Early Mediaeval

A rock-cut footprint linked in tradition to St Patrick was recorded and destroyed during harbour works at Portpatrick (Wigtownshire) in the early nineteenth century. This paper argues it was an early Medieval royal inauguration site, based on wider Scottish and Irish parallels. The footprint’s setting, on a rock in a harbour, created a natural amphitheatre with a backdrop of the Irish coast which may well have been a key element of the tradition. James Fraser’s analysis of early Medieval sources for Portpatrick and the wider context of such stones suggests a ninth–tenth century Hiberno-Norse (Gall-Gaidhel) context is plausible.

The issues considered in this paper arise from an ongoing study of place-names in and around the Fleet Valley in the south-west Stewartry, brought into focus by the recent excavations on Trusty’s Hill and the timely publication of the very thorough and thoughtprovoking report on the findings (Toolis and Bowles 2017). I shall address in particular some questions concerning what can and cannot reasonably be inferred from the evidence of names regarding the linguistic, and by implication ethnic and political, history of this corner of Galloway during the second half of the first millennium AD, as well as drawing attention to some intriguing possibilities which may add some complexity to the picture.

This paper re-explores the relationship between the cults of Monenna and Ninian in the wake of the significant developments in the study of Ninian over the past two decades. It examines the overlap of their cults, with a focus on Stirling, Edinburgh and Galloway. It is argued that the Scottish journey of Monenna may indeed reflect the cult of a female saint in southern Scotland, rather than that of Ninian as has previously been suggested. Medieval and early modern writers were aware of a potential for confusion between the names. This may have led to the saints becoming associated with one another and, in some locations, resulted in the eventual replacement of an original cult with that of Ninian.

In this case-study of the parish of Lochmaben (Dumfriesshire), the author follows a twofold approach: first, the early medieval (c. AD 600–1000) settlement pattern within the parish boundaries is identified through the use of place-name evidence. The analysis includes eighteen place-names which are ascribed with a rough chronology based on their etymology and comparative place-name types. In cases of uncertainty, archaeological evidence is added, where possible, to aid the dating process. Seven place-names have been found to point to early medieval settlement activity, and another four are considered possible indicators of human occupation in the study period. As a second part of the study, place-name analysis is used to determine the potential age of the parish boundaries. Based on a detailed study of þveit type place-names, the parish boundaries are roughly dated to the period before AD 1000, and may go back to British or Anglian territorial or estate units. It is argued that the parish boundaries, as they are seen on nineteenth-century maps, only received their ecclesiastical function during the twelfth century, when David I of Scots and his successors implemented a structured parochial system. In the course of the casestudy, a particular focus has been placed on locating the now lost settlement of ‘Ouseby’. The suggestion is made that this settlement became deserted in the fourteenth century, and was re-settled under the name of either Greenhill or Heck, both of which survive to the present day.

This paper reviews the evidence for the important Brittonic/Cumbric place-name element trev as it exists within south-west Scotland, and suggests how it might be interpreted in the light of current thinking on the development of landholdings during the first millennium AD and the central middle ages.

A collection of metalwork — a sword, penannular brooch, and sickle — was found close together in 1989 at Carronbridge in north-central Dumfriesshire and they are thought to have been deposited in the ninth or tenth centuries. In the published report it was suggested that they belonged to a ‘lone traveller’, and a later review of the burial concluded that it should be raised ‘to the category of pagan Norse burials marked as “uncertain’’’. Having reconsidered the evidence and viewed the location of the Carronbridge burial I suggest that it should be moved to the ‘certain’ category. A short review of the evidence for Scandinavians in Dumfriesshire is also given, including the circumstances that may have led to the burial.

Archaeology is making the ‘Picts of Galloway’ famous: in contrast are historians and philologists, who denounce them as mythical, fictitious, non-existent, and (in short) being for Galloway what Monsters are for Loch Ness. However, since the supposed Picts of Galloway refuse to vanish from journalism and popular culture, what follows gives accounts of them over the years. Readers can then put the evidence of archaeology besides that of history and linguistics, and decide for themselves.

Scandinavian incursions and settlements in both Scotland and Ireland were of significance in the development of both nations. Social, political, and economic change then ensued, leaving long lasting linguistic, cultural and genetic legacies. The name Galloway contains the Gaelic words ‘Gall’, originally a foreigner and later a Scandinavian, and Gàidheil, a Gaelic speaker. Fergus of Galloway was known as ‘righ Gall-Ghàidheil’, king of the foreign or Scandinavian Gaelic speakers. Questions arise as to the geographical origins of the Gall-Ghàidheil and when they intruded into greater Galloway. That greater Galloway was Gaelicised can be seen not only from place-name studies but also from the very large number and great variety of Gaelic surnames associated with the region. The origin of Fergus of Galloway, still an unsolved problem for historians, is considered in the light of the given names of his descendants. These names suggest that Fergus was either a Gael or a very much Gaelicised individual. The focus then moves to the medieval cenéla of greater Galloway. The names of leading individuals and kindreds, in particular those of the greinours of the Clenafren, are analysed. Two Muintir groups recorded in Carrick are also examined in some detail. The tantalising but as yet unproven possibilities of Irish Dál Fiatach origins for both the Clenafren and the McKerrells are outlined. The apparent absence of well-researched genetic data which might prove helpful in illuminating the origins of the kindreds of greater Galloway is commented on. The future availability of such data could potentially assist in further unravelling Galloway’s complex past. The meanings of contractions and Gaelic words used are given at the end of the article.

The Pictish inscribed stone at Trusty’s Hill is unique in Dumfries and Galloway and has long puzzled scholars as to why this was carved here and if it is indeed genuine. As part of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, the Galloway Picts Project was undertaken in 2012 in order to recover the evidence required to understand the archaeological context of the inscribed stone and the significance of Trusty’s Hill within Early Medieval Scotland. The following paper is intended simply as an interim summary report, in advance of a monograph reporting the full analyses and results (Toolis and Bowles forthcoming).

The meeting of Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society on 2 December 2011 was a very special occasion. The topic for the evening was ‘The Names of Rheged’ and the speaker, Dr. Andrew Breeze. It was the James Williams Memorial Lecture, held in memory of the Society’s much-revered and long-serving editor. During James Williams’ editorship of the Transactions, Dr. Breeze has published several significant research papers on the place-names of Dumfries and Galloway and he willingly agreed to travel from the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, to deliver the memorial lecture. This article is taken from a transcript of the lecture which he has generously offered for publication.

For at least 600 years, between the tenth and the sixteenth centuries, Galloway was a Gaelic speaking land. Although both the beginning and the end of Gaelic Galloway are uncertain, that Gaelic was the language of the kingdom of Galloway established by Fergus in the early eleventh century, and was still the main language of the Douglas lordship of Galloway at its end in 1455, is indisputable. In addition to the Gaelic personal and place names recorded in medieval charters, the thousands of Gaelic place names which survived to be recorded by the Ordnance Survey in the 1840s bear witness to Galloway’s Gaelic past. Furthermore, despite the language shift to Scots, there is evidence of cultural continuity between the agriculture of Gaelic Galloway and the farming practice of seventeenth and early eighteenth century Galloway. Then, at the end of the eighteenth century, the process of agricultural improvement began, a process which has continued to the present. The cumulative effect of this process in the lowlands, combined with afforestation in the uplands, has been the erasure of Galloway’s past. The Galloway landscape known to the Galloway Levellers and the Covenanters would have been familiar to the medieval Gaelic farmers who named the land, but none would recognise the landscape of the present.

Four areas of archaeological significance covering a timescale from early Neolithic to post-medieval periods were identified during initial fieldwork at Lockerbie Academy.2 The earliest site identified was the remains of a Neolithic timber hall, which was situated on top of the flat plateau towards the north-west end of the site. At the summit of the rounded knoll in the centre of the area, a Bronze Age phase consisting of a cremation and inhumation cemetery enclosed by a possible ring-cairn was identified. At the base of the rounded knoll, the remains of an Early Historic timber hall were identified. This Anglian timber hall reoccupied the site of a post-built structure, which was interpreted as a timber hall, possibly belonging to an earlier British tradition. A corn-drying kiln was identified cut into the same knoll as the Bronze Age cemetery and has been dated to the late medieval or early post-medieval period. A segmented ditched enclosure was located towards the north-east end of the site, but the poor survival of this feature combined with a lack of finds and palaeobotanical evidence means that it remains undated.

One of the characteristic archaeological features of the Machars is the series of promontory forts occupying remote headlands projecting out into Wigtown Bay, Luce Bay and the Irish Sea. They are generally characterized by one or more ramparts and ditches that appear to cut the headland off from its hinterland, but little is known about them. Morphologically they are a class of monument typical of the Iron Age and attributed very broadly to the second half of the 1st millennium BC (Armit 1997, 59; Harding 2004, 144-7).

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