Scotland · Region
64 places in Dumfries and Galloway, from the deepest prehistory to the medieval world.
Fortified place · Roman
Dumfries and Galloway
Several Roman camps lie near Birrens, at least one first occupied in the Flavian period from AD 79, probably during the Agricolan campaigns, when i…
Fortified place · Iron Age
Dumfries and Galloway
An Iron Age hillfort enclosing some 7 hectares sat on the flat-topped basalt hill, alongside Iron Age roundhouses, an earlier Bronze Age burial cai…
Tomb or burial place · Prehistoric
Dumfries and Galloway
Cairn Holy is the site of two Neolithic chambered tombs of the Clyde type, raised on a hillside overlooking Wigtown Bay near Cairnholy Farm. The tw…
Carved stone · Prehistoric
Dumfries and Galloway
The two surviving stones were likely erected about 2000 BC. Tradition holds they were originally part of a circle of up to 14 stones; seven still r…
Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
The Ruthwell Cross is a stone Anglo-Saxon cross probably dating from the 8th century, when Ruthwell — now in Scotland — was part of the Anglo-Saxon…
Sacred place · Pictish & early medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
The cave is a long-standing place of Roman Catholic pilgrimage through its association with the Scottish saint Ninian.
Sacred place · Pictish & early medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Whithorn was the location of the first recorded Christian church in Scotland — Candida Casa, the 'White/Shining House' — built by Saint Ninian arou…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Buittle Castle ties Galloway to the Balliol dynasty across several centuries, from Dervorguilla and a king of Scots to the college at Oxford that s…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Its rare triangular moated plan, unique among British castles, encloses four centuries of Maxwell power and border warfare, from Edward I's siege o…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
A well-preserved late-medieval tower house whose story of feud, execution and folklore captures the turbulent world of the Galloway lairds.
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Its owners' stubborn Catholic loyalty, embodied by Gilbert Brown, the last abbot of Sweetheart Abbey, makes this Galloway tower house a window onto…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
An exceptionally complete red sandstone tower house that preserves the Royal Arms of Scotland above its hearth and a dozen chambers built into the…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
It preserves the fragmentary remains of a medieval Galloway stronghold whose owners span the Lords of Galloway, the Comyns and the priory of Whithorn.
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
A rare pink-sandstone Renaissance palace built for the 1st Duke of Queensberry, holding part of the Buccleuch art collection with works by Rembrand…
Building or ruin · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
A Cistercian foundation of 1142 whose ruins are remembered above all as the place where Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have spent her last night i…
Building or ruin · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
It preserves the story of a Cistercian house whose lands and manuscripts became prizes in the power struggles that followed the Scottish Reformation.
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Hoddom traces the arc of a Border stronghold — from a besieged sixteenth-century tower fought over during Mary, Queen of Scots' wars to a derelict…
Tomb or burial place · Prehistoric
Dumfries and Galloway
Kirkmadrine preserves some of the earliest Christian inscribed stones in Scotland, marking one of the country's oldest known Christian communities…
Building or ruin · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
It preserves a rare double history — a twelfth-century Galloway nunnery displaced by a richly carved Douglas collegiate church — with the tomb of a…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Few Border strongholds trace the whole arc of the medieval Anglo-Scottish wars as directly as Lochmaben, held in turn by the Bruces of Annandale, t…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
A rare triangular medieval castle guarding the strategic Nith valley, later a Douglas hunting lodge and now a Scheduled Ancient Monument beside its…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
A rare early medieval power centre where a lord held sway as a master craftsman, its imported glass, pottery and Mediterranean wine amphora showing…
Building or ruin · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
It preserves the twelfth-century earthworks of a motte-and-bailey castle that served as the administrative heart, or caput, of the medieval barony…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Orchardton Tower is the only cylindrical tower house in Scotland, a rare survival of a round form that had otherwise vanished from Scottish castle-…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
A rare surviving Border beacon-tower, Repentance Tower embodies the sixteenth-century warning system that watched the western Marches for English i…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
It preserves the story of a medieval Dumfriesshire stronghold whose lavish royal welcome in 1617 ruined the family that held it.
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Sorbie Tower is the ancient seat of Clan Hannay — a late-sixteenth-century L-plan tower house that fell to ruin for two centuries before being retu…
Sacred place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
It is a rare example of a Scottish holy well where votive offerings, recovered coins dating back to 1560 and ribbons tied to bushes, show an unbrok…
Building or ruin · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
It is one of Scotland's most evocative Cistercian ruins, founded and named for a widow's lifelong devotion to her husband's embalmed heart.
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
An island stronghold of the Black Douglases, Threave was among the last great seats of that family to fall to the crown, and its early gun defences…
Fortified place · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
A stone castle first documented in 1298, Tibbers passed repeatedly between English and Scottish hands during the Wars of Independence, changing sid…
Building or ruin · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
One of Galloway's medieval Premonstratensian abbeys, remembered chiefly for its notorious alchemist-abbot John Damian and now surviving only as fra…
Briefer entries — recorded and worth knowing, with fuller pages to come.
Minor monument · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Dovecote with HES-listed pre-1800 evidence (1775).
Minor monument · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Mercat cross with HES-listed pre-1800 evidence (medieval).
Minor monument · Medieval
Dumfries and Galloway
Mercat cross with HES-listed pre-1800 evidence (1714).
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