Publication Account
Date 1986
Event ID 1017351
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017351
Although Dumfries had enjoyed the benefits of coastal and foreign trade since the Middle Ages, the volume of that trade, including links with the Baltic and the North American colonies, began to increase dramatically from the later 17th century onwards. However, the Nith, aptly described by Ian Donnachie as 'the most fickle of all rivers', remained the main channel of the town's commerce. Navigation for large vessels was hmdered by the vagalies of tides, treacherous sandbanks and the shifting course of the river, particularly at its estuary, and throughout the 18th and 19th centuries the merchant burgesses of Dumfries made valiant efforts to overcome these difficulties. The Nith Navigation Commission, which was formed in 1811, straightened, deepened, and embanked the river channel in accordance with a scheme proposed by James Hollinsworth, engineer, but the labour of further improvement was required in 1836-40. Trade reached a peak in the mid-1840s, repaying the effort but not all the debts. The arrival of the railway in Dumfries in 1850 signalled the beginning of the long demise of the port, although there was a brief revival of seaborne trade in the two decades before 1914.
As a registration authority, the port of Dumfries extended eastwards as far as the Sark, including Annan and five main quays on the Nith: Dockfoot (Dumfries), Castledykes, Kingholm, Laghall and Glencaple. At Carsethorn (NX 994598) there was a wooden pier built in about 1840 for the passenger steamship service to Liverpool. The quay at Dumfries now survives as the frontage of a riverside walk extending about 1km downstream from the weir below the old bridge (no. 4) to Dockfoot Park and Castledykes (NX 9775). The major surviving harbour-works, however, are those at Kingholm (NX 974736) and at Glencaple (NX 994687). Both had quays that were built in 1746 and reconstructed in the early 19th century, Kingholm having a large boat dock scoured by a pair of conduits.
The most impressive testimony to the early efforts of the Dumfries traders is undoubtedly the square, rubble-built lighthouse-tower on the foreshore at Southerness (NX 977542), one of the earliest lighthouses in Scotland. It was intended to serve as a guide to ships in the exceedingly difficult waters of the Nith estuary and the inner Solway Firth. Originally built as a 9.1m high beacon by Dumfries Town Council in 1748-9, it was heightened and altered in the 1780s and again in 1842-3. Lack of finance obliged the Nith Navigation Commission to extinguish the light in 1867. With a temporary revival of trade it was restored in 1894, and, raised to almost twice its original height, continued in active use until about 1936. The lightchamber and red sandstone upperworks date from this last restoration, and the brass frame of an 1894 lantern is mounted on the ruins of an old limekiln nearby. The interior, which is not normally accessible, contains no original features.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Dumfries and Galloway’, (1986).
