David F. Devereux

Articles by this author

David F. Devereux

Favourites from the Stewartry Museum [Presidential Address - a Lecture to the Society, 5th October 2007]

Proceedings, Museums, History, Recent (Literature & Art), Recent (Social)

TDGNHAS Series III, 82 (2008), 156(2.63 MB)

Abstract

In an illustrated lecture, the retiring President, David Devereux, Museums Curator for the Stewartry in Dumfries and Galloway Museums Service, presented a wide variety of archaeological and local historical artefacts, fine and decorative art, photographs,

David F. Devereux

The Lochenkit Moor Covenanters – a Newly Discovered Account of a ‘Killing Times’ Incident

Recent, History

TDGNHAS Series III, 83 (2009), 229(WARNING large file size: 5.11 MB)

Abstract

The killing of four Covenanters by Crown forces on Lochenkit Moor near present-day Crocketford in Kirkcudbrightshire in early 1685 was one of the most notorious events of the ‘Killing Times’. Today, a walled enclosure protects the site of their grave and an impressive obelisk nearby records the circumstances of their killing2. However, an account of the incident has been recently discovered in a manuscript book held in the Stewartry Museum in Kirkcudbright, which, if accurate, offers an alternative interpretation of the event.

David F. Devereux

Two Letters from Joseph Train Relating to His Early Literary Career and Collaboration with (Sir) Walter Scott

Recent (Literature & Art)

TDGNHAS Series III, 84 (2010), 161(3.44 MB)

Abstract

A recent review of the archive collections held in The Stewartry Museum, Kirkcudbright has brought to light two letters2 written by Joseph Train to his friend John Stobo, a Sergeant in the Ayrshire Militia. Joseph Train (1779-1852) was an Excise officer from 1808, working in various parts of Scotland until his retirement to Castle Douglas. He was one of south west Scotland’s earliest antiquaries and is particularly known as a correspondent of Sir Walter Scott for whom he collected and supplied traditional and historical information from this area3 . This information inspired and provided the historical basis for several of Scott’s poetical and prose works.

David F. Devereux and John Pickin

Tongland Fish House and the Tongland Salmon Fishery

Post-mediaeval archaeology, Recent, Fisheries

TDGNHAS Series III, 89 (2015), 35(4.65 MB)

Abstract

A Building Record of the Fish House at Tongland was made by the authors in November 2013, prior to the re-development of the building. This revealed the nature of the midnineteenth century structure and reflected its use in relation to the seasonal salmon fishery at the nearby Doachs of Tongland on the River Dee. There is also anecdotal evidence for its operation, which included the dispatch of salmon to distant markets. The fishery closed in the 1930s with the development of the Galloway Hydro-Electric Scheme, but a range of documentary evidence indicates that this was a valuable (and sometimes controversial) fishery, operated as an economic unit from 1642 and probably much earlier. Quite possibly the canons of nearby Tongland Abbey exploited this natural resource from the early thirteenth century, although there is no surviving physical or documentary evidence for this.