Dumfries & Galloway

Places to visit, attractions, heritage and things of interest in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland.

The Devil’s Porridge

Mixing the Devil's Porridge

There is an exceptional little museum in the unassuming village of Eastriggs, in Scotland’s Dumfries and Galloway.  The Devil’s Porridge Museum tells an unusual tale, of ‘the greatest factory on earth’, what it produced and the people that worked in it.  It is a reminder of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.  The factory was called […]

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St Ninian’s Chapel

St Ninians Chapel on the Isle of Whithorn

We thought we should go to the Cradle of Christianity in Scotland; the place where St Ninian, Scotland’s first Christian missionary, landed in 397AD and showed the pagan Picts The Way.  There is a chapel there, near the Saint’s alleged landing place on the Isle of Whithorn, at the south-east corner of the Machars Peninsula

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Dervorgilla’s Sweetheart

Sweetheart Abbey, in honour of John Balliol

These are the remains of Sweetheart Abbey, founded by Dervogilla Balliol. Here’s devotion for you.  When her husband, John Balliol, died in 1268, Lady Dervorgilla had his heart removed, embalmed and placed in an ivory casket which she carried with her for the rest of her days.  Apparently, it sat there at mealtimes, her ‘sweet

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Caerlaverock Castle

Caerlaverock Castle, Dumfries

Here is a fortress on the edge.  Caerlaverock is a mighty Scottish stronghold on the banks of the Solway Firth, in the border battleground of the two old protagonists, Scotland and England, and which finally came to grief in the civil war of the 17th century.  On first seeing a picture of this most photogenic

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