The Stewartry U3A Photography Groups enjoyed a glorious Galloway day at Broughton House Garden, Kirkcudbright.
The group meet on the last Monday of each month and organise photography shoots which take advantage of all the beauty that our area has to offer.
New members are welcome!
Following on the group’s discussions on the towns and cities developed along the theme of “garden cities”, a visit was made to The Devil’s Porridge Museum at Eastriggs. A talk was given by a volunteer on the history of the factory and how it was built and designed by the best in its day, to create the whole environment needed by the workers. Many thousands of young ladies were employed and housed in the most up-to-date living conditions so that the ammunition was produced for the First World War. The instigator of this was the then Prime minister, David Lloyd George. Only the best was good enough for these 30,000 young ladies, which included modern housing, cinemas, shops, canteens, and of course, a good rate of pay. This changed the way of life for many of them, as their main source of employment at the time would have been“in service” in big houses.
Many of the buildings are still in use today. There came a time of course, when the war ended and eventually they became surplus to requirement. There was a grand sale where the Government sold off these amazing places, and all those not sold were demolished. Gretna and Eastriggs and Longtown survive as towns.
The group enjoyed coffee and biscuits and a leisurely look around the many photographs of the past buildings and people of the period. We then had a drive around the village of Gretna to view what is still there now.
The group enjoyed a lovely lunch at the Gretna Inn, and then travelled on to Brampton to view St Martins Church. This church was designed by the Pre-Raphaelite architect Philip Webb, and contains an exquisite set of stained-glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones and made by Morris and Co. 
George Howard, who lived at nearby Naworth Castle, sponsored the building. The Morris family were family friends of George Howard and this is how the connection was made. It is a unique building, as well as being a church, which is still the centre of a thriving community. Again we had a volunteer, Mrs Lily Hopkins, who gave us a very detailed talk on the history of the church and the people involved in the building of it. Even the furniture inside the church was all designed by Philip Webb, or Morris & Co. with contributions made by other members of the Morris family.
The day had been dry but cold, and there being no heating in the church, all members of the group repaired to a local café for a warming brew and cakes.
Some members of the group were very impressed with the town of Brampton and also with the idea of visiting the church at Christmas for a service. Perhaps another trip should be planned….
Samye Ling Monastery was the first Tibetan centre in the West, and is set beside the river Esk.
Unlike last year’s visit we had superb sunshine which set off the colourful buildings, statues and gardens.
The main temple was opened in 1988 and is magnificent, given that all the work is done by volunteers, many of whom we could see managing the cafes, shop and gardens.
We were privileged to be able to listen in to the afternoon meditation, which is the “noisy” one, with much chanting, banging of drums and clashes of cymbals. We were given and excellent lunch in the large noisy dining toom – the custard was pronounced excellent by one of our expert members.
Stephen should be thanked for driving a somewhat recalcitrant minibus through the winding roads up to Eskdalemiur and giving us a chance to take in the wonderful scenery.
Did you know that although Dumfries was thought to have been created as a Royal Burgh by William the Lion in 1186, there is material in the Ewart Archives that makes it even earlier.
Graham Roberts the Archivist gave our Group a whisk through the history of Dumfries and Galloway, what the archives do, what they hold and how archiving is changing in the electronic age. With only one archivist and a part-time assistant they have been working with the Friends of the Archives to create a historical index of some of the huge collection.
We were lucky enough to be shown the strong room and some of the amazing collection. One of the jewels is the papers from the Crichton Royal Hospital which have been catalogued and digitised with funding from the Wellcome Foundation.
Even the containers were interesting, with the archives of the Stewarts of Shambellie being housed in custom-made trunks covered in deer hide and lined with old sermons. Large, carefully bound ledgers house the original police records from the early 20th Century with mugshots, details of charges and carefully cross-referenced crimes.
The good news is that they have received funding to improve their storage facility in the old T.C. Farries building in Lochside which will improve accessibility and conservation. Graham manages a team of volunteers who work on projects cataloguing collections from within the archives and still discovering fascinating new documents, maps and drawings buried amongst the hundred of thousands of boxes. They are always looking for new volunteers.
In bright sunshine the Stewartry U3A Gardening Group 1 visited Barwhinnock House, Twynholm to see the carpets of snowdrops.
The group went first to the walled garden which is most unusual as it is oval shaped. Outside the garden gate what everyone thought to be a tree stump turned out to be the massive crown of a Royal Fern. 
Walking along the paths between the specimen rhododendrons there was a group of Spring Snowflakes and further along the burn the huge drifts of snowdrops appeared. The garden contained around 40 different varieties of snowdrops and many had multiplied and spread beneath the trees over the years.
Red squirrels were spotted climbing in the large beech trees.
It was enjoyable first outing of the year for the group.
Despite the dreich February weather members of Birdwatching 1 visited RSPB Mersehead Reserve. When they arrived there was a lot of mist around but this had cleared a little by the time they left the centre where they had a talk by the warden about the changes taking place at the reserve following the acquisition of more land by RSPB. He also explained the arrangements for controlling the water levels in the different areas to suit the wildfowl and waders.
During the visit to the first of the hides the mist cleared and the sun even emerged which made the shelduck and shovellers look more spectacular. There was still a large number of geese at the reserve and many more flew in later in the afternoon. The Barnacle geese (illustrated) will soon be heading north to Greenland and Svalbard.
A total of 30 birds was identified and the members had some very close encounters with a number of Roe Deer.
The January meeting of the Local History Group visited the Stewartry Museum for a guided tour by the curator Anne Ramsbottom. Anne showed us some of her favourite items in the collection including an intricately decorated silk batik dress made by Jessie M King that is so fragile it can’t normally be displayed. Each member of the Group then had to pick their favourite item and over tea talk about why they liked it. The result was fascinating and surprising.
Twelve members of our Local History group visited Whithorn on 5th October and what a wonderful experience we had! After a delicious soup and sandwich lunch, Julia Muir-Watt, the Director of the Whithorn Trust, told us about the projects underway. The Victorian New Town Hall is being redeveloped and adjacent to this there will be a bunk house to give respite to those who have walked the 143 mile Whithorn Way, the ancient pilgrimage route from Glasgow.
But the main topic of her presentation was the story, trials and tribulations, of the building of a replica Iron Age Roundhouse based on one discovered at the nearby Black Loch of Myrton archaeological dig. And then we went into the Roundhouse.
It is hard to overstate how impressive this is in both size and structure. When your eyes become accustomed to the lack of daylight, the massive timbers and internal structures, such as the stock pen, are seen. The ground plan is based on the archaeology, but the height (11m) was calculated from the pitch necessary to shed rain water. In the centre is a fire providing heat, some light and feeling of domesticity in an area which would have been home to several families. We ended our afternoon looking around the atmospheric priory ruins, catacombs and priory church.
Whithorn has been inhabited for well over 2000 years, and with the building of the Roundhouse visitors can appreciate that when St Ninian came, establishing an early Christian centre here in the 4th century AD there was already a settlement here.
Other members are recommended to make their own pilgrimage to Whithorn! http://www.whithorn.com
On arrival at the House we discovered that we had only just missed the Queen. She had used the House as her base the day before to open the Queensferry Crossing and her helicopter had landed on the front lawn.
There were so many highlights of our tour of the magnificent private residence. Our guide Ian Low knew everything there was to know about the House and family all fascinating.
The State Rooms were packed with art and antiques and after the tour we could wander around on our own. It was worth the climb up the stairs to the roof to get a view of the three Forth Bridges.
The House had some very interesting artworks on view as part of their Heartwood at Hopetoun exhibition. We timed it well so our tour and lunch in the stables (fortunately now a lovely Stables Tearoom) took place in the rain, but it cleared up in the afternoon to see the extensive grounds. I think most people were very happy to get on the bus and
We found Rozelle House in Alloway despite the lack of sign posts! After the essential cup of coffee, with a scone for some, we explored the house and a wide variety of exhibitions including twenty of Goudie’s paintings on the theme of Tam o’Shanter. Unfortunately, these were not shown to best advantage as the rooms were too small to appreciate them.
Downstairs various local artists’ works were exhibited through Open Studios. In the stables, known as The Maclaurin Galleries, there were two exhibitions, one by Frank McFadden and the other by Yvonne Hawker. The first artist used multiple faces, eyes and lips, in his works which proved to be rather scary. However, the other was much more muted with a variety of landscapes which she had held dear including in Scotland and work which she had produced while an artist in residence in Hong Kong. These were much more colourful. Unfortunately, Yvonne died in 2001.
Our volunteer guide, Billy, told us of the history of Rozelle House and grounds, its original owner and his successors. He then took us outdoors in the Spring sunshine to see the Remembrance Woodland with figures created by chainsaw artists. These carvings were sad depictions of soldiers and of poppies to commemorate World War 1. This was an impressive and emotional extra to our visit.
After lunch at the Burns Centre we had the opportunity to explore the museum, the Brig o’ Doon, the Auld Kirk and the cottage in which Burns was born in Alloway. In the museum, there were artefacts about Burns, his family and present day Burns traditions.
Tea and coffee prepared us for the scenic journey home still in the Spring sunshine.