History & Heritage
Castles, Country Houses, & Abbeys
Discover the history of the region’s often turbulent past in visiting places such as the castles of Caerlaverock, Drumlanrig, and Lochmaben. More modest, but in their own way equally interesting, a good number of fortified towers – once the home of local feuding families – can be combined in a ‘tower-house trail.’ The tranquil settings of medieval abbeys meanwhile recall the important part played in local life by monks and other churchmen. Access conditions are in place at some locations due to maintenance work. For information on the range of fascinating museums across Dumfries and Galloway, see our page under ‘Arts and Culture’.
‘The Romance of Ruins’
Every part of Dumfries and Galloway is dotted by unmaintained ruins from castles and mansions to former windmills and old farms. Many are on farmland, while others sit alongside designated paths. Spectacular examples include Dunskey Castle, Cruggleton Castle, Kenmure Castle, Gelston Castle, and Milkbank House.
Other Historic Buildings & Sites
Lighthouses and distilleries, old mills, the world’s first savings bank, Carlyle’s Birthplace, the Crawick Multiverse constructed on a former open cast mine – not forgetting Victorian railway heritage from the ‘Golden Age of Steam’. All these and more attractions offer rich insights into varied aspects of both our regional and national past.
Pre and Early History
Prehistoric standing stones and cairns, Iron Age forts, carved stones and chapels from the Early Christian period – a wide range of these important monuments can be visited (and almost always for free) right across the region, with a particularly rich concentration located in Wigtownshire. Sites of national significance include the Neolithic chambered cairns at Cairn Holy, the Drumtroddan Standing Stones, Burnswark hillfort, and St Ninian’s Cave.
Exploring your Ancestors
Throughout the world people trace their ancestors to folk who left the shores of Dumfries and Galloway, particularly during the nineteenth century, for a better life overseas. Especially so in emigrating to America and Canada. Every year visitors come to the region to research their forebears – where they were born, lived, worked, and died. Dumfries and Galloway has well over a hundred atmospheric old graveyards, sacred spots filled with headstones detailing families from centuries past, now at rest under the soil. These are fascinating and peaceful places to wander around in their own right, but of added interest to those on a personal quest. Every graveyard has been recorded for its pre-1855 inscriptions, with this information available in the form of booklets produced by the Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society. The Society offers further resources, and its premises in Dumfries can be visited, with another option for the genealogy enthusiast being the town’s noteworthy Ewart Library.
