Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
KIRKCUDBRIGHT'S FESTIVALS
Kirkcudbright was the location of much of the cult 1970s film,
The Wicker Man
, and is the
nearest town for
The Wickerman Festival
(
W
thewickermanfestival.co.uk), southwest
Scotland's biggest music festival, on the third weekend in July, during which a giant Wicker Man
is torched. The town also has a much smaller
jazz festival
(
W
kirkcudbrightjazzfestival.co.uk) in
mid-June, with a strong emphasis on Dixieland as well as a host of
summer festivities
(
W
kirkcudbright.co.uk) in the middle of August including a military tattoo and fireworks display.
at play that he churned out in the latter part of his career, also features a scaled-down
plaster cast of some of the Elgin Marbles. A trip to Japan in 1893 imbued Hornel with
a life-long affection for the country, and his surprisingly large, densely packed,
wonderful jewel-box
gardens
have a strong Japanese influence.
3
Stewartry Museum
6 St Mary St • May, June & Sept Mon-Sat 11am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; July & Aug Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; Oct Mon-Sat
11am-4pm, Sun 2-5pm; Nov-April Mon-Sat 11am-4pm • Free •
T
01557 331643
Don't miss the small
Stewartry Museum
. It's an extraordinary collection: cabinets
crammed with anything from glass bottles, weaving equipment, pipes, pictures
and postcards to stuffed birds, pickled fish and the tricorn hats once worn by
town o
cials. here are also examples of book jackets designed by Jessie M.King
and E.A. Taylor.
Dundrennan Abbey
Dundrennan • April-Sept daily 9.30am-5.30pm; Oct-March Sat & Sun 9.30am-4.30pm; Nov-March Sat & Sun 9.30am-4.30pm • £4.50;
HS •
T
01557 500262 • Bus #505 connects Dundrennan with Kirkcudbright (Mon-Sat 6 daily; 10min)
Some six miles southeast of Kirkcudbright, the grey stone ruins of
Dundrennan
Abbey
stand at the edge of the village of the same name. Founded in 1142,
Dundrennan was the mother house of the local Cistercian abbeys of Sweetheart and
Glenluce, and was clearly the grandest of the lot, even though it's now reduced to
just its transepts. he chief treasures of the abbey are the chapterhouse's finely
carved cusped portal, and the medieval e
gy of a tonsured abbot in the northwest
corner of the nave; he was murdered - hence the faded dagger in his chest - and the
figure being trampled at his feet is thought to be his assassin, in the process of being
disembowelled.
Threave Garden
2 miles southwest of Castle Douglas • April-Oct daily 10am-5pm, Nov-Dec & Feb-March Fri-Sun, 10am-5pm; Threave House can be
visited on a guided tour April-Oct Wed-Fri & Sun 10am-5pm • NTS; £7; house and garden £12 •
T
01556 502575
Threave Garden
, the premier horticultural sight in Dumfries and Galloway, is a pleasant
mile or so's walk or cycle south of Castle Douglas, along the shores of Loch
Carlingwark. he garden features a magnificent spread of flowers and woodland across
sixty acres, subdivided into more than a dozen areas, from the old-fashioned
herbaceous borders of the Walled Garden to the brilliant banks of rhododendrons in
the Woodland Garden and the ranks of primula, astilbe and gentian in the Peat
Garden. In springtime, thousands of visitors turn up for the flowering of more than
two hundred types of daffodil.
hreave is also home to the School of Practical Gardening, whose postgraduate
students occupy one floor of
Threave House
, a hulking Scots Baronial mansion built by
the Gordon family in 1872, and now restored to its 1938 condition.
