Water of Fleet

The Islands of Fleet are a group of small islands in Galloway, Scotland. They are in Fleet Bay, which is part of Wigtown Bay, and is in turn part of the Solway Firth in the Irish Sea. There are three main islands. Murray Isles, owned by the National Trust for Scotland, with the small rock "Horse Mark" off it. Ardwall Isle (Ard Bhaile - high town), which has a cairn and the remains of a chapel on it, and has the "Old Man of Fleet" off it. The largest of the three, it is approximately 19 hectares (47 acres) in extent. Barlocco Island, with the "Three Brethren" off it. Barlocco Island is about 10 hectares (25 acres). It has a pebble beach where a boat can be anchored or beached. At low tide it is accessible on foot, by tractor, or quad bike. Ardwall Isle, Barlocco Isle, and the Murray Isles are four of 43 tidal islands that can be walked to from the mainland of Great Britain and two of 17 that can be walked to from the Scottish mainland.

Wigtown Bay is a large inlet of the Irish Sea on the coast of Galloway in southwest Scotland. Its coastline falls entirely within the modern administrative area of Dumfries and Galloway and shared between the historical counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. The bay is broadly triangular in form, widening to the southeast and with the estuary of the River Cree entering from the northwest at its head. The inner parts of the bay are characterized by large expanses of salt marsh and mudflats. The River Bladnoch flows into the estuarial section of the Cree near Wigtown. The Water of Fleet is a third significant river which enters Wigtown Bay via Fleet Bay on its eastern shore. At the mouth of Fleet Bay are the Islands of Fleet include Ardwall Island, Barlocco Isle and Murray’s Isles. The western shore of the bay is formed by The Machars peninsula. This coast is itself indented by Rigg (or Cruggleton) Bay and by Garlieston Bay on which the village of Garlieston sits. The small town of Wigtown also stands on the western shore of the bay whilst the village of Creetown lies at the head of the bay. Wigtown Bay forms the largest local nature reserve in Britain. It has also been designated as a site of special scientific interest. A proposal to construct an offshore windfarm in Wigtown Bay was turned down by the Scottish government in early 2011. The potential effect on tourism was cited as a major reason in the decision.

Corseyard Farm, known locally as the Coo Palace and now marketed under that name, is an architecturally unusual dairy farm near Kirkandrews in Scotland, built between 1911 and 1914 and since converted into holiday accommodation. Erected for the Manchester businessman James Brown as part of a series of flamboyant improvements to the Knockbrex Estate, which he had bought in 1894, it was designed in the Gothic Revival style to resemble a fortified castle with battlemented roofs, arrowslit windows and arched entrances. The buildings were designated a Category A listed building in 1981, by which time they were already in a dilapidated condition. A number of schemes were proposed to rescue and repurpose the buildings between 1990 and 2010, and in 2017 consent was given for it to be converted into holiday accommodation by the Holiday Property Bond. Work was carried out on the site between 2018 and 2020, and it opened to receive its first holidaymakers in 2020.

Ardwall House is an eighteenth-century mansion near Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built in 1762 for the McCullochs of Ardwall, it was extended in 1895 with the addition of pavilion wings to either side of the house. It was designated a Category A listed building in 1971. It is still in use, and remains in the hands of the McCulloch family. In the garden of the house is a Pictish stone slab with a carved Celtic cross, which was discovered on nearby Ardwall Isle.

Barholm Castle is a tower house located 5 miles (8.0 km) south-west of Gatehouse of Fleet, in Kirkcudbrightshire, Galloway, Scotland. The tower dates back to the late 15th century, and it was a stronghold of a branch of the MacCulloch family. The present form of the castle dates from rebuilding in the 16th or 17th century, and in the early 2000s it was restored from a roofless state to residential use. The tower is sometimes identified with the fictional Ellangowan, in Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering.

Ravenshall Wood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, located 5 kilometres east of Creetown in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway, in southwest Scotland. It is on the lower part of the Kirkdale Estate. It is rich in lichens. It is largely oak woodland. It also has Wych Elm, Ash, Hazel, Willow, Sycamore, Gene, Thorn, Elderberry. It does also possess rhododendron which is being eradicated.

Kirkdale Bridge is a bridge over the Kirkdale Burn in the parish of Kirkmabreck, between Gatehouse of Fleet and Creetown in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It was built for Sir Samuel Hannay, based on designs drawn up by Robert Adam, but the execution was much simpler than Adam had originally envisaged, probably to reduce the construction costs. The bridge was designated a Category A listed building in 1971. Several other buildings on the estate, also designed by Adam, are also listed as Category A, in separate designations.

Kirkandrews, sometimes written as Kirkanders in older documents, is a coastal hamlet about 9 kilometres (6 mi) west-southwest of Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It sits in farmland at the head of Kirkandrews Bay, an inlet of Wigtown Bay. The history of Kirkandrews' name is not altogether clear. Some authors have suggested that it was named for a Northumbrian or Irish saint who established a church here in the first millennium; certainly there was an ancient church at the site, but most recent scholarship suggests that both the original church and its name have been lost, and that a new church was built and dedicated to St Andrew, the apostle and patron saint of Scotland, at some point before 1174. Evidence of human habitation at the site dates to the Iron Age, and a Christian church has been there since the early medieval period. Originally an independent parish, it was amalgamated into the parish of Borgue in the 1790s. There was a barony of Kirkandrews, which changed hands many times during its history. By the nineteenth century it had declined to the status of a small hamlet within the grounds of the Knockbrex estate, which was purchased in 1894 by James Brown of Affleck & Brown, who embarked on a series of building works that would put his distinctive, flamboyant architectural stamp on Kirkandrews and its immediate vicinity. There are no shops or commercial businesses in the hamlet, but there are a number of historical sites. These include the ancient churchyard with some surviving stonework from its medieval church, a listed village hall that is used for religious services and private events, and a short distance along the coast there is a dun, built in the Iron Age and reused by Scandinavians, which was renovated in the early 20th century and has since been designated a scheduled monument.

Anwoth Parish Church was built in 1826 to serve the parish of Anwoth in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Designed by Walter Newall, it replaced Anwoth Old Church, which had been the parish church since it was built in 1626 and was partially demolished at the same time as the new church was built. The church has been designated a Category B listed building.

Anwoth is a settlement near the Solway Firth in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire, southwest Scotland, within a parish of the same name in the Vale of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway. Anwoth lies a mile (1.5 km) to the west of Gatehouse of Fleet. Anwoth's most famous inhabitant was the Rev. Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600 – 1661), who was the minister at Anwoth Old Kirk from 1627 until 1636 when he was banished to Aberdeen. On a nearby hill, there is Rutherford's Monument, a 56-foot-high granite obelisk erected in 1842. A millennium cairn opposite the monument lists the names of all the ministers of Anwoth and Girthon until the year 2000 when it was erected. The Old Kirk was in use until 1825, but is now just a ruin. Anwoth Parish Church was built in 1826–1827. It is a Walter Newall Gothic box-style church with tower and hood-moulded windows. It closed in 2002. The Church of Scotland sold the Church to a neighbouring family who now keep it as a hall for ceremonies and parties. The church was re-roofed in 2007 and the building is being maintained. An ancient fort on Trusty's Hill was occupied by Iron Age people and may have been attacked and burned by a Pictish raiding party, who carved a series of symbol stones in a rock beside the entrance passage. Anwoth Kirk and Old School opposite were key locations for the 1973 cult film The Wicker Man. This area, with many references to Gatehouse of Fleet and Kirkcudbright is the location for most of Dorothy L. Sayers detective novel The Five Red Herrings.

Cairnholy (or Cairn Holy) is the site of two Neolithic chambered tombs of the Clyde type. It is located 4 kilometres east of the village of Carsluith in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The tombs are scheduled monuments in the care of Historic Scotland. The name Cairnholy represents Gaelic *Càrn na h-ulaidhe ‘cairn of the stone tomb’.

Anwoth Old Church is a ruined church building which was built in 1626 to serve the parish of Anwoth in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire in the administrative area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is roofless, but much of the walls remain, including the west gable which is surmounted by a bellcote. A number of substantial monuments exist within the church and its surrounding churchyard. Anwoth was the seat of Samuel Rutherford's ministry from 1627 until he was banned from preaching and exiled to Aberdeen in 1636. The church underwent substantial improvements in the early 18th Century, and remained in use until 1826 when it was partly dismantled and Anwoth Parish Church was built. The remains of the building, along with its churchyard, are designated a Category A listed building; a tomb of the Gordon family and a 12-century cross slab within the churchyard are separately designated a scheduled monument. The church and the old schoolhouse opposite were used as a shooting location for the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man.