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Places to visit
in Dumfries and Galloway.

It’s 20:57 in Dumfries and Galloway.
Dumfries and Galloway

The quiet south-west.

Dumfries and Galloway is the corner of Scotland most people drive past on the way north, and they miss a great deal. There are red sandstone abbeys and moated castles, painted harbour towns where artists have worked for a century, and a coast of coves warmed by the Gulf Stream. Inland are forests dark enough for the stars, hills for walking and the places Robert Burns lived and died. These are the places in Dumfries and Galloway we think are most worth your time.

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Place of the day20 hours ago

Whithorn Priory and Museum.

The ruins of the priory and cathedral of Galloway at Whithorn, for 1,000 years a place of pilgrimage to St Ninian, with a museum of early carved stones.

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From our archive20 hours agoDumfries and GallowayJake Irving CeramicsDumfries and GallowayKirkcudbrightDumfries and GallowayMacLellan's CastleDumfries and GallowayThe Moffat RamDumfries and GallowayOrchardton TowerDumfries and GallowayPaul Jones Bakery

Dumfries and Galloway this autumn, in our photographs.

Six places in Dumfries and Galloway, each as we found it.

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Places to visit20 hours ago

Otter's Pool.

A wide shallow pool on the Black Water of Dee, halfway down the Raiders' Road.

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In Dumfries and Galloway20 hours ago

New trails round Wigtown celebrate the centenary of the Galloway writer Alastair Reid while the book festival is on.

The Ounce Dice Trice Trail takes its words from his children's book, with a woollen piano by the Wigtown Knitters and a new dance, the Wigtown Wiggle. Trail guides are at the festival box office, and the festival runs until Sunday 4 October.

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From our guide19 hours ago

Crawick Multiverse.

In the heart of former mining country on the River Nith, this sculptural landscape by designer Charles Jencks is dedicated to the themes of space, astronomy and cosmology with swirling landforms and giant standing stones in ripple formations that represent the sun, galaxies, black holes and comets.

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Did you know19 hours agoWritten byLouis D. HallRead Louis’s piece

Moffat, a town in the Southern Uplands of Dumfries and Galloway, was the first in the UK to be named a Dark Sky Town.

‘If you head northwest up the river Annan, you come across Moffat, the UK’s first ‘Dark Sky Town’ set in the Southern Uplands. With its own distillery and at the crossroads of three national trails, it’s a great spot for unrushed explorers and star gazers alike.’

Written byLouis D. HallRead Louis’s pieceSee Moffat · Dumfries and Galloway
From the magazine19 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 03Issue 03Winter 2021

Elizabeth Tindal, a Dark Sky Ranger in the Galloway Forest in Dumfries and Galloway, says most of the light pollution in her park comes from the moon.

The Galloway Forest was the first Dark Sky Park in the UK and Europe, and so few people live in its 300 square miles that nights are lit only by the moon and stars. 'If you look at a satellite image of Britain at night, the area around Wigtown and the Dark Sky Park looks like it doesn't exist because there are so few lights compared with everywhere else,' says Elizabeth. She runs stargazing experiences in the park, and family days of shelter building and campfire cooking. One of her best conversations under the stars was with a 10-year-old boy who wanted to know what is outside the universe, and she welcomes every question.

See Freelance Ranger · Dumfries and Galloway
True or false19 hours ago

True or false: the foghorn at the Mull of Galloway lighthouse, on Scotland's most southerly point, is not allowed to be sounded in fog.

Places to visit18 hours ago

Robert Burns House.

The simple sandstone house in Dumfries where Robert Burns spent his last years and died in 1796, now a free museum.

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From Issue 13 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 1318 hours ago

Gretna Green, Where Sparks Fly

How Gretna Green became the home of runaway weddings after the 1754 Marriage Act, from John Edgar and Jean Scott's stormy crossing in 1771 to couples marrying over the anvil today.

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From our guide18 hours ago

Logan Botanic Garden.

Here you’ll find blooms from Australia, New Zealand, South America and Southern Africa tangled in a zesty riot that thrills the senses. Thanks to warmth from the Gulf Stream, “Scotland’s most exotic garden” allows plants such as eucalyptus, palm trees and gunnera to thrive. Dating from 1869 and a regional garden of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, it also features a walled garden and conservatory houses, and picturesque benches aplenty.

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Places to visit18 hours ago

Loch Arthur Creamery and Farm Shop.

A Camphill community that has been making its own cheese since 1985.

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