Kirkcudbright to Carrick via a Kirk and a Coo Palace

Featured photo : one of the many galleries in Kirkcudbright

Earlier this month we drove along the coast from Kirkcudbright, heading 10 miles west to the quiet little beach at Carrick.

Kirkcudbright marina

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very good day and it was raining by the time we reached Carrick. We ate our picnic lunch in the car, followed by a short walk in the drizzle.

 It was hardly worth taking photos at Carrick as it was such a grey day but we’d stopped at a few places along the way that I’d walked to in the past. I had some photos from previous occasions when the weather was much better.

The three places we stopped at are very close to each other, between the tiny hamlet of Kirkandrews and the old dairy at Corseyard. All had connections to James Brown, who was Laird of Knockbrex around 1900. James Brown was a millionaire who had a passion for architecture and he created buildings that reflected styles from the past in quite a quirky and eccentric way. Some of the buildings he created on his Knockbrex estate are certainly unusual!

Our first stop was at the quirky little church in Kirkandrews. Its design is inspired by a fusion of Arts and Crafts and Celtic design and a fondness for miniature castles! The interior consists of a small panelled room with a fireplace at one end and is more like a small banqueting hall than a church.

The church is locked but we had a peek through the window to see inside.

The gate to Castle Haven Dun

About half a mile along the coast is Castle Haven Dun, an Iron-Age fort that owes its state of preservation to extensive restoration work carried out by James Brown.

Entering Castle Haven Dun is like discovering a long lost secret garden, the walls all clad in ivy and the interior a mass of unruly brambles and vegetation.

Stairs lead down to the beach from the interior of the fort

From the shore, the walls emerge up from the rock that it’s built upon, so that it’s hard to see where the rock finishes and the stonework starts. It merges into the landscape in a way that makes it difficult to spot from the road or the coast and there are no signs or path to it (style-like steps in the wall beside the road indicate where to go).

The entrance to the Dun from the shore

Looking west from the dun you can see the Coo Palace , with its castellated water tower. This dairy and very posh cowshed, known as The Coo Palace was another of James Brown’s projects. The cowshed held the laird’s small herd of prize belted Galloway cows.

These photos were taken a few years ago when the buildings had become quite derelict.

The Coo Palace as it was

Since then it has been bought by a holiday property company and converted into luxury holiday apartments, with some brand new holiday houses built beside it. I think it looks rather too immaculate now and doesn’t have quite the character or quaintness it had before but at least the buildings have been preserved.

The belted Galloways in front of their very posh lodgings in 1919

At Carrick beach we looked out across Wigtown Bay and to Murray’s Isles, which are just a short distance offshore but everything was rather grey in the drizzle. My photos certainly don’t do it justice as it is a lovely spot with a small sandy beach and views across to the islands.

Thrift at Carrick

We saw our first thrift for year, a few clumps of bright pink on the leeward side of the rocks.