Kirkcudbright:- Chapel of Cuthbert.
Kirkcudbright is a town in Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
The town lies southwest of Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie, in the part of Dumfries and Galloway known as the Stewartry, at the mouth of the River Dee, some six miles (10 km) from the sea. It is the county town of Kirkcudbrightshire also known as the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.
An early rendition of the name of the town was Kilcudbrit, derived from the Scottish Gaelic "Cille Chuithbeirt" (Chapel of Cuthbert), the Anglo-Saxon saint whose mortal remains were kept here for seven years between exhumation at Lindisfarne and re-interment at Chester-le-Street[citation needed]. The "kirk" element is Old Norse in origin and itself superseded the term chirch which was derived from Old English.
Spottiswood, in his account of religious houses in Scotland, mentions that the Franciscans or Grey Friars had been established at Kirkcudbright from the 12th century.
No traces of the Greyfriars or Franciscan dwellings remain in the parish of Kirkcudbright.
In 1453 Kirkcudbright became a Royal burgh, and about a century later the magistrates of the town obtained permission from Mary, Queen of Scots, to use part of the convent and nunnery as a parish church. From around 1570, Sir Thomas Maclellan of Bombie, 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 a very fine house, MacLellan's Castle, built on the site.
After defeat at the Battle of Towton, Henry VI of England crossed the Solway in August 1461 to land at Kirkcudbright in support of Queen Margaret at Linlithgow. The town also successfully withstood a siege in 1547 from the English commander Sir Thomas Carleton, but after the surrounding countryside had been overrun was compelled to surrender.[5]
The Tolbooth was built between 1625 and 1629 and served not only as the tolbooth, 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, who was born in nearby Kirkbean.
The Kirkcudbright Railway opened in 1864, but the railway line and station closed in 1965.
The war memorial dates from 1922 and is by George Henry Paulin.
