A Potted History

Their campsites, showing a reliance on stone, wood, bones and antlers for tools and weapons, have been discovered on the shores of Wigtown Bay, Loch Ryan and Luce Bay as well as along the river valleys where they were probably attracted by the area’s dense forests as much as by its warm, damp climate.

The next inhabitants - farming groups who arrived around 4000 BC - built permanent settlements and many artefacts and flints from this Neolithic Age have been found at the Mull of Galloway.

By 2500 BC, Bronze Age metalworkers and merchants had settled in the area, to be followed in turn by Iron Age dwellers whose influence was such that the Celtic language was to become dominant in Galloway for over one thousand years from their arrival in 700 BC to the end of the 6th Century.

Around 400 BC, the Celts invaded Ireland before crossing over to the west of Scotland where these Iron Age warriors built substantial hill forts and constructed fortified settlements - called Crannogs on artificial islands in the middle of lochs.

But the Romans never fully conquered Dumfries and Galloway, nor did they penetrate the interior, concentrating instead on patrolling and trading along the coastline and keeping to coastal areas.
Yet their influence remained with the local people long after they finally left in 410 AD for they left the foundations of Christianity as evidenced by the Kirkmadrine Stones and their Latin inscriptions.

The turbulent times of the Dark Ages saw Galloway being absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria in the mid-7th Century and later became a Norse earldom, ruled from Norway. Indeed, it was to remain under Norse rule until 1057 when King Malcolm brought Galloway close to the Scottish Crown.

But if temporal warfare declined, spiritual unrest increased even though the Scottish Reformation was accomplished with comparative ease to that in England. In a period of deep religious strife, Galloway figured prominently in the black episode concerning The Covenanters and The Rhins was fortunate in that its main religious dispute related to the siting of a church at Drumniore still known today as the old Kirk Covenant.

Tea, brandy and tobacco were obvious cargoes but high quality salt from Ireland and strong beer from England were among the less obvious items that escaped the attention and duties of the Excisemen. Sadly, scant details survive about most of these illegal activities as the Excise Records were destroyed but on a precarious coastline, 18th and 19th Century smuggling was a very precarious way of life and far removed from the glamorous image that history and Hollywood have given it.