Lockerbie is a town in the civil parish of Dryfesdale, Dumfries and Galloway within the District Council region of Dumfries and Galloway in south-western Scotland. It lies approximately 75 miles (121 km) from Glasgow, and 20 miles (32 km) from the English border. It had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census.
Lockerbie apparently has existed since at least the days of Viking influence in this part of Scotland in the period around AD 900. The name means Lockard's Farm in Old Norse. The presence of the remains of a Roman camp a mile to the west of the town suggests its origins may be even earlier. Lockerbie first entered recorded history, as Lokardebi, in 1306.
Lockerbie's main period of growth started in 1730 when the landowners, the Johnstone family, made plots of land available along the line of the High Street, producing in effect a semi-planned settlement. By 1750 Lockerbie had become a significant town, and from the 1780s it was a staging post on the carriage route from Glasgow to London.
Perhaps the most important period of growth was during the 19th century. Thomas Telford's Carlisle-to-Glasgow road was built through Lockerbie from 1816. The Caledonian Railway opened the line from Carlisle to Beattock through Lockerbie in 1847 and later all the way to Glasgow. From 1863 until 1966 Lockerbie was also a railway junction, serving a branch line to Dumfries. Known as the Dumfries, Lochmaben and Lockerbie Railway, it was closed to passengers in 1952 and to freight in 1966.
Lockerbie had been home to Scotland's largest lamb market since the 18th century but the arrival of the Caledonian Railway increased further its role in the cross-border trade in sheep. The railway also produced a lowering in the price of coal, allowing a gas works to be built in the town in 1855.
Much of Lockerbie is built from red sandstone. There are several imposing buildings near the centre, none more so than the Town Hall, finished in 1880, complete with its clock tower.
A little to the north of the centre is the Dryfesdale Parish Church, with its brightly decorated interior. The name Dryfesdale comes from the local river, the Dryfe Water, which joins the River Annan a little to the west of the town. Less well known and a mile and a half south of Lockerbie is the Ukrainian Chapel at the old Hallmuir Prisoner of War Camp.
Lockerbie is known internationally as the place where, on 21 December 1988, the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed after a bomb exploded during the flight. In the United Kingdom the event is often referred to as the Lockerbie disaster, the Lockerbie bombing, or simply Lockerbie. Eleven residents of the town were killed in Sherwood Crescent, where the plane's wings and fuel tanks plummeted in a fiery explosion, destroying several houses and leaving a huge crater, with debris causing damage to a number of other buildings nearby. The 270 victims (259 on the plane and eleven in Lockerbie) were citizens of twenty-one different nations.
