‘Water’ You Waiting For? Become Part of the ‘Jetty’ Set!

A fantastic opportunity that you might not want to let ‘Slipway’ has arisen for anyone who wishes to become the master of their very own harbour. Well ‘Dock’umented and steeped in history Wigtown Harbour, Dumfries and Galloway lies adjacent to the Wigtown Bay a stunning local Nature Reserve has recently come onto the market via Local Land/Estate agents Threave Rural for offers over £100,000.

For anyone with a passion for sailing, boats, nature and the great outdoors the possibilities of this wonderful harbour near the Scottish Book town of Wigtownshire in South West Scotland, could be the perfect setting.

Wigtown Harbour dates from the early 1800’s after the old town harbour near the Martyr’s Stake Monument silted up when the river Bladnoch changed its course. It was constructed by the Earl of Galloway and the town’s people. It is thought that the harbour walls were constructed of stonework from Wigtown Castle, which used to stand in the field adjacent to the harbour. The river Bladnoch had 1000’s of tonnes of stone placed (all by hand), as training walls along its length out into the bay for about a mile below the harbour, which keeps the river stable. The vendor has intimated that these walls are in good order.

There was in the past a boat yard, at least two houses and a number of warehouses, store building on the site but not remains of these are now present. Wigtown Harbour was the mainstay of the town of Wigtown until the arrival of the railways, which made it easier to transport people and goods.

There had been as many as 500 ships a year using the harbour for all types of traffic and indeed prisoners were marched down from Glasgow, placed in a property in Wigtown still called ‘Botany’, from where they were located onto ships for transport to Australia. The harbour fell into disuse after the railway arrived, but was renovated in the late 1970’s under a job creation project.

The sheltered classic ‘Tidal Harbour’ is situated adjacent to the River Bladnoch, which discharges into Wigtown Bay in Southwest Scotland. The harbour dries out at low water was the main shipping destination for commerce to Wigtown in the Newton Stewart area of Dumfries & Galloway with ships as big as 300 tonnes docking there on a regular basis.

The harbour has the classic Solway ‘flushing pool’ to remove the silt from the main basin (the vendors have intimated that they will be carrying out maintenance on this pool in the near future). The quay frontage does flood in some spring tides, but all flood prevention sea walls are in good condition. There are two paved slipways into the Bladnoch channel, the smaller of these running right down to the bed of the river Bladnoch for low water launching.

There are no commercial fishing boats at the harbour, although the Bladnoch is a noted salmon river and also bass, flounder, eel & smelt. The closest harbours to Wigtown are Garlieston (8km SS East) and the Isle of Whithorn (18km south), both these harbours still moor a small number of fishing boats.

The near by Nature Reserve attracts large numbers of wild geese, widgeon, pintail, teal and wading birds. Osprey’s also venture into this area.

A Spokes person from Threave Rural said “The harbour has a mains water supply but there is no electricity supply on the site, there is an electricity transformer only 50 metres from the boundary with permission to lay a new supply cable if required. There is no telephone supply, however an underground telephone cable is only 15 metres from the boundary.the harbour is wholly owned by the sellers with no servitudes. It has at present a voluntary access agreement with the Dumfries & Galloway Council for public access that can be cancelled or amended.”