Wigtown Harbour

From the 1400s the old Wigtown Harbour near St Machute's Church was the western terminus of the ferry across the River Cree and Wigtown Bay to Creetown. The silting of the River Bladnoch and Wigtown Bay interfered with ships sailing to Wigtown from as early as the 1600s. By the mid 1900s the new harbour built in 1818 to the south of Wigtown had ceased to function. It was recorded as disused in 1976. In the mid 1980s the 'new' harbour was restored and improved however it is once again heavily silted. Wigtown Castle once stood on the original course of the River Bladnoch and helped to provide protection from English incursions coming across the Solway Firth.