Pupletts in Sweden: Scotland and England - Part 5 - Dumfries, Keir and Auchengibbert (4 Apr)

Most of today was spent looking into the history of Kristine's family.

We started at Auchengibbert Farm, a farm in the Crocketord area of Dumfries. It was formally owned by James Hastings and Mary Anne Suttie (born in the 1860s), who is Kristine's great-great-grandfather:

James and Mary Hastings at Auchengibbert Farm (approx 1930)

The farm is private property, so we drove past and took photos like creepy stalkers. Because these areas were so out of the way, the GPS couldn't locate them, but google maps could, so we came up with an interesting solution:

Our GPS - phone tied to the actual GPS with a hair-tie

The farm house

The farm looks a bit different these days - in more colour also :)

After the farm we headed out to try and find the graves of some of Kristine's ancestors who died in Thornhill and Dumfries. We found a small graveyard for Protestant Covananters called Dalgarnoch Covenant Graveyard that had graves stretching from the 1700s:

Dalgarnoch Covenant Graveyard

One of the most interesting graves was that of James "Long Gun" Harkness:

James "Long Gun" Harkness

The inscription reads:

Here lies the body of James Harkness who died 7th December 1723, aged 72,

Below this stone his dust doth lie,

Who endured 28 years persecution by tyranny,

Did him pursue with hue and cry,

Through many a lonesome place,

At last by Clavers he was ta'en, sentenced for the die,

But God, who for his soul took care,

Did him from prison bring,

Because no other cause they had,

But that he would not give up,

With Christ his glorious King,

And swear allegiance to that beast,

The duke of York, I mean.

In spite of all their hellish rage,

A natural death he died,

In full assurance of his rest,

With Christ eternally.

James Harkness was a member of the covenanters and his brother Thomas was executed but James escaped.

Another interesting one is the stone of Rev Robert Coltart, who died in 1840:

Rev Robert Coltart

Martyrs Cross for the Covenanters

But we did find what we came to see, the grave of Samuel Hastings and his family - the brother of Kristine's 4th great grandfather.

The stone as we found it

After clearing the moss

We were also treated to a fly over by an airforce plane:

Fly over

After the graveyard we headed out to a little place called Keir Mill for no particular reason, only that it had the most awesome name ever!

A place where I am the judge, jury and executioner!

Keir was on Keir Court, just off of Keir Street

My street

So many Keirs!

And a road!

and a mill!

Sorry about that. When you have a name that never appears on souvenir keyrings or mugs it gets exciting to see places with the name.

On the way to our next spot we passed the Kelpie's sculptures - a 30m high horse head sculpture:

Kelpies

Our final stop for the day was a caravan park near Edinburgh so we could clean the van and return it early the next day.

We weren't expecting much, but the Mortonhall Camping park was awesome. Nice flat and graveled sites for the van and plenty of green spaces for the kids to run. We spent way too much money at the laundrymat getting our clothes cleaned but had a good run and a great dinner at the local pub.

Our campsite

Yep that's Tomas on top of the playground - I snapped this as I ran out to get him. He was practicing "Synchronising" like in Assassins Creed.

Trying to dry our clothes before I cracked and split a 20 pound note to get more coins for the drier - Started to look like a Clootie Spring. This was only one small section, every spare space was covered.