Early Mediaeval

For nearly four hundred years, historians have been perplexed by the location of ‘Rosnat’, a British monastery and house of studies mentioned in the lives of various Irish saints. It was long taken as Whithorn in Galloway, and this is still argued, as we shall see. However, what follows discusses the problem and then (on the basis of new evidence) suggests that the place was Old Kea in Cornwall, on a tidal creek between Truro and Falmouth. If so, it allows us to identify (somewhat unexpectedly) a home of Celtic learning and spirituality that for centuries enjoyed international fame, was the intellectual centre of Cornish or south-western Christianity in the sixth century, and has implications for our understanding of religion in early Scotland, as elsewhere in Britain and Ireland. The present paper may here seem ungracious in trying to show that a home of early learning was not at Whithorn. But, being published in Dumfries and Galloway, it perhaps suggests that, if there was not much learning there in the sixth century, there is a great deal in the twenty-first. 

The Vikings have a bad name in history as harbingers of wanton destruction piling off longships to raid villages and sack monasteries. Recent movies such as Pathfinder and Beowulf reinforce the stereotype of early mediaeval warriors engaging in drinking

A review article

The old ruined church and graveyard at Kirkconnel Lea on the Springkell Estate near Eaglesfield (NGR: NY 250753) is best known for its association with ‘Fair Helen’ Irving or Bell and her betrothed Adam Fleming de Kirkpatrick. This connection dominates th

J. Romilly Allen and co-author Joseph Anderson published ‘The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland’ (ECMS) in 1903. One hundred years on that work still provides us with the most definitive overview of the subject. Over the same period weathering and dec

Pennygant is a fell in Roxburghshire/Borders, by the border of Dumfries and Galloway. Its name has been of obscure meaning, but seems to mean ‘hill of the English, summit of the foreigners’ in Cumbric. It would apparently date from the occupation of the D

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

Lecture to the Society, 25th March, 2006. Recent work on the lake dwellings of Dumfries and Galloway through the South-West Crannog
Survey a condition monitoring project funded by Historic Scotland has provided a series of site surveys and radiocarbon da

In 1906 the so-called Dumfriesshire fragments were presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in Edinburgh by a certain Norman B. Kinnear. They were registered under the number FC 179 and are still partly exhibited in the current archaeological e

An Etymological and philological discussion of Historia Brittonum and Arthur's Battle of Tribuit.

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

In 1946 a Miss Helen Selby brought into the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland a collection of artefacts gathered largely from local sources by her father, William McDowall Selby, and grandfather, Robert Bird Selby, who served successively as medi

Summary of a lecture delivered to the Society on 16th January 2004 by Derek Hextall of the Kirkconnel Parish Heritage Society. The society was set up in 1997. The society has developed several projects to mark the vast heritage of the parish. Cairn School

This paper announces the discovery of a potentially important early historic and mediaeval site, with likely ecclesiastical associations at Chapelton, Haugh of Urr. The previously unrecorded remains were exposed during topsoil stripping associated with th

Excavations were carried out by GUARD (Department of Archaeology, Glasgow University) around the site of Warden's Dykes on behalf of Trusthouse Forte and BP Oil UK Ltd in advance of the construction of an access road for the new Gretna motorway service st

McCarthy's book on 'Roman Carlisle and the Lands of the Solway' does more than its title and provides a full review of the archaeology of both the English and Scottish sides of the eastern end of the Solway from the early quaternary to the early mediaeva

Glentenmont, Rattra, Tarras and Tinny Hill are all in Dumfries and galloway, with Cumbric names that respectively seem to mean 'fire-river mountain', 'great homestead', 'strong river' and 'hill of (a man called) Tanet'. They are this evidence for the anci

Dumfriesshire in the Roman Iron Age was possibly the least decentralised area of south-west Scotland with much of its territory probably occupied by north-western Brigantes embracing septs such as the Anavionenses of Annandale. Few Roman finds and none of

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 a survey of promentory forts on the Solway Coast of Dumfries and Galloway. This work was carried out by the author primarily to determine the extent and nature of erosion affecting these sites. The surveying programme al

Review of the publication by Anne Cone and others of 'The Excavation of a Scottish Lowland Crannog: Excavations at Buiston, Ayrshire 1989-90'. Covers all aspects of the archaeology - including a review of Robert Munro's 19th century excavations. Includes

Discusses the placename and archaeological evidence for precursors of the mediaeval premonstratenian foundation - particularly in the early mediaeval period.

This paper reviews the archaeological evidence for the organisation of the later prehistoric landscape that has emerged from work in the Border Counties over the last twenty years. It challenges any assumption that prehistoric farms and territories were d

A review of Andrew McCulloch's 'Galloway - A Land Apart'. This new work assesses the history of Galloway as it affected all social strata, through the fresh and unrestrained eyes of a historian at the end of the 20th century. McCulloch successfully incorp

A review of Drengs and Thegns with particular reference to articles by M.Syrett (Drengs and Thegns Again, Saga Book of the Viking Society, 2000), W.F.Cormack (Drengs and Drings, these Transactions, III/74, 61-67) and J.G.Scott (The Partition of a Kingdom:

The remains of the south-west corner of the 12th-century Cistercian abbey cloister at Dundrennan (NX74924750) were cleared of rubble and 19th-century landscaping infill over four seasons of fieldwork. Elements of the Warming House, Novice's Day Room, Grea

The Celtic place-names of south-west Scotland are a subject repaying investigation. This paper discusses five such names: Ptolemy's Abravannus, meaning 'very feeble one' and referring to Pilanton Burn, near Stranraer. A possible link between the Ravena Co

The important excavations at Whithorn, carried out during the 1880s and 1890s under the patronage of the Third Marquess of Bute, were unpublished at the time of the death, in 1897, of the architect in charge, William Galloway. The only published record of

This paper reviews the results of aerial photographic recording of archaeological sites revealed by cropmarking in south-west Scotland. A consideration of patterns of visability and recovery provides a preamble to a review of the general trends this mater