RAF Castle Kennedy

Castle Kennedy is a small village 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It is on the A75 road, and is within the civil parish of Inch. The village is to the south of the Lochinch Castle estate, which includes the ruins of the 17th-century Castle Kennedy, as well as Castle Kennedy Gardens which are open to the public. Prior to the Reformation the two lochs within the Lochinch estate, Black Loch and White Loch, were together known as Loch Crindil. A small island in the White Loch was the site of a church, which may have given the parish its name: "the Inch", from the Scottish Gaelic: innis, meaning "island". Castle Kennedy was built in 1607 as a mansion house by the Earl of Cassilis, on the site of an older castle. It was acquired in 1677 by Sir John Dalrymple, later the Earl of Stair, though the house burned down in 1716. The 2nd Earl retained the ruin as a focal point for new formal gardens laid out from 1720 to 1730, following his time as ambassador at Versailles upon which it was based. The earl used troops to landscape the estate, including several focal features such as "The Giant's Grave", "Mount Marlborough" and the "Dancing Green". In the 1860s the 9th and 10th Earls built Lochinch Castle on the estate, in a "Franco-Scottish style", and partially restored the 18th-century gardens that had fallen into disrepair. The estate remains the property of the Earl of Stair, and Castle Kennedy Gardens are open to the public. Restoration of the gardens continues. Because of the Gulf Stream and the proximity of the sea on two sides, the gardens enjoy a mild climate which permits the cultivation of a range of rhododendrons and other plants not often seen in Scotland. Castle Kennedy had a station on the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway, which opened in 1861 and closed in 1965. The station building is now a house, and the closest station is at Stranraer. During the Second World War an airfield was constructed to the east of the village: it operated from 1941 to 1945, and the runways remain in place. The village has its own primary school, with a roll of 38 pupils. The former RAF Castle Kennedy is located nearby.

Castle Kennedy is a ruined 17th-century tower house, about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Stranraer, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, around 0.5 miles (0.8 km) north of the village of Castle Kennedy.

Castle Kennedy railway station served the village of Castle Kennedy, in the historic county of Wigtownshire in the administrative area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland from 1861 to 1965 on the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway.

Saulseat or Soulseat Abbey was a Premonstratensian monastic community located in Wigtownshire, Galloway, in the Gaelic-speaking south-west of Scotland.

Aird (Gaelic:An Àird) is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, in the southwest of Scotland. It is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) east of Stranraer and 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Castle Kennedy.

Dunragit railway station served the village of Dunragit, in the historic county of Wigtownshire in the administrative area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland from 1861 to 1965 on the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway.

MOD West Freugh is located in Wigtownshire, 5 miles (8 km) south east of Stranraer, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, and is operated by defence contractor QinetiQ, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. It has always been an armaments training school, either for handling or deployment of ordnance. The site was previously a Royal Air Force station as RAF West Freugh, as well as a Royal Aircraft Establishment as RAE West Freugh.

Dunragit (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Reicheit) is a village on the A75, between Stranraer and Glenluce in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. Dunragit is within the parish of Old Luce, in the traditional county of Wigtownshire. The modern village grew up around the west gate of Dunragit House, an 18th-century country house, though there is evidence of Neolithic settlement in the area.

Droughdool Mote (also spelled Droughduil) (grid reference NX 14823 56865) is a Neolithic round mound in the parish of Old Luce, Wigtownshire, Dumfries and Galloway. The mound is oval in plan, measuring 60m by 50m at its base and rises to 10m in height. It is located 400m south of the late neolithic palisaded enclosure at Dunragit. It has been suggested that the mound may have been used as a viewing platform for activities at Dunragit complex of monuments. The most well known parallel the site has is Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, but is closer in size to the less well known sites at Conquer Barrow, Willy Howe and Wold Newton. The mound was originally built with stepped sides on top of a sand dune. Excavation between 1999-2002 revealed a round cairn at the top of the mound, similar to the nearby Mid Gleniron A. The mound was assumed to be a medieval mote for a castle, but is different in structure and location to the motes in the surrounding area. In 2002, excavation and optically stimulated luminescence dating showed that the site was prehistoric, and probably placed within a date bracket associated with the Dunragit complex of monuments to the north. The site is still classified as a "motte (medieval)" on Canmore, the online database of ancient and historical monuments in Scotland. The complex of Neolithic monuments at Dunragit was identified in 1992 by Marilyn Brown of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland from aerial photographs. When these cropmarks were examined within the wider landscape, it was found that the Droughdool Mote was aligned on the entrance to the middle of three concentric rings at the Dunragit site. While this alignment may be coincidental, other Neolithic flat topped mounds, such as Silbury Hill, Hatfield Barrow and Knowlton in Dorset, are also associated with nearby large enclosures. A feature of these other sites, missing from Droughdool, is a ditch surrounding the mounds which was often filled with water. However, during the Neolithic, the sea level was considerably higher than it is today and at high tide, an area between the mound and the Dunragit enclosure (the Whitecrook Basin) would have been inundated by sea. Thomas proposes that this may have obviated the need for a ditch at this site. Sites linked by water are well known from the Neolithic. The most famous of these is the connection between Durrington Walls and Stonehenge linked by the River Avon. Thomas speculates that: "In the case of Dunragit and Droughduil, passing out of the enclosure along the entrance passage, and walking down into the Whitecrook Basin and then through the water before climbing the mound might have been understood as a journey of transition or transformation." The site is a scheduled monument. It was excavated between 1999 and 2002 by Julian Thomas.

Inch is a civil parish in Dumfries and Galloway, southwest Scotland. It lies on the shore of Loch Ryan, in the traditional county of Wigtownshire. The parish is 10 miles (16 km) in length, and in one part nearly of the same breadth, comprising 30,600 acres (12,400 ha).

Luce Bay is a large bay in Wigtownshire in southern Scotland. The bay is 20 miles wide at its mouth and is bounded by the Rhins of Galloway to the west and the Machars to the east. The Scares are rocky islets at the mouth of the bay.

New Luce railway station served the village of New Luce, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland from 1887 to 1965 on the Girvan and Portpatrick Junction Railway.