Trans Dumfriesshire Galloway Natur Hist Antiq Soc 81 (third series)

Note recording the findings of an archaeological evaluation in 2004 at Muirkirk Road, Newbie in advance of residential development, at the site of a Roman temporary camp. Traces of a Roman military ditch were found, along with fragmentary elements of a ridge and furrow field system.

In 2003, during a survey of the collection of decorative carved stones from the ecclesiastical buildings on the site of Whithorn Cathedral Priory, the author was asked to add a geological annotation to the stonework typologies. Upon analysis, the stonework appeared to reflect the various phases of construction and alteration to the building fabric from the twelfth century to the dissolution and disassembly of the Priory in the late-sixteenth century. Although there were ecclesiastical structures on the Whithorn site prior to the twelfth century, in the present collection the only stonework types of pre-twelfth century date are the Celtic memorial stones, including the crosses classified as products of the `Whithorn School', most of which utilise flat slabs of the local graywacke bedrock that outcrop in and around the Whithorn area. The stone comprising the Whithorn collection fall into six distinguishable groups. After analysis, it became apparent that there was a direct correlation with some of these groups to the rock types that outcrop on the Solway coast, and in particular to the exposures around Abbey Burnfoot. These groups also matched the stones used in the building of Dundrennan Abbey. With the completion of the analysis of the Whithorn collection, the potential value of a more extensive study of building stone used in various medieval and later buildings in the Galloway area was indicated and is a current ongoing project.

The paper deals with the development of Kirkcudbright between the 1790s and the early-nineteenth century, based on a grid formation created by a new street, Castle Street, inserted into and linked by Union Street to the old single L-shaped High Street which until then had comprise the town. The 1790 plan laid out two other new roads extending the town on both the north--south and east--west axes by what are known as St Mary Street and St Cuthbert Street, and the paper focuses on the development of these two new thoroughfares.