane crashes in the Glenkens. GGLP heritage https://glenkensarchive.scot/glenkens_archive/files/original/4/470/GG_Bk_3_Barrhill_Wood_single_page_AW.pdf a8f2284965d21ab887e882eac0ee1239 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 3 - Barhill Wood, Kirkcudbright Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Booklets Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available GGLP Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Barhill Wood, Kirkcudbright Investigations in a historic woodland by Coralie Mills, Marcia Cook & Claire Williamson Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter X Galloway Glens Address 5 St Andrew Street Castle Douglas Dumfries & Galloway DG7 1DE Website https://gallowayglens.org Social Media @gallowayglens ISBN 978-17395875-2-9 Published by Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership, 2022 Printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart Text © Coralie Mills, Claire Williamson & Marcia Cook Graphics © Martha Schofield Design The Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme: 2018 - 2023 2 The Galloway Glens Scheme focused on the Ken/Dee river catchment in South West Scotland, flowing from source in the Galloway Hills to the Solway, including the settlements of Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright. The Galloway Glens Scheme was an initiative of Dumfries & Galloway Council’s Environment Team and ran from 2018 to 2023, aiming to ‘connect people to our heritage’ while boosting the local economy and supporting sustainable communities. Primarily funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the scheme worked with a range of partners and was supported by the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere. One of the projects facilitated through the Galloway Glens Scheme was the ‘Can You Dig It’ community archaeology initiative. Match-funded by Historic Environment Scotland, this ran from 2019 to 2022 and included a series of talks, workshops and excavations across the Galloway Glens area. Hundreds of volunteers, including those local to the area but also with input and support from further afield, have worked with the project to uncover, reveal and better understand the secrets hidden in the Galloway landscape. The ‘Can You Dig It’ project was delivered by Rathmell Archaeology and our particular thanks go to their Senior Archaeologist Claire Williamson, who has been instrumental in leading the work and creating a real enthusiasm for archaeology and heritage within the Galloway Glens area. This booklet is part of a series of publications which record just some of the remarkable discoveries and projects undertaken as a result of the Galloway Glens Scheme. Galloway Glens Area Map Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter X 4 CONTENTS 1 Introduction .......................................................................page 1 2 History of Barhill Wood.................................................page 2 3 The Maps ...........................................................................page 3 4 The Archaeology..............................................................page 5 5 The Trees.............................................................................page 8 6 Dendrochronology..........................................................page 9 7 Coppicing..........................................................................page 10 8 Nature.................................................................................page 11 9 Have Fun With Your Heritage...................................page 12 10 Thanks to All Our Supporters....................................page 23 11 Resources..........................................................................page 24 Guided woodland heritage walk at Barhill Wood. Photos by Claire Williamson; tree-coring photo by Hamish Darrah Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 1 1 INTRODUCTION In 2019, the history and archaeology of Barhill Wood in Kirkcudbright was studied for the ‘Can You Dig It’ project by woodland heritage specialists from Dendrochronicle, with the help of members of the local community. Fieldwork and research into old maps and other records showed that the history of Barhill Wood extends much further back than the Forestry Commission plantings of the 20th century. The wood has many earlier features which survive to this day, ready to tell their story. Our main findings are summarised in this booklet along with some fun ideas for exploring woodland heritage further. ‘Can You Dig It’ was a flagship project of the Galloway Glens. Running between 2019 and 2022, this community archaeology project introduced residents and visitors to the heritage of the Galloway Glens area. At Barhill Wood, community contributions and events, facilitated by the Kirkcudbright Development Trust, enriched the findings of the woodland heritage project led by Dendrochronicle. Core funding for 'Can You Dig It' came from the National Lottery Heritage Fund with match funding from Historic Environment Scotland. Permission for the work at Barhill Wood was granted by Forestry and Land Scotland. Our thanks to all these organisations for their support. 'Can You Dig It' was delivered for the Galloway Glens by Rathmell Archaeology. www.gallowayglens.org/projects/community-archaeology-programme-can-you-dig-it @GGLPArchaeology 1 2 THE HISTORY OF BARHILL WOOD Barhill Wood In the late 18th century, plantations were created by the Earls of Selkirk for ornament and economy, re-clothing the bare hills around Kirkcudbright as part of ‘Improvement Era’ changes. The name ‘Barhill Wood’ derives from Barhill Farm, an estate farm, which can be seen on 18th-century maps before the plantations were established. Much of this farm’s land was planted with saplings grown in the estate’s own tree nursery, a mix of native and exotic tree species. The small fields, interspersed within the new plantations, continued to be used for farming, especially valuable for sheltered grazing. Unfortunately, estate records do not survive, but other contemporary documents give an idea of what was planted in the later 18th century and our fieldwork evidence indicates that Barhill Wood continued to be worked until the period between the First and Second World Wars, with sweet chestnut coppice being an important component of these woods. In 1952 the Forestry Commission acquired most of Barhill Wood, and soon replanted it with a mix of mainly exotic conifers and broadleaves, which represents most of the tree cover present today. The new planting infilled most of the small old fields as well as replacing almost all the earlier trees. However, this work was done without heavy forestry machinery, allowing the survival of many historic features in the wood. The spelling varies, with ‘Barrhill Wood’ on the signage, but the OS maps use ‘Barhill Wood'; we will use the OS map spelling in this publication. The Earl of Selkirk has planted, with great taste and judgement, several hundred acres, with various kinds of forest trees, such as oaks, beeches, ashes, elms, birches, chestnuts, sycamores, hornbeams, rowans, walnuts, larches, together with different sorts of pines, as Scotch, black and white, and American spruce, silver fir and balm of Gilead. Old Statistical Account of Scotland, 1794 2 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 3 3 THE MAPS The earliest evidence for woodland roughly where Barhill Wood now stands is from Joan Blaeu’s Atlas of Scotland published in 1654. A Dutch cartographer, Blaeu based his atlas largely upon the work of Scottish cartographer, Timothy Pont, who surveyed Scotland in the 1590s. Blaeu shows woodland between Kirkcudbright town (in red) and ‘Kirkland’, presumed to be land of the medieval church of St Cuthbert, which was sited just north of Barhill Wood and from which Kirkcudbright derives its name. Detail of Kirkcudbright area from Blaeu’s Atlas of Scotland 1654, The Stuartrie of Kircubright, the most easterlie part of Galloway. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. Detail of Kirkcudbright area from William Roy’s Military Survey of Scotland, Lowlands 1752-55 © British Library Board Maps CC.5.a.441. 3 A century later, the woods shown by Bleau have disappeared. William Roy undertook his Military Survey of Scotland as a consequence of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, mapping the lowlands between 1752 and 1755. Roy’s survey provides a view of Scotland before the ‘Improvement Era’ radically changed the landscape. The Kirkland area in the hills to the east of Kirkcudbright, where Barhill Wood is now located, is shown without any tree cover. This tallies with the documented records of the hills being bare before planting by the Earls of Selkirk in the late 18th century. However some scrub woodland may have survived without being mapped by Roy and without being recognised as woodland by commentators in the 18th century, given their pre-occupation with ‘improvement’ forestry. See the National Library of Scotland map images website to explore these and other old maps for the area. Robert Heron’s book Observations Made in a Journey Through the Western Counties of Scotland in 1792 includes a plan entitled ‘An eye draught of Kirkcudbright and parts adjacent 1790’ by James and John Tate (a father and son team). It shows the recently established Barhill Wood plantation as a star shape on the hills to the southeast of the town. When compared to the first edition Ordnance Survey 6-inch map below, the prominent westward-extending arm of the star corresponds closely, as does the spur to the south which can still be traced on the ground but is now barely wooded and outside the current woodland fence. The arrival of the Ordnance Survey in the mid-19th century brings us our first detailed mapping of Barhill Wood. In the first edition 6-inch map, surveyed in 1850 and published in 1854, the centre and northern part of the now mature plantation clearly has several small open fields, shown as unwooded areas, between the wooded rocky ridges. Janet’s Plantation on the northeast side of the public road is shown as a single enclosed block and may be a later extension of the original plantation scheme. We have not yet discovered who Janet was. Above: Extract of a plan by James and John Tate: ‘An eye draught of Kirkcudbright and parts adjacent 1790’. Published in Robert Heron’s book Observations Made in a Journey Through the Western Counties of Scotland in 1792, National Library of Scotland License CC BY 4.0. Below: Ordnance Survey 6-Inch First Edition, Kirkcudbrightshire, Sheet 50, Surveyed 1850, published 1854. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. 4 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 4 4 THE ARCHAEOLOGY There is much archaeology to be found when exploring Barhill Wood. From the 18th century right through to the mid-20th century tree planting was mainly done by hand, resulting in very little disturbance of historic elements. New features were also created. We see faint traces of earthen banks here and there which are probably parts of earlier field systems. More obviously, stone dykes can be seen in much of the wood. These were built in the later 18th century to separate the new tree plantings, mostly on the rocky knolls, from the small fields retained in the better land between them. Old stone dykes at Barhill Wood. Photo by Peter Quelch Many of those small fields were planted up with trees in the mid-20th century so at first sight the original purpose of the dykes is no longer clear. They were built with local stone and there are small quarries scattered throughout Barhill Wood, probably to obtain stone for the 18thcentury enclosure work. Old coppiced ash tree on enclosing bank around Barhill Wood. Photo by Peter Quelch 5 Boundaries of old woods are a good place to look for early features including enclosure banks, dykes and old trees, and Barhill has some really interesting examples. In some places you can even see more than one boundary line as these were moved slightly over time. One of the earliest features is an old road which passes through the wood, from the southeast corner of Kirkcudbright town heading eventually towards Auchencairn and Dumfries. At the town end, in Silvercraigs Wood, the route has been worn down by the passage of people and animals over centuries to form a ‘hollow-way’. You can still follow the old route through Barhill Wood today – the modern path follows much of it. When you reach the Red Squirrel Hide, look out across the fields. The road can be seen heading eastwards as an earthwork running across the field. This old road is probably medieval in origin and has not become tarmacked, unlike the other routes which radiated out from medieval Kirkcudbright. The old road worn down into a hollow-way in Silvercraigs Wood. Photo by Peter Quelch There may be other archaeological features yet to be discovered in Barhill Wood. Old plantations can be rich in archaeology because the land has been less disturbed than in many other types of land-use. The old road running across fields to the east of Barhill Wood. Photo by Peter Quelch 6 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter X The old roads which run through Barhill Wood, overlain on the Ordnance Survey 6-Inch Second Edition, Kirkcudbrightshire, Sheet LV.NW, surveyed 1894, published 1896, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. 7 5 THE TREES One of the interesting things about Barhill Wood is that it has so many different tree species in it, creating varied habitats for wildlife and making it a great place to practice tree identification of both native and non-native tree species. Most of the mature trees present in Barhill Wood now are from the Forestry Commission’s planting work in the 1950s and 1960s. The 20th-century plantings include conifers like Sitka spruce and Douglas fir, as well as broadleaves like beech and sycamore. Above: Mid-20th century plantings, Barhill Wood Below: Coppiced sweet chestnut at Barhill Wood. Photos by Peter Quelch A more careful look around, including along the boundaries, shows that some of the trees from the earlier plantations (those from the later 18th century onwards) also survive here and there. They include some old sweet chestnut, oak, elm – some of them coppiced – and even the occasional hornbeam. There are also a few old ash trees and it is possible that some of these were not planted. Any natural woodland here would probably have been rich in ash and small areas may have survived the changes of the last few centuries. 8 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 6 6 DENDROCHRONOLOGY Dendrochronology is the science of studying tree-rings. Every year a tree lays down a new ring just under its bark. The earliest ring is in the centre of the tree, the most recent one at the outside. The width of each ring will reflect how good the growing conditions were in that year, building up a unique pattern of ring widths over time. Dendrochronology can be used to find out the age of a tree by simply counting the rings present on a stump or in a narrow core taken from a living tree with a special device called an increment corer. This is how some trees at Barhill were sampled to find out their ages. Dendrochronology is also used for dating timbers in old buildings and archaeological sites. This involves analysing groups of samples from a structure and comparing their ring-width patterns with reference chronologies of known date and origin. In this way dendrochronology can provide very precise dates, often narrowing down a felling date to a particular year where historic timbers have retained the bark edge. The date of the last ring at the bark edge shows the year in which the tree was felled. If the timber has had the outer edge removed, then an estimate can often be made of how many rings are missing. Stump with tree rings. Photo by Coralie Mills 9 The geographic origin of historic timber can also be identified through dendrochronology using a technique known as dendro-provenancing. This is useful in Scotland because of the long history of timber importation from the late medieval period onwards, with Scandinavia, the Eastern Baltic and North America amongst the historic timber supply sources. Increment corer and samples. Photo by Chandra Isenberg 7 COPPICING By studying tree forms we can find out about their management history. Many older broadleaf trees at Barhill Wood have multiple stems which shows they have been coppiced in the past. Coppicing is when the tree is cut back to almost ground level to encourage re-growth. Most broadleaf tree species will respond to such cutting by sending up several new shoots which can later form useful rods, poles or small timbers, valuable for purposes like wattle-making, fencing, fuel or construction. The length of the coppicing cycle varies between species and on the intended uses. In Barhill Wood it is possible to find large stumps and some living examples of old coppiced trees. A coppiced tree has many stems, sometimes called a ‘multi-stem’ tree, while a ‘maiden’ tree is a singlestem tree that has never been cut. The base of a coppice tree is called a ‘stool’ and can become very broad with repeated cutting over time. By taking core samples from some old living multi-stem trees at Barhill Wood we worked out that they were last coppiced between the First and Second World Wars. The coppiced trees included oak, elm and ash, but the most widespread coppiced species was sweet chestnut. Sweet chestnut is rot-resistant and especially valuable for making fencing and cladding. There are still commercial sweet chestnut coppices in southeast England today, as shown in the photo. The relatively mild climate of southwest Scotland must have been good for productive coppicing of this species. Above: Multi-stem form of a coppiced tree at Barhill Wood. Photo by Peter Quelch Below: Young regrowth in working sweet chestnut coppice in southeast England. Photo by Coralie Mills 10 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 8 8 NATURE A red squirrel at Barhill Wood. Image supplied by Galloway Glens Old plantations can provide amazingly valuable wildlife habitats as well as protecting archaeological features. Even though many of the tree species planted at Barhill Wood are not native, the mix of species present provides a favourable habitat for red squirrels and this site is now a stronghold for them in southwest Scotland; visit the Red Squirrel Hide at Barhill Wood and you may get to see them. Many other species of native animals ranging from insects to birds, reptiles and mammals, also find a haven in these woods. The plant life too is varied and it is worth looking out for woodland floor species such as bluebells and yellow pimpernel while walking around the woods. Some of the woodland floor plants present are indicative of this once having been a site of ancient natural woodland and may have survived from the old medieval woods seen on the earliest historic mapping. In woodland conservation terms, Barhill Wood is regarded as a ‘PAWS’ site which stands for a ‘Plantation on Ancient Woodland' site. This is a factor that would be taken into account in any woodland restoration work, highlighting the need to maintain the delicate balance between the mix that works for the red squirrels and other wildlife now, while also restoring a more natural woodland character. 11 9 HAVE FUN WITH YOUR HERITAGE Now it’s time to have some fun with your heritage! Over the next few pages you can find activities and ideas through which learners of all ages can explore this wonderful site. We ask some questions and suggest things to do. Finding the answers and completing the tasks will allow you to step right back into the past. There is a suggested order for the activities exploring Barhill Wood but you don’t have to stick to it. Do what suits you best. Sections can be attempted in whichever order you wish. Activities can be stand-alone, considered all at once or in parts, or just skip straight to the ones that interest you the most. Throughout the activities you will find different resources mentioned. For those shown in bold italics, the weblinks are all listed on page 24. If you’d like to share what you have discovered or created, we’d really love to hear from you. Post your findings, ideas and creations on our social media using the tag #GallowayGlens Are you ready for the challenge? Will you: Act like an Archaeologist: Investigate, Record, Examine and then Share your results? 12 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 9 Things to investigate before you visit Working woods: You are probably familiar with woods as a habitat for nature, a place to go to find out more about plants and animals. Barhill Wood has an important population of red squirrels that you can watch and learn about from the hide. But have you ever considered woodland as a resource or something people can use? Forestry and Land Scotland has great information summaries about the types of tree species we commonly find in our woodlands. Select a tree to find out if it is a native species (has always grown in Scotland) or a nonnative species (a type of tree introduced from elsewhere), in which case see if you can discover when it was imported and where from. There is also information about how people have used each tree species in the past as well as the present. Can you find which trees were grown to provide ship timbers or telephone poles? Which trees were used to make coffins and what trees produce nuts that once fed ancient peoples and their animals? Have a look around your home or school for things made or built from wood; there are more than you might think. See if you can guess the species used and if it is local or imported wood. Make a poster or report to share your findings. 13 Tree stories: A different way of thinking about trees is through telling stories. The Outdoor and Woodland Learning Scotland booklet Tree Stories has some inspiring tales – a different story and a different tree for each month. Many of the tree types mentioned are found in Barhill Wood. Download the booklet and practice how to tell a story out loud using the tips you’ll find there. Remember the story is a living thing and it doesn’t have to be told the same way each time. You are encouraged to add to your tale as you speak it aloud. Perhaps you could add in some details from this booklet about Barhill Wood’s old trees, heritage and landscape? Once you are familiar with your favourite version, go outside and tell your story in the woods or record it so that you can listen to it amongst the trees. Modern humans living in a fast-paced technological world often think of the countryside as original, pristine and untouched. We believe nature is ‘natural’, but this is hardly ever true. In reality very little of what surrounds us is undisturbed. After all, people have been living in this land we call Scotland for thousands of years. An archaeologist’s job is to look for the clues to human activity in the past to see how our ancestors were living in the landscape and using its resources. What’s in a name?: Place names can sometimes include names for trees. These are recorded on maps, although the trees might be long gone. Use Pastmap and the National Library of Scotland map images website to search for traces of trees in old and modern maps. Look up the maps in this booklet by searching for Kirkcudbright, or investigate maps from your local area. We have given you a handy table of the names of some of the most common species of trees found in Scotland. See if you can find examples of the words for trees hidden in place names. They can also appear under their Scots or Gaelic names. Common tree names Oak Ash Juniper Alder Birch Scots pine Holly Willow Hazel Yew Rowan > > > > > > > > > > > > Scots tree names Aiken Eschen Etnach Alron Birken Fir / Firrin Holland Sauchen Hissil Ewin Rodden > > > > > > > > > > > > Gaelic tree names darach uinnseann attin or samhl feàrna or drumanach bethie ghiuthas cuileann or cuilinn shellach or suil coll or calltainn iogh or iubhar caorann or luis Modern street names. Photos by Marcia Cook How many examples of tree names can you find and where are they on the map - still in the countryside or in the town? To get you started: Glasgow city centre has a famous shopping street named in Scots after a type of tree. Can you find it? Clue: It begins with ‘S’ in the table. See if you can find examples in the Galloway Glens or have a look around your own local area. Watch out though! Modern housing developments often have made-up street names like Lime Avenue or Beech Hill Street that have no connection with the place before the houses were built. Can you use map evidence from different dates to decide if a place name has older origins or is a modern invention? 14 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 9 Woodland management: Today many of the woods in Scotland are planted, managed and harvested for timber and other wood products. Forestry management is a skilled job requiring lots of training, planning ahead and careful control of the trees. Specialised machinery is used to access the forests and take the timber out. Before machines, most forestry work used hand tools like those in the photos. Are you interested in how woodlands were managed in the past? A BBC4 documentary series ‘Tales from the Wild Wood’ followed a year in the life of a small wood and one man who was trying to bring the abandoned historic wood back to a productive living and working woodland again. The original series is not available anymore but there are several clips from episodes in the BBC archives. Watch the clips to learn how woods like Barhill would have been worked in the past. Find out about the use of different animals to help manage the wood, including pigs! Discover specialist jobs like coppicing and charcoal making. What tools did they use? What other products were created from the timber? How was timber cut down (felled) and transported before the invention of modern forestry logging equipment and wide access roads? Coppiced hazel rods with billhook. Photo by Hamish Darrah 15 Working in the woods the traditional way. Photo by Coralie Mills Things you can do while you visit Make a site visit record: You can record your thoughts about your time at the site – if you can’t visit Barhill Wood choose a similar small wood that is local to you. Take along a notebook and pencils. Jot down words about your experiences and feelings while you approach the site and while you are on-site. What can you see? Write about it and take some photographs. Is there anything threatening or damaging the site and does it come from nature, animal or human activity? Sketches of what you see are great to include. Remember to add a ‘north’ arrow as this will allow you to match up your sketch to a map later. What’s the weather like? Have you come to visit on a fine, dry day? Include these observations in your site record. Can you imagine being here in the stormy spring or as autumn passes into winter, with high winds and rain lashing down, the tree canopy moving and creaking above? Does the time of year you are visiting the wood affect what you can see? Is it easier or harder to move through the wood, to identify the tree species, carry out activities and see traces of past wood use in certain seasons? Different parts of the woods will have different traces of historic use so don’t expect to encounter everything. Look out for examples of: • Tree form and shape – coppiced (multi-stem) or maiden (single-stem) trees – these will give you clues to the past management of the wood. Look at the pictures on page 10 for examples. • Can you see evidence of the old enclosure dykes and field systems? Could you find a stone dyke enclosing a knoll with old trees or stumps on it? Are there any open field areas? Or any old fields from the map now planted with trees? Page 5 will give you hints about what to look out for. • Is there an old quarry in the part of the woods you visited? Count the number of steps it takes you to pace out the dimensions of the quarry and make a sketch of your findings. Measure your stride by taking a step along a tape measure and record the length of the space between your feet. Then multiply the number of steps you take by the size of your stride to add measurements to your sketch. Take pictures too. • Did you see any evidence of old roads or tracks? How do they differ from modern paths or access routes? Information on page 6 will help to add to your notes. 16 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 9 Make a video diary or record yourself speaking about what you can see when you are there. It will also serve as a first-hand record of your time at the site or, as an archaeologist would call it, fieldwork notes or a site investigation record that you can refer back to whenever you want. You could show this record to family or friends/classmates back home. Outdoor Archaeological Learning from Forestry and Land Scotland has lots of ideas for fun ways to present your field notes, such as posters and news reports. Go on a leaf or a twig hunt: Barhill Wood has a large variety of tree types and is a great place to practice tree identification. Many were planted deliberately at different times over the last 250 years or so, for reasons ranging from improving the appearance of the landscape to the production of timber. There are several species that have naturally seeded there too. Can you identify the different species in the field? Do you know your sweet chestnut from your larch? The Woodland Trust has some downloadable tree spotters’ sheets. There are sheets for every season, including winter. Can you identify leaves and twigs like a professional? Test your friends and family with your new knowledge. Sweet chestnut leaves. Photo by Coralie Mills 17 Tall trees at Barhill Wood. Photo by Peter Quelch KNOW THE CODE BEFORE YOU GO Remember that when you are outdoors, the environment around you can cause problems for yourself and others if you do not act sensibly and respectfully. The Scottish Outdoor Access code says that you should: • Respect the interests of other people • Care for the environment • Take responsibility for your own actions Follow these guidelines to ensure you have a happy and safe visit. It is also important to care for your heritage. Be careful around ruined site structures - look but don’t disturb so that they can be enjoyed by generations to come. www.nature.scot/ enjoyingoutdoors/ your-access-rights The tallest tree: Follow the activity steps on pages 18-19, to measure tree heights from the ground. You will need: a brightly coloured object like a woolly hat or scarf that can be put on the ground safely i paper or a way of taking notes such as digitally on a phone ew rly n a fa a tap (optio cil pen e me nal) asure Working in a pair, have one person take the brightly coloured object and stand next 1 to the tree, while the other takes the pencil and walks away from the tree. Try to pick a spot with a clear line of sight back to the tree and the person. Stop occasionally and look back at the tree. Hold the pencil out vertically at arms-length with the tip downwards. Line the tip of the pencil with the ground surface next to the tree and keep walking and checking until the top of the tree lines up with the other end of the pencil. You are using the optical techniques of distance and perspective. Stop when you get your vertical pencil height to line up visually with the tree height. Tip: If you have trees in your garden or can visit a local park you can try the activity there before going to a site. It’s good to practice the height estimation method on trees that are growing on open, level ground first. This preparation will help you when you are in the uneven terrain of the woods. pencil 1 18 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter X 3 Ask your partner to drop the coloured object on the ground where they're standing. 2 Keep holding the pencil at arm's length but now turn the pencil so that it is horizontal - like the picture. Match the tip of the pencil up with the base of the tree trunk and ask your partner to walk away from the tree. It will look to you as if they are walking along the pencil you are holding out. When they line up with the pencil end ask them to stop. 19 4 You can now walk back to join your partner at the spot they marked with the coloured object. 5 Use the tape measure to measure the distance from the coloured object to the tree trunk or try to take roughly 1 metre length strides back to the tree and count these. The number of strides you take is the estimated height of the tree. Outdoor and Woodland Learning Scotland has this and lots of other measuring and estimating activities, including one where you need to look through your legs. Try both methods and see which one you like best. Things you can do after your visit: Tree rings and time: Dendrochronology is the science of investigating tree-rings. A tree puts on new wood growth, just under the bark, every year. When a tree is cut down you can see this annual growth inside as tree-rings – a series of circles across the log or tree stump. The smallest circles are the oldest and the earliest ring is in the centre. The most recent rings are next to the bark at the outside of the tree. Dendrochronologists study these growth rings to find out the tree’s age. The variation in the size of rings provides information about the climate and environment when the tree was growing. Dendrochronologists also work with old objects made from wood or historic building timbers to date them. We don’t need to cut down a tree to see the rings. Dendrochronologists use a coring device to take a small sample that is narrower than a pencil out of the living tree. This allows them to see and record the rings. Page 9 has information about Dendrochronology and shows you some of the equipment used to take a core sample. You can find out more and try some fun activities in Forestry and Land Scotland’s learning resource: Dendrochronology – Explore the science of tree-ring dating. Log with tree-rings visible, Loch Ken. Photo by Marcia Cook Misericord in a choir stall from Lincluden College, Dumfriesshire, on display in National Museums Scotland. The choir stall has been dendro-dated to the later 15th century and is made with long-lived local native oak. Photo by Coralie Mills 20 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter X Make a tree-ring core: Have a go at making your own core. You will need: felt pens some cardboard tubes, the insides of toilet or kitchen rolls will do. Are the rings narrow or wider on your significant dates? Wide rings mean that there were optimal growing conditions for the tree: plenty of sun, rain and nutrients. Narrow rings mean that there was a drought or too much rain or another environmental condition affecting the growth of new wood. sticky tape string ruler Using the measurements in the 1 table you can start to create your core. Take a tube and measure from the left end of the tube 4cm along. Mark this point with the felt-tip pen and draw a line round the tube. Then, starting at your pen line, measure 2cm and draw another ‘ring’ round the tube. You have drawn the rings for 1995 and 1996. Keep measuring and adding ‘rings’ from the last line you 2 drew. As you draw more ‘rings’ attach the tubes to each other using tape, either on the inside or the outside. Carry on like this till you reach the ring for 2019. When finished your core will be 125cm long. You can thread the string through the tubes and hang your core up to display it. Mark on some significant dates in your life: perhaps the year you started school, or the year you were born. Write the years in the rings or stick on a picture of yourself at that time. 3 21 You could mark the best years and the worst years for tree growth on your cardboard core by colouring in the rings or wrapping bright paper, cut to the size of the ring, around the tube. The ring sizes in our table loosely reflect the annual rainfall totals for Scotland in these 25 years. Year 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Ring Growth 4 cm 2 cm 3 cm 6 cm 6 cm 6 cm 3 cm 6 cm 2 cm 6 cm 5 cm 6 cm 5 cm Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Ring Growth 7 cm 6 cm 2 cm 8 cm 6 cm 4 cm 7 cm 8 cm 4 cm 5 cm 3 cm 5 cm Imagining past lives: Write, film or illustrate a story about Barhill Wood in the past, or set a play there. Tell us all about the people who passed through on the old road or worked in the woods. Choose your time period and develop a key idea, then create your characters. You could include cattle farmers taking their stock to market, travelling woodland-workers, the Earl of Selkirk’s forester in the 18th century or the Forestry Commission’s forester from the 1950s. Pages 2, 6 and 8 contain information to help build your story. Museum matters: Objects have stories too; archaeologists call these biographies. Imagine the lifestory of a wooden museum object. Pick your favourite from your local museum or search for inspiration on Future Museum. You could include story points such as: In what time period was the wood cut down to be made into the object? Who harvested the wood to make the object? Who worked the wood to change it into something else? Who used the object? Did they buy it or was it given as a gift? Did it fall out of use or why was it discarded and how? Take a trip to a local museum to see how many objects are on display that you can recognise are made of wood. Have any been dated with dendrochronology? What type of tree species was used to make these items? Is this information mentioned by the museum in their labels? Can you find any historic wood-working tools? Are any of the display objects connected to woodland management or the forestry industry? Share your findings: Gather the information you discovered from all your activities and create a poster or slide show about your findings. Share this with family, friends or classmates. You could create a leaflet or design information boards for Barhill Wood, highlighting points of natural and archaeological interest in the wood to help visitors understand what is there. Take pictures of your creations and share on social media using the tag #GallowayGlens. To the right is a 17th-century wooden bowl. Find it and its story on Future Museum. Image courtesy of Dumfries & Galloway Council, Arts & Museums Service 22 Galloway Glens / Barhill Wood / Chapter 10 A BIG “THANK YOU” TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS 10 The Can You Dig It project, which included a series of talks, walks, workshops and excavations, was offered free to volunteers thanks to generous funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic Environment Scotland. Dendrochronicle’s specialist study of Barhill Wood was undertaken by Coralie Mills and Peter Quelch. Barhill Wood is owned by Forestry and Land Scotland and particular thanks go to Lyndy Renwick and colleagues for their support throughout. The local community are involved in the management of Barhill Wood through Kirkcudbright Development Trust and special thanks go to Rob Asbridge for all his generous help during this project. Assistance was also given by Dumfries and Galloway Council archaeology, museums and archive services and by members of local heritage societies, with specific thanks going to David Devereux and Peter Hewitt for all their help. The authors would also like to thank those who took part in the public events which formed part of this project. Photographs are mostly by Peter Quelch or Coralie Mills with additional images kindly provided by Hamish Darrah, Chandra Isenberg, Marcia Cook and Claire Williamson. The project was run by the Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership and could not have been undertaken without the insight and unfaltering enthusiasm of their team. Heartfelt thanks from the authors go to Helen Keron, Jan Hogarth, McNabb Laurie, Anna Harvey, Nick Chisholm, Jonathan Barrett and Jude Crooks. The support and guidance provided by Thomas Rees from Rathmell Archaeology throughout the project was much appreciated by all involved. Into the woods - guided walk at Barhill Wood. Photo by Claire Williamson 23 11 RESOURCES A final thank you to everyone involved in making the resources listed below publicly available. The BBC archives still shows several clips of the BBC4 documentary series ‘Tales from the Wild Wood’ www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ng5lr/clips To help plan your visit to Barhill Wood you can look at the Kirkcudbright Development Trust website www.kdt.org.uk/barrhill-woods Canmore’s searchable database contains over 320,000 records for archaeological sites, buildings, industry and maritime heritage across Scotland canmore.org.uk You can look through historical mapping online with the National Library of Scotland maps.nls.uk You can find Dendrochronicle’s full Historic Woodland Assessment of Barhill Wood on the Galloway Glens website gallowayglens.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/190912Barhill-Wood-HWA.pdf Dendrochronology – Explore the science of tree-ring dating is free to download from forestryandland.gov.scot/what-we-do/biodiversity-andconservation/historic-environment-conservation/learning/ dendrochronology Forestry and Land Scotland contains information on individual tree species commonly found in our woodlands forestryandland.gov.scot/learn/trees Future Museum provides online access to the museum collections of Ayrshire and Dumfries & Galloway with digital records and and themes based around people, industry and arts from the southwest of Scotland www.futuremuseum.co.uk Outdoor Archaeological Learning can be found at forestryandland.gov.scot/what-we-do/biodiversity-andconservation/historic-environment-conservation/learning Outdoor and Woodland Learning Scotland contains lots of woodland-related resources including the 'Tree Stories' booklet and the tree height measuring methods owlscotland.org/find-a-resource/primary-resources Pastmap features an interactive map on which you can zoom into any area within Scotland and view all the heritage sites that have been discovered there with links to more information pastmap.org.uk The Woodland Trust has downloadable spotters’ sheets for identifying trees in every season www.treetoolsforschools.org.uk/activitymenu/?cat=tree_ ticksheets 24 BOOK 3 BARHILL WOOD, KIRKCUDBRIGHT Coralie Mills, Marcia Cook & Claire Williamson A Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Scheme publication Designed by Martha Schofield Design Printed by J&B Print Ltd, 32A Albert Street, Newton Stewart ISBN 978-17395875-2-9  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 3 - Barhill Wood, Kirkcudbright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GGLP_11 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Description An account of the resource Investigations in a historic woodland. GGLP https://glenkensarchive.scot/glenkens_archive/files/original/4/469/GG_Bk_2_Little_Wood_Hill_single_page_AW.pdf c0f289dc98174d88a37ffde1df6edec2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 2 - Little Hill Wood Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Booklets Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available GGLP Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 2 - Little Hill Wood Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GGLP_10 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Description An account of the resource Excavations of a prehistoric enclosure on the Threave Estate. GGLP https://glenkensarchive.scot/glenkens_archive/files/original/4/468/GG_Bk_1_Upper_Gairloch_RGB_AW.pdf 4cd7e0fd62c55334b0eb78cce91afd6a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 1 - Upper Gairloch Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Booklets Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available GGLP Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Galloway Glens Booklet 1 - Upper Gairloch Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GGLP_9 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource GGLP Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource GCAT Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Description An account of the resource Investigations of a deserted settlement on the Raiders Road. GGLP