Aldouran Glen – The Agnew Monument and Supper at Corsewall
A day.
The route
Leswalt is a village a few miles north-west of Stranraer, near the top of the Rhins of Galloway, and this is an afternoon round it with an evening out at the Rhins' northern tip.
Aldouran's wetland garden, made and kept by the village, leads into an old wood with a sculpture trail, and a short climb takes you up to the Agnew Monument on its Iron Age hillfort. Then it's north to Corsewall Point, for supper in the keepers' houses of Robert Stevenson's lighthouse.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
Book supper at Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel
Ring Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel on 01776 853220 to book a table for supper, and ask then which nights and what time.
The day
Leswalt
An afternoon at Leswalt, from a village garden into an old wood and up to a monument on a hillfort, then north for supper at Corsewall's lighthouse.
About 1.5 miles on foot
Aldouran Wetland Garden and Glen
A walk
Park beside the village hall in Leswalt, on the A718 about three miles from Stranraer, and the signs lead you to Aldouran Wetland Garden. It's free, with a donations box at the gate. The village made the garden and its volunteers still keep it: raised stone beds on all-ability paths, picnic benches, and a boardwalk over the pond to a hide, where feeders bring in red squirrels, woodpeckers and finches. Aldouran means the glen of the otter. Beyond the hide the garden runs into Aldouran Glen, an ancient wood that belongs to the Woodland Trust. Part of it holds a sculpture trail, and that is what brings the families: woodland animals and storybook characters cut in wood, little doors for fairies, and a chainsaw-carved Gruffalo standing by a ring of logs where stories are told. There's a toilet at the garden, and dogs are welcome on the paths. Further up the glen the earth paths are narrow and muddy for much of the year.
The Agnew Monument
The Agnew Monument is a short drive away, with parking for about three cars at the foot of the path. A grass path climbs to the castellated tower, built in 1850 in memory of Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw, once MP for Wigtownshire. It stands on the Tor of Craigoch, an Iron Age hillfort about 2,500 years old, and the climb is for the views. The walk is 0.7 km, about 20 minutes, on a very uneven path that turns muddy or slippery in the wet, so wear good shoes.
About 10 min by car
Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel
Supper
Corsewall Point is a short drive north through Kirkcolm. Robert Stevenson built the lighthouse, and its light first shone in 1817; since 1994 it has run without keepers, checked from Edinburgh by the Northern Lighthouse Board, and the keepers' old houses are now a hotel. Supper here is five courses of local food from a menu that keeps changing, with plenty of Scotland's whiskies and gins behind the bar. Non-residents are asked to book a table: ring 01776 853220. Bring a dog and you'll be seated in the lounge.
If it rains
On a wet day keep to the garden and its boardwalk, and leave out the Agnew Monument. Supper is indoors.
On the way
- The Kilmorie Stone, Kirkcolm
The Kilmorie Stone stands in the graveyard beside Kirkcolm Church: a cross-slab of the 9th or 10th century, 1.7 metres tall, its two faces probably carved by different hands at different times. One side shows the Crucifixion, with a figure below between a pair of birds and a smith's tongs, read by some as a memorial to a smith and by others as a scene from Norse myth. The other, finer side has a cross, two drinking horns and a snake biting its own tail. It first stood at Kilmorie Chapel, south of the village, and came here in the late 1980s.
Photographs by nigel ETHERIDGE, Chris Mongan, Alex Wilson and Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel and Restaurant via Google