Cockpool Castle

Comlongon Castle is a tower house dating from the later 15th century or early 16th century. It is located 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) west of the village of Clarencefield, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south-east of Dumfries, in south west Scotland. The original tower has been extended by the addition of a baronial style mansion, completed around 1900. Originally built by the Murrays of Cockpool, it remained in the Murray family until 1984. It was subsequently restored, having been vacant for some time, and the castle and mansion are now a hotel. As of 15 April 2019, the business side of Comlongon Castle has gone into Administration, consequently all weddings due and accommodation booked for after this date were cancelled, leaving the future of the castle uncertain.

Lochar Water is a stream located in Dumfries and Galloway. It flows for about 10 miles or 16 km, mainly in a southerly direction, roughly parallel to the River Nith to the west and the River Annan to the east. It is formed by the confluence of Park Burn and Amisfield Burn, and skirts the eastern side of the town of Dumfries, and flows through an extensive low-lying area and former raised peat land known as Lochar Moss, before flowing into the Solway Firth. Bankend Bridge, part of the B725 road, crosses Lochar Water on the east side of Bankend village. The tidal limit is about 1 km below that. It shares its name with an electoral ward of the Dumfries and Galloway council

Brow is a hamlet on the B725 lying around 3 km from Ruthwell in the Parish of that name on the Solway Firth between Dumfries and Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The Raffles Burn runs through the site, marked on maps as the Brow Burn it flows into the Solway Firth at Lochar Bay.

Clarencefield is a small village in Ruthwell Parish between Dumfries and Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It was once served by Ruthwell railway station.

Ruthwell railway station was a railway station in Dumfries and Galloway south of Dumfries, serving the village of Ruthwell with its famous 8th century carved cross; a rural community within the Parish of Ruthwell, lying a half-mile (1 km) north of Clarencefield and 1+1⁄4 miles (2.0 km) south southwest of Carrutherstown.

Caerlaverock is a national nature reserve (NNR) covering parts of the mudflats and shoreline of the Solway Firth about 10 km south of Dumfries, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It lies between the River Nith and the Lochar Water, and consists of a variety of wetland habitats including bare mud and sand, merse and marshes, and is fringed by neutral grassland on the landward side. A nature reserve was designated in 1957 at the instigation of the Duke of Norfolk. The NNR covers an area of 82 square kilometres (32 sq mi) and is an internationally important wintering site for waterfowl and wading birds. The NNR is now managed by NatureScot, but remains under private ownership, being managed by SNH under lease agreements. As much of the reserve is intertidal, Crown Estate Scotland are one of the major landowners. Management of the site seeks to balance the human activities (fishing, wildfowling and farming interests) with those of nature.

Mouswald is a rural village slightly east of Dumfries in south-west Scotland. It lies on the B724 south of the A75. The site views southward over the Solway Firth.

WWT Caerlaverock is wetland nature reserve in southwest Scotland, one of ten reserves in Britain operated by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust founded by Sir Peter Scott. It covers a 587 hectares (1,450 acres) site at Eastpark Farm, on the north shore of the Solway Firth to the south of Dumfries. It is a wild nature reserve with a network of screened approaches and several observation towers. There is a visitor centre and farmhouse accommodation. The site received 16,105 visitors in 2019.Caerlaverock is home to one of only two UK populations of the "living fossil" Triops cancriformis, the horseshoe shrimp. It is also home to the UK's most northerly population of the natterjack toad.Almost the entire Svalbard population of barnacle goose overwinters in the Solway Firth area, with many of the birds often at Caerlaverock for part or all of the winter; their protection by the reserve has enabled the population to recover from just 500 birds in the 1940s, to over 25,000 now. In 2016 the peak count on the reserve was 15,980 in October. Other high counts of wildfowl that year included 221 whooper swan, 2,457 Northern pintail, 3,000 Eurasian teal, 1,230 Eurasian wigeon and 150 greater scaup. These numbers attract raptors such as peregrine falcon, common buzzard and hen harrier. Vagrant birds recorded on the reserve include common crane, long-billed dowitcher, red-breasted goose, snow goose, ring-necked duck and white-tailed plover.In January 2002, a new education centre was officially opened by King Harald V of Norway.A pair of ospreys have nested on the reserve since 2005. Their nest can be observed by webcam through the reserve's web-site during the day in the nesting season (April–August). At other times the webcam shows the whooper pond or a barn owl nest.

Ruthwell is a village and parish on the Solway Firth between Dumfries and Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, gave Ruthwell to his nephew, Sir William Murray, confirmed to Sir John Murray, of Cockpool, in 1509 by King James VI. He was later given the title Earl of Annandale: their landownings in Ruthwell passed by inheritance to Lord Stormont in 1658, and after 1792 to the Earls of Mansfield.Ruthwell's most famous inhabitant was the Rev. Henry Duncan. He was a minister, author, antiquarian, geologist, publisher, philanthropist, artist and businessman. In 1810 Dr Duncan opened the world's first commercial savings bank, Ruthwell Savings Bank, paying interest on its investors' modest savings. The Savings Bank Museum tells the story of early home savings in Britain. The museum is on the site of the Ruthwell Savings Bank.In 1818, Duncan restored the Ruthwell Cross, one of the finest Anglo-Saxon crosses in the United Kingdom, now in Ruthwell church, which had been broken up in the Scottish Reformation. This cross is remarkable for its sculpture and inscriptions in Latin and Old English, some in Anglo-Saxon runes, which include excerpts from The Dream of the Rood, an Old English poem. After the Disruption of 1843 in the Church of Scotland, Dr. Duncan became one of the founding ministers of the Free Church of Scotland. During his youth, Robert Murray M'Cheyne spent summer holidays at Clarence Cottage in the hamlet of Clarencefield near Ruthwell, the home of his maternal aunt. During these visits he would often call to see "Uncle" Henry Duncan at the manse. M'Cheyne's parents were born in this part of Scotland. The Brow Well is situated 3 km west of the village of Ruthwell. This well, stained reddish by the high levels of iron salts in the water, is the place where Scottish poet Robert Burns hoped to cure his final illness by drinking the iron-rich water. The village was once served by Ruthwell railway station.

The Ruthwell Cross is a stone Anglo-Saxon cross probably dating from the 8th century, when the village of Ruthwell, now in Scotland, was part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. It is the most famous and elaborate Anglo-Saxon monumental sculpture, and possibly contains the oldest surviving text, predating any manuscripts containing Old English poetry. It has been described by Nikolaus Pevsner thus; "The crosses of Bewcastle and Ruthwell ... are the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe."The cross was smashed by Presbyterian iconoclasts in 1642, and the pieces left in the churchyard until they were restored and re-erected in the manse garden in 1823 by Henry Duncan. In 1887 it was moved into its current location inside Ruthwell church, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, when the apse which holds it was specially built. It was designated a scheduled monument in 1921, but had this removed in 2018, due to it being in a controlled, safe environment and not needed scheduling.

Carrutherstown is a village in the civil parish of Dalton, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is about 9 miles (14 km) east of Dumfries.