KIRKYARD FAIRS at Borgue, Old Luce & Barr
It may seem strange to us now but 300 years ago there were no villages instead the landscape was scattered with small fermtouns, usually collections of only three of four humble dwellings, where the inhabitants farmed the surrounding open countryside. The parish church was usually erected in an easily accessible location usually in the centre of the parish and was a meeting place for many in the community. However, it still comes as a surprise to many that the parish church yard is where markets and fairs were held long before towns and villages appeared.
In Glenluce an act granted in 1669 identifies the Kirk of Glenluce as a good place for a market because of its location in the centre of Wigtownshire where people need to pass on their travels to and from Ireland and England. The king granted Sir James Dalrymple, his heirs and successors, a weekly mercat upon Saturdays, with two free fairs yearly, the one upon the last Tuesday in May, the other upon the first Tuesday in August, to be kept at the kirk of Glenluce upon the lands of Balcail.
Andrew Symson's work "A Large Description of Galloway" written in the late 1690s described a fair on the Borgue coast at Kirkandrews (pictured above).
In the kirkyard of Kirkanders, upon the ninth day of August, there is a fair kept, called St Lawernce Fair, where all sorts of merchant-wares are to be sold; but the fair lasts only three or four hours, and then the people, who flock hither in great companies, drink and debauch, and commonly great lewdness is committed here at this fair.
It would appear that fairs and markets provided opportunities for inhabitants to purchase and trade good as well as take part in a wide range of social activities.
The ruin of Kirkdominae in the Stinchar Valley near Barr is the remains of a pre-reformation chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity (the place-name Kirkdominae will be a topic of another blog). Although the surviving remains of the chapel cannot be easily dated it is recorded that it was partly deconstructed in the mid-1600s to help build a new parish church at Barr. An anonymous ballad celebratesthe annual fair that held at the site on the last Sunday of May that only ceased in 1837. The ballad reveals the fair as it is experienced by a young man and sets the scene of stalls, drinking, eating, music, brawls and pretty girls and suggests that it was an important social event for people from miles around.
As the character of the countryside changed with new farming practices, improved transport links and the development of villages and towns so the markets and fairs were relocated and the special of a Fair at the Kirk became lost in the mists of time.