James Williams

Photograph of the excavations at Lochrutton Crannog taken in the summer of 1901 - reproduced for the first time and used to support a review of 'The Excavation of a Scottish Lowland Crannog: Excavations at Buiston, Ayrshire 1989-90 by Anne Crone and other

Review of a thesis for the degree of Licentiate in Archaeology at the Catholic University of leuven which was the result of practical work in the area under the guidance of A E Truckell. Copy available at the Dumfries Archive Centre

In the 1860s this Society made a number of field excursions to the eroding coastline at Newbie near Annan. These excursions are described from notes in the early printed Transactions and the earliest MS Minute book of the Society. The article is illustrat

Obituary of William Fleming Cormack of Lockerbie (1920-2002). Although a practicing lawyer in the family firm in Lockerbie he was associated with local and national archaeology societies for over fifty years. He excavated extensively throughout Dumfries a

In the absence of either any upstanding remains or absolute documentary evidence for the presence of the former Mossknow Towerhouse the Ann Hill Committee commissioned a geophysical survey of two potential locations by GSB Prospection of Bradford. Survey

Extracts and commentary from the Journal of David Gibson a baptist lay missionary who worked all over the south-west of Scotland - centred at Auchencairn. The author has used the volume to provide details of the background to the life and times of Gibson.

This volume is literally an alphabetic index of almost every aspect of the life, times and especially the people of Kirkcudbright. Although mainly covering the town of Kirkcudbright it also ranges over the countryside between Ross Island and Tongland.

Review of a volume detailing two late eighteenth century visitation rolls of the town of Kirkcudbright. Background to the town is provided against collated lists of the inhabitants and their genealogy.

Bridgend Bridge at Dundrennan is situated on the branch road to Rerrick Kirk and Orroland and has the appearance of a mediaeval ribbed arch. In order to gain some idea of its age and origin, the writers have examined both the documentary evidence and the

Review article

Obituary of Alfred Edgar Truckell - who was a significant contributor to the success and progress of the Society from the time of his election in 1947. He was President 1974-77; Editor 1951-75 and throughout the period 1947-82 acted as Curator of the Soci

Recent perusal of the Kirk Session Minutes of the Parish of Lochrutton has revealed an interesting record of one of the more unusual functions of that body – the building of a bridge across the Lochfoot Burn in 1740-41. This venture has been compared with a contemporaneous bridgebuilding exercise by the Kirk Session of Tynholm .

The early history of the society was recorded by Sir Hugh Gladstone in his Presidential Address of 19122 – and indicates that the Society, having commenced in 1862, ran ‘in a prosperous condition till May 1875 when its meetings ceased’ . It was‘re-constituted’ in November 1876 and has continued to the present day. The published transactions do not provide any record of proceedings for the period from 1869 to 1875. In spite of two references by Gladstone there is a perception that nothing happened between 1869 and 1875 – and this apparent hiatus is re-inforced by the existence of two separate series of printed Transactions – from 1862-1869 and then 1876 to the present. The information gap from 1867-9 until 1874-5 can, however, be filled out to some extent by examining the various reports which appeared from time to time in the local press. The collating of these extracts is eased by an understanding that at this time in the Society’s history it was organised around having the first, or Annual General Meeting, of each session during the month of December: this was then usually followed by a further five ‘Winter Meetings’ finishing in May. Thereafter, there normally followed five monthly ‘Field Meetings’ until October. Such of these reports that can be found have been collated and the following pages are a summary of the Society’s activities during those ‘missing years’.