Day 8: Forest of Ae to Dumfries, Dumfries & Galloway

Virtual Walk: Scotland 2021

 12th January 2021: 99.71km walked today taking the total to 801.32km/8854km. 4.5% of 322 people's totals submitting 2203.79km.

Route1B: Traquair to Stranraer

The Forest of Ae is one of the largest forests in Scotland (c.10 km) but with the smallest place name in the UK. It was planted by the Forestry and Land Scotland in the 1920s with mostly Sitka spruce. It’s a great place for walks, bike trails, horse riding and wildlife spotting. A picnic by the Water of Ae is a must, before walking country roads to join the Annandale Way which takes us into Lochmaben.

Lochmaben has ancient roots, a castle originally built here by the Bruce family in c1160. We walk through the village to reach Castle Loch, where we see castle ruins from a later time. This castle was built by Edward I of England during the late 13th and early 14th century and had an important and turbulent history, belonging to the Black Douglas family at one point, until the early 17th century, when it was gradually abandoned. It is now cared for by Historic Environment Scotland as a scheduled monument.

From Lochmaben we walk south on the B7020 to Dalton where we then follow the B725 over Hoddom Bridge, near Hoddom Castle (built in the 1580s, now a caravan park with an amazing view). Here we pick up the Annandale Way following the River Annan into the town which bears its name. Annan’s name is probably derived from the Gaelic goddess of prosperity, ‘Anu’. Annan grew up around a river port, which developed given the River Annan flows into the Solway Firth 3 kilometres downstream. A castle was established here by the Bruce family in the early 1300s. The town was made a Royal Burgh by the Bruce’s in the 13th century which the town celebrates with the ‘Riding of the Marches’ (Marches are boundaries) every July, just like the Scottish Border towns. They suffered during the Wars of Independence, like all the other settlements along the borderline, so very littles structure has survived from those times. Initially a market town, Annan developed industries of grain milling and cotton spinning, later, engineering, pharmaceuticals and knitwear. Shipbuilding was also important from developing port trade with as far-flung places as the USA and Canada. You are 8 miles from Gretna here if you fancy eloping?

We continue along the riverside through Everholm parkland, passing the site of Bruce’s motte and bailey castle to reach the High Street. We pass the Town Hall (1875) then take up the River Walk Path to cross the river on the Annan Millennium Bridge. We follow the River Annan down to the Solway Firth, whose coastline is characterised by lowland hills and small mountains. We walk west on our route through villages, then inland to Bankend before heading south to Caerlaverock Castle nearer the coast, a total of 24.5 kilometres.

Caerlaverock’s name means ‘fort in the elm trees’, and its moated triangular shape is the only one of its kind in Britain. It was the stronghold of the Maxwell family from the 13th -17th century and controlled trade in the area. It was besieged, demolished and rebuilt a number of times before being abandoned, having been besieged for the last time in 1640. It sits on the Caerlaverock National Nature Reserve as well as being within the Nith Estuary National Scenic Area; the castle is cared for by Historic Environment Scotland. They hold medieval jousting re-enactments here every summer.

Following a path around Castle Wood, we re-join the Solway Firth coast to follow the River Nith through Glencaple and into the market town of Dumfries. Nicknamed ‘Queen of the South’, a name also given to her professional football team, the local people are known locally as Doonhamers. When the town was founded isn't known but certainly, Romans ruled the area, then Picts, Anglo-Saxons, Scots and Norse left their mark. The town was certainly here in 1069 when Malcolm of Canmore and William the Conqueror met to discuss Edgar II’s right to the English throne, at that time referred to as Abernithi, ‘port on the Nith’. William the Lion granted Dumfries, regarded as a frontier town, royal burgh status in 1186 which saw it grow rapidly as a port and market town. Much blood was shed here, again during the Wars of Independence and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1653): Dumfries was also the location of the last public hanging in Scotland.

On a lighter note, Robert Burns came to live in the town in 1791, until his death in 1796. We leave the riverside to pay our respects to Scotland’s National Bard at his Mausoleum in St Michael’s Churchyard. Further along, in Burns Street, we pass the 18th-century house where he lived for the last 3 years of his life, and where his best-known poems were written. The street, at the time they moved in, was called Mill Street but after his death, his wife, Jean Armour, opened up the house as a memorial to him; by the time she died in 1834, the street had been renamed Burns Street. William Wordsworth, John Keats and American author, Nathaniel Hawthorn, have all passed through to pay their respects. After his death, Robert was given the freedom of the town; prior to his death he had been given the freedom of the burgh and made Honorary Burgess of Dumfries. There are Robert Burns Clubs all over the world today and, with 5 surviving children, in 2019 Burns was thought to have over 900 living descendants. In 1851 the house was sold, then stood deteriorating until 1903 when Dumfries Town Council took over its care; the local authority continues to do so today.

From Burns Street, we head up the pedestrianised High Street past Mid Steeple, an impressive building dating back to 1708. One of the oldest buildings in Dumfries, it was once the tolbooth and prison for the town. Robert Burns’ body was put on view in this building for people to come and pay their respects before his funeral. We continue to the end of High Street where we see a statue of Robert Burns, sculpted by Amelia Paton Hill in Carrara marble, and unveiled in 1882. Behind the statue is Greyfriars Church, constructed in 1868 on the site of a much older church, The Church of the Grey Friar. In that church Robert the Bruce murdered John III Comyn ‘the Red Comyn’’ in 1306, a rival for the Scottish crown. He was excommunicated for this act but still went on to become King.

We make our way down Friars Vennel back to the riverside to cross the Devorgilla Bridge, the first stone bridge to span the Nith completed in 1432. Its strange name comes from Devorgilla, the mother of King John Balliol, who is said to have built the wooden bridge that first spanned the river here. In the river, you'll see the ‘caul’ or weir, this one dating to the early 1700s, thought to have been placed here to control erosion of the Whitesands area by diverting water from the Nith, which, in turn, assisted the mills with their water supply. Once across we see the Old Bridge House, now a museum, which is the oldest house in Dumfries. It was built in 1660 by a barrel maker, before becoming an inn until the 1800s. Robert Burns, who was employed as an exciseman in Dumfries from 1789-1796, would have frequented this place socially. The house then became home until 1959 when it was converted into a museum exhibiting the daily life of local people over the centuries. Continuing along the riverside we reach the Robert Burns Centre, based in an 18th-century watermill; it tells the story of his final years in the town and is also the venue for the regional film theatre.

Now leaving Dumfries, we walk down the other side of the River Nith towards New Abbey passing the Kirkpatrick MacMillan footbridge which is the last bridge of any type across the River Nith before the river enters the Solway Firth.