Portpatrick

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Portpatrick
Aerial view of Port Patrick, southwest Scotland..jpg
Aerial view of Portpatrick.
Dumfries and Galloway UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Portpatrick
Location within Dumfries and Galloway
Population600 (mid-2020 est.) [2]
OS grid reference NW995545
  Edinburgh 108 mi (174 km)
  London 309 mi (497 km)
Civil parish
  • Portpatrick
Council area
Lieutenancy area
Country Scotland
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town Stranraer
Postcode district DG9
Dialling code 01776
Police Scotland
Fire Scottish
Ambulance Scottish
UK Parliament
Scottish Parliament
List of places
UK
Scotland
54°50′42″N5°07′27″W / 54.84504°N 5.12429°W / 54.84504; -5.12429

Portpatrick is a village and civil parish in the historical county of Wigtownshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is located on the west coast of the Rhins of Galloway. The parish is about 4+12 miles (7 km) in length and 4 miles (6 km) in breadth, covering 9,300 acres (3,800 ha). [3] [4]

Contents

History

Dating back some 700 years and built adjacent to the ruins of nearby Dunskey Castle, Portpatrick's position on the Rhins of Galloway affords visitors views of the Northern Irish coast 21 miles (34 km) to the west, with cliff-top walks and beaches both north and south. The Gulf Stream, flowing in from the north, gives the coastline a pleasant climate, in which subtropical plant life can flourish.

Portpatrick has a Community Council, [5] and an annual Life Boat Week, featuring parades, activities, and a firework display. [6] There are bowls clubs, a golf club, many guesthouses and hotels, and rustic public houses. The village is also home to a mini putting course.

By the inner harbour is the starting point of the Southern Upland Way, a long-distance walking route to Cockburnspath on the east coast. The Portpatrick Hotel, built in 1905 and extended in 1907, sits on the cliffs above this point.

The village was used as one of the locations for the 1952 film Hunted, starring Dirk Bogarde and directed by Charles Crichton. It also featured in the BBC drama Two Thousand Acres of Sky as a stand-in for Portree.

Features

Harbour

Portpatrick Harbour Arial view of Portpatrick Village, Wigtownshire, Scotland.jpg
Portpatrick Harbour

Portpatrick village was founded on fishing, operating from the sandy, crescent-shaped harbour that remains the focal point of the village. It was the principal port for goods and mail traffic to Ireland from the 17th century, but the strong winds across the North Channel made this impractical. In 1770 John Smeaton constructed the town's first proper harbour. In 1821, John Rennie was appointed to create a new harbour defined by two new piers. The north pier collapsed in 1839, but the south remains standing. The harbour's inner basin was built between 1861 and 1863, but by then, the main goods route to Ireland was via Stranraer, and services went into decline. [7]

St Patrick's Church

Portpatrick Old Kirk Portpatrick Old Kirk - geograph.org.uk - 930883.jpg
Portpatrick Old Kirk

This ruined church, dating from 1629, may itself stand on the ruins of an earlier church, known as St Patrick's Chapel. The circular tower may date from the 1520s, and originally stood on its own. Its unusual shape (for Scotland) may mean that it was either a lighthouse for the harbour, or heavily influenced by Irish architecture.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, when Portpatrick was an important ferry port for passengers, postal mail and freight between Ireland and Scotland, the village was described as the Gretna Green for Ireland. There was a daily packet boat from Donaghadee, and marriages for couples from Ireland were conducted by the Church of Scotland minister in Portpatrick, although according to Brack (1997) he often overlooked the rules about the publication of banns or the required period of residence. It's believed that happy couples could disembark, complete the ceremony, and be back on board within an hour.

The graveyard around the church contains memorials to many victims of shipwrecks in nearby waters. Joined to the original chapel was a district by the name of the Black Quarter of Inch. When the church was rebuilt in 1629, the Black Quarter was disjoined from Inch and erected as the Parish of Montgomorie. The name of the parish however was changed after only two or three years to that of Portpatrick.

Railway

Dunskey Castle Dunskey Castle2.jpg
Dunskey Castle

Portpatrick railway station was completed in 1861. It was the original terminus of the Portpatrick Railway, in order to serve new steam packet services across the North Channel. After a new harbour was built in Stranraer, Portpatrick declined again as a cross-channel port, and the station closed on 6 February 1950. [8] [9] Portpatrick would likely be the eastern terminus of the proposed road and rail Irish Sea Bridge. [10]

Dunskey Castle

12 mile (800 m) south of the village is Dunskey Castle, reached via a steep trail incorporating steps and a narrow bridge. The site has seen at least two castles, though the present ruins date from the 16th century. [11]

Cairn Pat (Cairnpot) Hill Fort or settlement

A large fort or walled settlement enclosed an area of 1.2 hectares (3.0 acres), about 137 by 125 metres (449 ft × 410 ft), within two walls, covered on the west by two ramparts set about 5.5 metres (18 ft) and 9.5 metres (31 ft) apart, with external ditches. A third rampart 2.1 metres (6 ft 11 in) thick by 0.3 metres (1 ft 0 in) high was on the southern approach, outside of which was a low bank about 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) wide. On the west-north-west arc of the second wall there was an entrance gap about 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in) wide. On the north a 2.1-metre (6 ft 11 in) road passed diagonally through the defences from the north-west. From the south-east a natural hollow ran out from the fort, flanked on the west by a face of outcropping rock. At the head of it on the west side within the inner rampart were foundations of a small circular structure measuring internally about 2.1 metres (6 ft 11 in) and overall 3.7 metres (12 ft). [12]

Portpatrick NAVTEX transmissions

Portpatrick is the base from which Navtex transmissions for the seas North and West of the UK are broadcast. [13] For the purpose of extended Shipping forecasts, the Met Office uses Portpatrick as the name of the forecast area covering the sea between South-East Iceland and Lundy, including the waters around Ireland [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Dumfries and Galloway is one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland, located in the western part of the Southern Uplands. It is bordered by East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and South Lanarkshire to the north; Scottish Borders to the north-east; the English ceremonial county of Cumbria, the Solway Firth, and the Irish Sea to the south, and the North Channel to the west. The administrative centre and largest settlement is the town of Dumfries. The second largest town is Stranraer, located 76 miles (122 km) to the west of Dumfries on the North Channel coast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stranraer</span> Town and sea port in Scotland

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wigtownshire</span> Historic county in Scotland

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhins of Galloway</span> Peninsula in Scotland

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Port William, Dumfries and Galloway</span> Human settlement in Scotland

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The Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railways was a network of railway lines serving sparsely populated areas of south-west Scotland. The title appeared in 1885 when the previously independent Portpatrick Railway (PPR) and Wigtownshire Railway (WR) companies were amalgamated by Act of Parliament into a new company jointly owned by the Caledonian Railway, Glasgow & South Western Railway, Midland Railway and the London & North Western Railway and managed by a committee called the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Committee.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castle Kennedy</span> Human settlement in Scotland

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.

Leswalt is a village and civil parish in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It lies between Portpatrick and Stranraer in the Rhins of Galloway, part of the traditional county of Wigtownshire. The parish covers around 8 square miles (21 km2).

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inch, Dumfries and Galloway</span> Human settlement in Scotland

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stranraer and the Rhins (ward)</span>

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References

  1. Andy Eagle (27 February 2003). "The Online Scots Dictionary". Scots-online.org. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
  2. "Mid-2020 Population Estimates for Settlements and Localities in Scotland". National Records of Scotland. 31 March 2022. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
  3. "View: A map of the county of Wigton. - Counties of Scotland, 1580-1928 - National Library of Scotland". Maps.nls.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
  4. "Portpatrick Map". Scottish-places.info. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
  5. "Portpatrick Community Council Home". Portpatrick-communitycouncil.org.uk. Archived from the original on 23 March 2014. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
  6. "Portpatrick Lifeboat week 2012". Portpatrick Holiday Cottage. 24 June 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
  7. "Portpatrick harbour history". Portpatrick Community Benefit Society. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
  8. Holland, Julian (2014). Exploring Britain's Lost Railways. HarperCollins. pp. 256–257. ISBN   978-0-00-794172-8.
  9. Thomas, John; Paterson, Alan J. S. (1984). Scotland: The Lowlands and the Borders. David St John Thomas. p. 286.
  10. Murphy, Douglas (17 February 2020). "An Irish Sea bridge would be just another Boris Johnson folly". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
  11. "Dunskey Castle: Listed Building Report". Historic Scotland. Retrieved 3 September 2013.
  12. Archaeological and Historical Collections relating to Ayrshire and Galloway. vol.V. pp.62-73
  13. Stubbs, Martin. "Meteorological services provided in the context of Safety of Life at Sea – Frequently asked questions" . Retrieved 29 July 2007.
  14. "Extended Outlook" . Retrieved 21 July 2016.

Further reading