Dunragit
Encyclopedia
Stranraer
Stranraer is a town in the southwest of Scotland. It lies in the west of Dumfries and Galloway and in the county of Wigtownshire.Stranraer lies on the shores of Loch Ryan on the northern side of the isthmus joining the Rhins of Galloway to the mainland...
and Glenluce
Glenluce
Glenluce is a village in the Scottish area of Dumfries and Galloway.Located on the A75 road between Stranraer and Newton Stewart it is in the traditional county of Wigtownshire. Glenluce Abbey is nearby at ....
in Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. It was one of the nine administrative 'regions' of mainland Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government etc. Act 1973...
(previously Wigtownshire
Wigtownshire
Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown is a registration county in the Southern Uplands of south west Scotland. Until 1975, the county was one of the administrative counties used for local government purposes, and is now administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway...
) in south-west Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. It grew up around the west gate of Dunragit House, an 18th century three-storey four-bay country house. It expanded considerably in the 1950s. The major employer was always the Creamery, but this is no longer in use.
There is a possible Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
cremation
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
and two castle mottes
Motte-and-bailey
A motte-and-bailey is a form of castle, with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade...
in the village. A pit defined cursus
Cursus
thumb|right|250px|[[Stonehenge Cursus]], Wiltshirethumb|right|250px|[[Dorset Cursus]] terminal on Thickthorn Down, DorsetCursus was a name given by early British archaeologists such as William Stukeley to the large parallel lengths of banks with external ditches which they thought were early Roman...
monument, dating from Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
and Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
times, has also recently been excavated there. It was first discovered by aerial photography
Aerial photography
Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
in 1992.
The place-name has, not uncontroversially, been said to derive from Din Rheged meaning Fort of Rheged. This would refer to the Brythonic
Britons (historical)
The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...
Dark Age kingdom of Rheged
Rheged
Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...
that seems to have existed somewhere in this area of the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
/Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
border between the 5th and 8th centuries. It is possible that this was one of the royal sites used by the kings of Rheged and it has been suggested as the site of the unidentified Northern Royal court Penrhyn Rhionedd
Pen Rhionydd
Pen Rhionydd is named as the location of King Arthur's northern court in a Welsh triad found in Peniarth MS 54, containing pre-Galfridian traditions:...
, recorded in the Welsh Triads
Welsh Triads
The Welsh Triads are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness...
.
Inspired by the Logan Botanic Garden
Logan Botanic Garden
Logan Botanic Garden is a botanical garden located near Port Logan on the Rhins of Galloway, the south-western tip of Scotland.The area has a mild climate, due to the influence of the North Atlantic drift. This enables plants which would not normally survive outdoors in Scotland to flourish. There...
and Tresco
Tresco
Tresco is the second-biggest island of the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is in size, measuring about by .-History:In early times one group of islands was in the possession of a confederacy of hermits. King Henry I gave it to Tavistock Abbey which established a priory on Tresco;...
on the Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...
, the 12 acres (48,562.3 m²) Glenwhan Garden has been created in Dunragit, since 1979, out of a gorse
Gorse
Gorse, furze, furse or whin is a genus of about 20 plant species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia.Gorse is closely related to the brooms, and like them, has green...
and bracken
Bracken
Bracken are several species of large, coarse ferns of the genus Pteridium. Ferns are vascular plants that have alternating generations, large plants that produce spores and small plants that produce sex cells . Brackens are in the family Dennstaedtiaceae, which are noted for their large, highly...
covered hillside. It is open to the public.