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Showing posts with the label Scottish West March

Langholm Castle

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Perhaps fittingly, the forlorn ruins of Langholm Castle are situated in a wooded area inside the modern racecourse, so the sound of hooves tearing up the turf still reverberate by the solitary standing wall. Because the Border Reivers loved their horse racing and the ‘baa – the precursor to modern football. It’s well documented that prior to a raid a clan chief would either announce a race or a game as a pretext for gathering his riders together. The Bold Buccleuch arranged a horse race at Langholm where he met the main conspirators that would take part in the infamous rescue of Kinmont Willie from Carlisle Castle. The Carlisle Bells flat race was first contested in the sixteenth century and is still run today. An original bell, believed to date from around 1580 and the oldest known racing prize in Britain, bares the inscription: ‘The fastest horse this bell to take for my Lady Dacre’s sake.’ It is housed along with another from 1599 in Carlisle’s Guildhall museum.

Lochmaben Stone

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The Lochmaben Stone near Gretna – in Irvine territory - is a seven-foot high rounded chunk of granite that once formed part of a stone circle dating back to 3000 BC. But the amazingly tactile stone was also used by the reivers as a meeting point before raids and also for Truce Days.   The stone marked the southern reaches of the Scottish kingdom in the past. Nearby in the bottom end of the field by Stormont Farm is the spot where the English blood ran red at the Battle of Sark in 1448. Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, camped his army of 6,000 men here and lost as many as 3,000 killed and drowned as a Scottish force of 4,000 under Hugh Douglas, Earl of Ormonde, drove them back into the water with their pikes for a decisive victory. A smaller stone from the ancient circle is set in the ground by the hedgeline and the site is reckoned to have been a shrine to the Celtic God Maponus.

Annan

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There’s not much left of Annan castle, save a grassy motte on the east bank of the river near the aptly named Bruce Street. For it was home to the Bruce clan before a flood changed the course of the river and eroded part of the mound, which saw the Lords of Annandale relocate to Lochmaben castle. But Annan is a smart red sandstone town with plenty of history and Lord Maxwell met with Lord Herries there to come up with a solution for dealing with the English Grahams. This was in 1584. In a pre-emptive retaliation, Lord Scrope’s deputy struck terror with a number of heinous murders committed by his officers and soldiers brought over from Berwick that the Scots complained were ‘acts of public hostility’ rather than attempts to apprehend thieves. Annan’s proximity to the Border made it a target for attack and seven years later John Storey of Stagmire and Tom Storey of Howend, along with Tom’s Willie, alias Willie’s John, Fargy the Plump and Black Jock’s John, lifted 40 ho