Penpont | |
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![]() Crossroads at the centre of Penpont | |
Location within Dumfries and Galloway | |
OS grid reference | NX8494 |
Civil parish |
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Council area | |
Lieutenancy area | |
Country | Scotland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Thornhill |
Postcode district | DG3 |
Dialling code | 01848 |
Police | Scotland |
Fire | Scottish |
Ambulance | Scottish |
UK Parliament | |
Scottish Parliament | |
Penpont is a village about 2 miles (3 km) west of Thornhill in Dumfriesshire, in the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland. It is near the confluence of the Shinnel Water and Scaur Water rivers in the foothills of the Southern Uplands. It has a population of about 400 people.[ citation needed ]
There are several archaeological sites nearby, including Late Bronze Age hill forts on Tynron Doon [1] and Grennan Hill and a long cairn at Capenoch Loch [2] dating from the 2nd or 3rd century.
The toponym Penpont means "bridge-head" in the Cumbric language once spoken in the region. [3]
The A702 road passes through Penpont. West of Thornhill it crosses the River Nith on a two-arched stone bridge in Penpont parish. It was built in the 1760s after the presbytery of Penpont raised £680 toward the cost. Work started about 1774, but in 1776 the bridge collapsed. The bridge was completed in 1778 and strengthened in 1930–31. It is a Category A listed building. [4]
Penpont's Church of Scotland parish church is a Gothic Revival building completed in 1867. It is a Category B listed building. [5] It has an Art Nouveau Communion table made in 1923.[ citation needed ]
Penpont's war memorial was made by Glasgow sculptor William Kellock Brown and installed in 1920. It is a bronze statue of an infantryman, with his rifle pointing downwards, his hands resting on the butt and his head slightly bowed.
Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about 25 miles (40 km) by road from the Anglo-Scottish border and just 15 miles (24 km) away from Cumbria by air. Dumfries is the county town of the historic county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South. This is also the name of the town's professional football club. People from Dumfries are known colloquially in Scots language as Doonhamers.
Dumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It comprises the historic counties of Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire, and Wigtownshire, the latter two of which are collectively known as Galloway. The administrative centre is the town of Dumfries.
Thornhill is a village in the Mid Nithsdale area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, south of Sanquhar and north of Dumfries on the main A76 road. Thornhill sits in the Nithsdale valley with the Carsphairn and Scaur range to the west and the Lowther hills to the east. It was initially a small village, planned and built in 1717 on the Queensberry Estate on the road linking Dumfries to Glasgow. The Earl of Queensberry initially named the village 'New Dalgarnock' however the name did not achieve popular approval.
Kirkcudbrightshire, or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the informal Galloway area of south-western Scotland. For local government purposes, it forms part of the wider Dumfries and Galloway council area of which it forms a committee area under the name of the Stewartry.
Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of south-western Scotland.
Nithsdale, also known by Scoticised names Strathnith, Stranith or Stranit, is the strath or dale of the River Nith in southern Scotland, and the name of the local area. The name Strath Nid may represent the Cumbric Ystrad Nidd; Cumbric was the dominant language in this area from before Roman times until the 11th or 12th centuries, whereas Gaelic influence here was late and transient. The River Nith flows north to south through the Southern Uplands in south-west Scotland, separating the Lowther Hills from the Scaur Hills. Nithsdale has historically been a strategic area as it forms an invasion route from England into central Scotland.
Scaur Water is a river which rises near Polskeoch in the Scaur hills in the region of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Shinnel Water, also spelt Shinnell, is a river in the region of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Mochrum is a coastal civil and Church of Scotland parish situated to the east of Luce Bay on the Machars peninsula and 8 miles (13 km) southwest of Wigtown and in the historical county of Wigtownshire in Galloway, Scotland. It covers 22,000 acres (8,900 ha) and is approximately 10 miles (16 km) in length and 5 miles (8.0 km) in breadth. The parish contains the eponymous village of Mochrum, as well as Port William and the clachan of Elrig.
Dunscore is a small village which lies 9 miles (14 km) northwest of Dumfries on the B729, in Dumfriesshire, in the District Council Region of Dumfries and Galloway, southwest Scotland.
Tynron Doon is a multivallate Iron Age hill fort outside the village of Tynron in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It was occupied on and off from the 1st millennium BC until the 16th century, when an L shaped tower house stood there. Tynron Doon lies at the southern end of the Scaur hills.
Tynron is a village and civil parish in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland, lying in a hollow of the Shinnel Water, 2 miles (3.2 km) from Moniaive.
The Lowther Hills, also sometimes known as the Lowthers, are an extensive area of hill country in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, though some sub-ranges of hills in this area also go under their own local names - see "Hillwalking" below. They form a roughly rhomboidal or lozenge shape on the map with the acute angles being to north and south. It has river valleys along its boundaries to north east (Clydesdale) and south west (Nithsdale) which carry the two largest arterial routes northwards into the west side of the Central Belt of Scotland. A string of small towns have long since developed along these routes. Most of the Lowther Hills lie in the Administrative County of Dumfries and Galloway, though part in the administrative county of South Lanarkshire moves into them around the village of Leadhills and the Daer Reservoir.
The Carsphairn and Scaur Hills are the western and eastern hills respectively of a hill range in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Ordnance Survey maps don't have a general name for the hill area as a whole. Also, Ordnance Survey use "Scar" rather than the local spelling of "Scaur" - the word is pronounced as "Scar" however. In their Landranger Series of maps, it requires four separate sheets to cover the area.
Glencairn is an ecclesiastical and civil parish in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Dalgarnock, Dalgarno, Dalgarnoc was an ancient parish and a once considerable sized village in the Nithsdale area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, south of Sanquhar and north of Dumfries that enclosed the parish of Closeburn but was annexed to Closeburn in 1606 following the Reformation, separated again in 1648 and finally re-united in 1697, as part of the process that established the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It was a burgh of regality bordering the River Nith and Cample Water and held a popular market-tryst or fair from medieval times until 1601 when the Earl of Queensberry had them transferred to Thornhill, commemorated in song by Robert Burns, shortly before its demise and now only a remote churchyard remains at a once busy site.
Barburgh Mill is a hamlet composed of an old lint mill, later extended as a woollen mill and associated buildings which lies north of Auldgirth on the A76 on the route to Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire, Closeburn Parish, in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. Its original nucleus was the old mill with associated buildings, the smithy, toll house and the miller's and workers dwellings. The site features the A76 that runs nearby, the River Nith and the Lake Burn that once powered the mill via a lade before joining the Nith. The area is famous for its association with the Covenanters. A Roman fortlet stood opposite the mill and a Roman road is thought to have run through Nithsdale at this point.
Kirkbride, previously Kilbride was an ancient parish close to the village of Enterkinfoot, the lands of which lay on both sides of the River Nith in the old Strathnith area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about 5 miles south of Sanquhar and north of Closeburn. The parish was suppressed and divided between Durisdeer and Sanquhar parishes in 1732. The ruins of the kirk are a scheduled monument and the surrounding graveyard is a Category B listed building with the River Nith in the valley below. The Ha Cleuch Burn flows through the glen that lies to the east of the site with a lane reaching it that runs up from Enterkinfoot, ending at Coshogle Farm.
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