Botany

Summary of a lecture delivered to the Society on 19th November 2004.
Originally a bare tract of crofts and a few trees, dominated by a Tower House, the environment at Culzean changed with the building of the mansion house by Robert Adam and the developme

Mr Unwin took advantage of an organised group visit to the Antipodes to go plant-hunting in the South Island of New Zealand and Tasmania in 1996, since when he has made return visits to the latter. It was mid-summer with temperatures of 30 degrees C when

This report has arisen from the production of a management plan for Cally designed landscape for the Gatehouse Development Initiative in 2007. That plan is a practical tool to inform management and maintenance of the landscape and interpretation and enjoy

Wildlife Art as such is a fairly recent development coinciding with a desire to celebrate the natural world and to conserve it. Animals and birds have featured in art of one form or another however down the centuries, from cave paintings onwards, but subs

On behalf of the Whithorn Trust, and with support from Historic Scotland, a palaeoenvironmental study was carried out on a wet fen/mire located 400 m south of Rispain Camp, an Iron Age site in Galloway. The investigation revealed a good lateglacial and ea

The Solway islands are little known beyond Dumfries and Galloway, indeed several books about the islands of Scotland omit them altogether (e.g. H.Haswell-Smith. 2004. 'The Scottish Islands a comprehensive guide to every Scottish island)'. Progressing fr

The Atlas of the dragonflies of Britain and Ireland (Merritt et al 1996) showed the distribution of thirteen breeding species in Dumfries and Galloway (D&G) for the period 1975-1990. Barbara Mearns began recording in 1993 and during the summers of 1993-20

Lecture to the Society, 20th January, 2006. This talk related that Dumfries and Galloway has some of the finest gardens in the country which reflect the climate, topography and history of the area. There is a range of gardens that are right on the sea goi

Between 1st and 15th August 1939 the Institute of Sociology, Le Play House, 35 Gordon Square, London held a field study meeting in Galloway. Centred on Newton Stewart the group set out to investigate the natural history, history and social science of the

The second season of the SWCS Phase 2 was carried out in September 2003 and January 2004 and comprised detailed digital survey of submerged and dry areas of selected crannog sites in Dumfries and Galloway. Small scale underwater excavations at one site, L

Specialist reports on the charcoal and radiocarbon dates from the excavations of a Bronze Age roundhouse and associated palisade enclosure at Aird Quarry, Castle Kennedy, Dumfries and Galloway

Report on the environmental remains recovered during the Excavations of a Bronze Age Settlement Site at Ross Bay, Kirkcudbright

In January 2002, during the archaeological monitoring of topsoil stripping for the construction corridor of a 1.2km gas pipeline at Ross Bay, near Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, previously unknown archaeological remains were recorded at three locat

Loch Skeen (or Skene, NT 171 165) is a moraine dammed loch lying in a NNW/SSE direction in an upland corrie basin. It lies within Grey Mare’s Tail SSSI, owned by the National Trust for Scotland. A description of the site is given by Mackinlay (2003). The

Rooks have nested in Dumfriesshire since time immemorial and their numbers have been surveyed since at least 1908. During the decade (1993-2003) they decreased dramatically by 30% and by a further 5% between 2003 and 2004. The climate and topography are c

Summary of a lecture delivered to the Society on 6th February 2004 by Stan Tanner, Planning and Environment Forester, Forest Enterprise. Forestry Enterprise manage the Forestry Commission estate to create attractive productive woodland and manage them fo

Summary of a lecture given to the Society on 17th October 2003. An overview of past botanical recording within the county was given with details of recent work

The first phase of the South-West Scotland Crannog Survey, the primary fieldwork for which was carried out in 1989, examined the assumption that submerged crannogs in the south-west were relatively stable while their counterparts on drained land were rapi

This paper presents the results of the first intensive survey of juniper in Dumfries and Galloway. A review of the historical literature showed that colonies had become extinct in the 19th century as well as in more recent times. A field survey carried ou