NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Kirkcudbright

Kirkcudbright, (pronounced [kɪrˈkuːbri]) the county town of Kirkcudbrightshire, is a town in the south of Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway, south of Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie, in the part of Dumfries and Galloway known as the Stewartry, situated at the mouth of the river Dee, some six miles from the sea. Download high resolution version (1802x2589, 189 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Kirkcudbright Categories: GFDL images | GBdot ... Download high resolution version (1802x2589, 189 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Kirkcudbright Categories: GFDL images | GBdot ... British Isles is also an old name for the Great Britain, Great Britain Ireland The Isle of Man The Isle of Wight The Northern Isles, including Orkney, Shetland and Fair Isle The Hebrides, including the Inner Hebrides, Outer Hebrides and Small Isles Rockall The islands of the lower Firth of... A concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country or nation and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. ... Dumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas in Scotland. ... Castle Douglas is a town in the south of Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway, in the eastern part of Galloway known as the Stewartry, between Dalbeattie and Gatehouse of Fleet. ... Dalbeattie is a town in Dumfries, Scotland, situated in a wooded valley on the Urr Water five miles east of Castle Douglas. ... Stewartry was formerly (1975-96) a local government district in the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland. ...

The early rendition of the name of the town was Kilcudbrit, derived from the Gaelic Cii Cudbert, (Chapel of Cuthbert), the Saint whose mortal remains were kept here for seven years between exhumation at Lindisfarne and re-interment at Chester-le-Street. This article is about Lindisfarne, England. ... Chester-le-Street is a market town in County Durham, England with a history going back to Roman times. ...

Spottiswood, in his account of religious houses in Scotland mentions the Franciscans or Grey Friars had been established at Kirkcudbright from the 12th century. No trace of the Greyfriars or Franciscan dwellings remain in the parish of Kirkcudbright.

In 1453, Kirkcudbright became a royal burgh, and about a hundred years later the magistrates of the town obtained permission from Queen Mary to use part of the convent and nunnery as a parish church. From around 1570 Sir Thomas Maclellan of Bombie, (Bomby), the chief magistrate received a charter for the site, its grounds and gardens. Maclellan dismantled the church in order to obtain material for his proposed castle, and proceeded to have built a very fine house on the site.

After the battle of Towton, Henry VI crossed the Solway in the August of 1461, to land at Kirkcudbright in support of the Queen Margaret at Linlithgow. The town also successfully withstood the English siege in 1547 under Sir Thomas Carleton, but after the surrounding countryside had been overrun was compelled to surrender. The Battle of Towton in the Wars of the Roses was the bloodiest ever fought on British soil, with casualties believed to have been in excess of 20,000 (perhaps as many as 30,000) men. ... This article is about the English king. ...

The Stewartry Museum was founded in 1879 and was at first based in the Town Hall until it became too small. The collection moved to a purpose-built site and contains the local and natural history of the eastern part of Galloway, formerly known as Kirkcudbrightshire and now known as the Stewartry. Britain's earliest surviving sporting trophy, the Siller Gun, is part of the collection, as are paintings by the many local artists. Kirkcudbrightshire (pronounced Ker-COO-bree-shire, also known as the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright or as East Galloway) is a traditional county of south-western Scotland, bounded on the north and north-west by Ayrshire, W. and S.W. by Wigtownshire, S. and SE. by the Irish Sea and the Solway...

The Tolbooth was built between 1625 and 1629 and served not only as the tollbooth, but also the council offices, the Burgh and Sheriff courts, the criminal prison and the debtors' prison. One of its most famous prisoners was John Paul Jones, hero of the American navy. The building is now used as an Arts Centre. Tolbooth or tollbooth may mean several things: Historical Scottish terms for prisons. ... (disputed — see talk page) John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (July 6, 1747 - July 18, 1792) was Americas first well-known naval hero in the American Revolutionary War. ... Navy is also:- shorthand for Navy Blue the nickname of the United States Naval Academy A navy is the branch of the armed forces of a nation that operates primarily on water. ...

Kirkcudbright has had a long association with the Glasgow art movement, which started when a colony of artists, including the Glasgow Boys and the famed Scottish Colourists, such as S. J. Peploe and F. C. B. Cadell, based themselves in the area over a 30-year period from 1880 to 1910. Many of them moved to the town from Glasgow, including Edward Hornel, George Henry and Jessie M King, and their presence led to Kirkcudbright becoming known as "the artists’ town", although this moniker may have originated more from tourist board publicity rather than local usage. The whodunit The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers involves the artistic community of Kirkcudbright. A group of Glasgow based artists who were strongly influenced by the French Impressionists and Post-impressionism as well as artists who painted in a similar style such as Whistler. ... The Scottish Colourists were a group of painters from Scotland whose work was not very highly regarded when it was first exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, but which in the late 20th Century came to have a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art. ... A whodunit or whodunnit (for Who done it? and sometimes referred to as a Golden Age Mystery novel) is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is paramount. ... The Five Red Herrings are among the six suspects in the murder of an artist in the village of Kirkcudbright, Scotland, in this 1931 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (Oxford, 13 June 1893 - Witham, 17 December 1957) was a British author, translator, student of classical and modern languages, and Christian humanist. ...

More recently Kirkcudbright has been put on the map for being the home of Formula One racing driver David Coulthard, who attended school in the town and lived in the neighbouring village of Twynholm Formula One, abbreviated to F1 and also known as Grand Prix racing, is a form of formula racing and the highest class of single-seat open-wheel auto racing. ... David Coulthard driving for the McLaren Formula One team at the 1998 Canadian Grand Prix David Coulthard (born March 27, 1971 in Twynholm, Scotland), is a British Formula One racing driver for Red Bull Racing. ...