Wigtown Postcodes — Scotland (SCT)

Wigtown

Wigtown is the county town of Wigtownshire and a town in the Scottish province of Dumfries and Galloway. It can be found between Stranraer and Newton Stewart, to the east and south, respectively. Due to its abundance of used bookstores and yearly book festival, it has earned the title of "Scotland's National Book Town."

The Machars peninsula includes Wigtown.

The town

"the greatest majority of buildings were of a homely nature, thatched and one storey high," said 18th-century county historian Samuel Robinson. He went on to explain that there was a midden in front of every home. Thatched homes were also remarked upon by Bishop Pococke in 1760. Some had gable ends, others had huge fronts pierced with pigeon-hole windows, and yet others had outside staircases by the time the nineteenth century came to a close. Wigtown has been called "Scotland's most charming county town." 

The appearance of Main Street was drastically changed by town council projects in the early 19th century. In 1809, the town magistrates decided to elevate the pavement and make a gravel road around either side of the street, with the outside edge of the road being 44 feet (13 meters) from the edge of the homes, in order to improve the main street at a modest cost. The middle of the road was designated to be a "plantation," which was then landscaped with bushes and given a railing to keep them in. In 1830, the Wigtown Bowling Club successfully lobbied for the use of the "plantation," and by the turn of the twentieth century, the square was frequently used by bowlers and tennis players. Although the square was heavily treed in the middle of the twentieth century, its original Georgian open layout with tree borders was reconstructed in 2002.

Wigtown was a stop on the Newton Stewart to Whithorn railway branch (the first train ran on 2 March 1875). In 1950, they halted the service. The downfall of Bladnoch Creamery, the town's primary employer, was caused by the discontinuation of railroad service.

Tourist Attractions

Wigtown is located less than 1.2 kilometers (2 miles) from Bladnoch, a settlement that is home to a distillery that produces malt whisky by the same name. Atlantic salmon can be caught in the River Bladnoch, which has a reputation as one of the best rivers in Scotland for spawning fish. It flows through a huge tract of salt marsh that is part of a Local Nature Reserve and eventually flows into Wigtown Bay, where it joins the River Cree (LNR). The abundant fauna, especially birds, may be found in Wigtown Bay, the largest LNR in Britain. Wildfowlers flock to Wigtown because of the club's intensive conservation efforts, which have brought a large number of ducks and geese to the area. Tourists come to the area to see the birds from the observation shelters near the harbor. In 2004, a pair of ospreys made their way back to Galloway after being absent for more than a century. The nest may now be observed in real time from the Wigtown County Administration Buildings, thanks to the installation of a live camera link. 

Near the city limits, you can play nine holes at the Wigtown and Bladnoch Golf Club.

The Martyrs' Stake, located to the east of Wigtown, is a monument commemorating the alleged location of the 17th-century drowning of the two Margarets. The cemetery of the Parish Church is the location of their graves. Their holding cell before their execution is a tiny room in the County Buildings. The County Buildings were constructed on the site of an older structure, and all that is left of it is this single cell (built in 1862).