The weekend of August 27 and 28, 2022 will see an exhibit event hosted by the Kirkbean Parish Heritage Society.
Everyone is welcome to attend for free. There will also be tea, coffee, and homemade baked goods will be for sale.
The society will have exhibits on display in Kirkbean Village Hall on both days from noon to 4 p.m.
The exhibit will cover a variety of topics, including fishing, the Old Pier and Quaranteen Area at Carsethorn, farming through the years, the school and its pupils, Kirkbean Church and graveyard readings, Preston Cross, Southerness and its lighthouse, shipwrecks in the area, local history, and heritage photographs.
DGWGO went along to find out more and chatted with society member Graham Carnochan.
Graham told DGWGO “It covers quite a large area towards Southerness and towards the Drumburn area so it’s a big area.”
The society is keen to hear from anyone who has memorabilia or images from the area
Graham Carnochan said: “It will add to the interest of the event as well if people bring their own memorabilia and photographs. Photographs speak a thousand words. So if we can get a lot of photographs that’d be even better. We can scan them in and put them on our website for more people to see.”
Over 20,000 emigrants a year sailed from Carsethorn
“Young John Paul Jones sailed from here to join the American Navy but over and above that we’ve got the old jetty which was built in 1840, while Liverpool’s steam packet company but one thing people won’t know probably is it’s roughly 22, 000 emigrants a year sailed from here to places like New Scotia and Prince Edward Island.”
“Convicts were sent down from Dumfries and sent off to Australia”
‘what they thought was going to be a better life’
We have some of the old shipping lists and one record from 1752 shows one ship left which here going to Prince Edward Island in New Scotia. People went there to make more money for their families for what they thought was going to be a better life
Once they got to Prince Edward Island, well, there was nothing there. So they spent all this time on an old boat sailing out there. The ‘Lovely Nelly’ one of the boats was called. So, yes a lot of history from here and people going to these far-flung places.
The old jetty is now a scheduled monument
“So, it’s a fair bit of history regarding the old jetty here. It’s now a scheduled monument over the last sort of six to eight weeks which means it is basically a listed building now. So no one can touch it. It’s here forever.”
It was once a very busy fishing area
“The biggest thing over the years has been haaf netting. The old ancient sort of Viking trend net Fishing. Basically standing out in the water with a 15 feet net in the incoming tide to catch fish. It was very dangerous and quite a few people over the years have lost their lives doing that.”
It was very popular at one time and no longer takes place sadly. Over and above that there was shrimp fishing for the brown shrimps. It was a busy, busy fishing place at one time.
Preston Cross
“The Preston Cross is a new item for us. A lot of people will never have heard of the Preston Cross and is very unusual but well worth coming along to find out more”
You can contact the society at their website – https://www.kirkbean.org/
