Anwoth Parish Church

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.

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.

Rutherford's Monument is a commemorative monument between Anwoth and Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is dedicated to the 17th-century theologian Samuel Rutherford, who had been minister at the nearby Anwoth Old Church. It was built in 1842, and takes the form of a granite obelisk atop a square base. It was badly damaged by lightning in 1847, and rebuilt in 1851. It is a Category B listed building.

Trusty's Hill is a small vitrified hillfort about a mile to the west of the present-day town of Gatehouse of Fleet, in the parish of Anwoth in the Stewartry district of Dumfries and Galloway. The site is notable for a carved Pictish stone located near the entrance to the fort, one of only a handful of such stones found outside the core Pictish heartland of North-East Scotland. Recent (2012) archaeological investigation has also found evidence of feasting and high-status metalworking at the site, and what has been interpreted as a constructed ceremonial processional route. Together these have led to speculation that the site might have been an important centre or location of royal inaugurations for a Brythonic kingdom centred in Galloway and South-West Scotland, circa 600 AD — perhaps to be identified with the elusive north British kingdom of Rheged, which gained greatest prominence under its legendary leader Urien at a similar time in the late 6th century before apparently utterly disappearing in the early 7th century.

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.

Cardoness Castle is a well-preserved 15th-century tower house just south west of Gatehouse of Fleet, in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Scotland. It was originally owned by the MacCullochs of Myreton. They abandoned the castle in the late 17th century, following the execution of Sir Godfrey McCulloch for the murder of a Clan Gordon neighbour. It is now in the care of Historic Environment Scotland, and is a scheduled monument.

Gatehouse of Fleet Town Hall is a former municipal building in the High Street in Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The structure, which is now in private residential ownership, provides access to a fine ornamental garden behind the town hall.

Gatehouse of Fleet (Scots: Gatehoose o Fleet Scottish Gaelic: Taigh an Rathaid) is a town, half in the civil parish of Girthon, and half in the parish of Anwoth, divided by the river Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, within the council administrative area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.

Cally Palace, formerly known as Cally House, is an 18th-century country house in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. The house is now a four star country house hotel and golf resort. It is located 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) south of Gatehouse of Fleet.

Rusco Tower, sometimes called Rusco Castle, is a tower house near Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built around 1500 for Mariota Carson and her husband Robert Gordon, on lands given to them by her father, it was used to incarcerate a number of the Gordons' rivals in the 16th century. After Robert Gordon died and Carson remarried, their eldest son James Gordon seized the tower and imprisoned his mother, fearing that she would make it over to her new husband, Thomas Maclellan of Bombie. Gordon went on to kill Maclellan on the High Street in Edinburgh, while a court case intended to settle the matter was ongoing. The Gordons sold the tower in the 17th century, and it was inhabited continuously until the late 19th or early 20th century. By the middle of the 20th century the building was uninhabited and had fallen into a state of disrepair. In 1971 it was designated a Category A listed building, and was shortly afterwards purchased and renovated by Graham Carson, a Scottish businessman, who went on to live in it from 1979 until 2006. Carson attempted to discover whether his family was related to the Carsons who originally owned the estate, but was unable to document a connection. It remains in the Carson family, and is still used as a domestic dwelling. The tower was the subject of a poem, "Rusco Castle, a Tale of the Olden Time", published in 1841.

Girthon Old Parish Church is a ruined ecclesiastical building in Girthon, near Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway. Built around 1620 on the foundations of a mediaeval church, and incorporating some of the fabric of the older building in its eastern and southern walls, it served as the parish church for Girthon until 1818 when a new church was built for the parish in Gatehouse of Fleet, after which it was abandoned and allowed to fall into disrepair. The church itself has been designated a scheduled monument, and the churchyard a Category A listed building.

Plunton Castle is a ruined L-plan tower house between Kirkandrews and Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built around 1575 for the Lennoxes of Plunton, it passed by marriage to the Murrays of Broughton in the late 17th century. It was still inhabited in 1684, when it was described by Reverend Symson in his Large Description of Galloway as "a good strong house", but by 1838, when it was painted by George Colomb, it had been abandoned and had fallen into a ruinous condition. Well defended on all sides by burns, a ditch and marshy ground, it has numerous gun loops built into its walls. There were iron grilles in the windows, and it was further protected by a high wall, but its defensive arrangements were weakened by the fact that one of its ground floor chambers does not communicate with the other rooms of the tower, and was only accessible from the outside. Archaeological evidence for a walled courtyard, gardens and ancillary buildings survives beneath ground level in the surrounding field. Plunton Castle's romantic setting inspired Walter Scott's poorly received melodramatic play, The Doom of Devorgoil. It was designated a scheduled monument in 1937. Historic Environment Scotland describes its condition as fragile, but notes that it would be possible to restore the building to an inhabitable condition, as has happened at nearby Barholm Castle.