We had the opportunity to get a skip, sponsored by the Solway Firth Partnership, to collect rubbish that had accumulated over a period of several years along the stretch of coast between Kirkandrews and Carrick. A team of local volunteers set to work over a fine, sunny weekend in March to fill the skip.
A set of panorama panels, featuring paintings by Ann Butler, has been installed at the Knockbrex Hill viewpoint overlooking Ardwall Island. These panels were created as part of the Borgue PLACE project, sponsored by the Galloway and South Ayrshire Biosphere and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The project collected and analysed place names and field names from around the Borgue area.
The panels illustrate the views in four directions and during the four seasons. Places of interest and field names are labelled and examples of local wildlife are also included. Images of the panels are from Richard Ryall.
The panels were unveiled at a small gathering on Knockbrex Hill on 12th January 2022.
Many thanks to David and Dora Austin, who farm the surrounding land from Boreland of Girthon, for their help with the field names project and for installing the panels.
The Borgue Field Names project was featured on BBC Scotland’s Landward programme this week. Rachel Lucas, who was involved in collecting the field names, and local farmer Neil Picken were interviewed by Dougie Vipond on the programme.
Click the image above or here to view the episode on BBC iPlayer. The field name segment starts just after the 13 minute mark.
The August 2021 edition of Dumfries & Galloway Life magazine has an article about the Borgue Field Names project.
There will be an exhibition of the Borgue Field Names project at the Mill on the Fleet in Gatehouse from mid-June until the end of July. Many thanks to Ken Smyth from Mill on the Fleet for providing the space and preparing the excellent presentation materials. Click on the image below for more information.
New gates and bridges across watercourses have been installed along the route of Core Path 181 which goes from Kirkandrews to Carrick. This now allows access along the shore westwards from Kirkandrews without having to detour up onto the road near the Coo Palace.
The route passes the Iron Age fort at Castle Haven then goes around Castle Haven Bay before following a rocky course along the shoreline to meet the track that comes down from the road towards the Bathing House at Barlocco Beach.
Please take care when walking along this route as it has not been navigable for many years. Even though there are now new gates to navigate walls and fences, it will take some time before a footpath route between the gates is established. The section around the north-west side of Castle Haven Bay is quite boggy but can be circumvented by staying in the landward field and following the track that leads down to the shore, as shown in the image above. The fields along the route are home to a variety of different types of cattle so be very careful when crossing the fields and keep dogs under close control.
New web pages have been added to the site with photographs and descriptions of some of the more interesting field names in the Borgue area. Fields such as Cuddle Cosy, Hac Noose and Doon Yeard are described. You can see them by navigation to PLACE->Borgue Field Names then selecting the menu items for each field.
The locations of Curling Ponds in Galloway have been added to the Galloway Place Names map. To show the ponds on the map, load the map by clicking on the image above then choose: Features->Curling Ponds from the menu at the top of the map. You can click on the curling pond symbols to get more information about each pond. Most of these are no longer used for curling but it shows how popular curling was in the past, with each village having its own pond or loch that was used for the sport. I’m sure that there are many more of these so please send in any information on curling pond locations using the form below.
A new map has been added to the site showing all of the place names collected in the Galloway Glens Place Names project.
