Lovely walls have bleak background

The many dry stone walls that criss-cross the Dumfries and Galloway landscape are much loved today as an integral part of the landscape. However, they have a grim history.

The Rev C. H. Dick explains in his book, Highways and Byways of Galloway and Carrick, published in 1916:

“...about 1725, when we hear of the Levellers. The trouble was occasioned by the fencing of fields and other measures adopted for the improvement of their estates by the Galloway proprietors. The former practice was that each tenant had the right of pasturage over the whole property of the landlord, and this provided employment for many herds. The erection of the dykes interfered with this work. At the same time the grouping of small crofts into farms led to much hardship. The evicted families emigrated to America and elsewhere if they had the means; otherwise they were thrown into great distress and sought desperately to obstruct the operations of the landlords. It was at Whitsunday, 1723, that the new measures began to take effect.

The lords and lairds they drive us out
From maillings where we dwell;
The poor man says, “Where shall we go?”
The rich says, “Go to hell.”

These words they spoke in jest and mocks;
But by their works we know
That if they have their herds and flocks,
They care not where we go.

Against the poor they still prevail
With all their wicked works,
And will enclose both more and dale
And turn corn fields to parks.

The discontented, however, did more than compose or repeat lampoons. A great annual fair was held at Kelton Hill [near Castle Douglas] in the month of June and here the plan for a general levelling of the fences was devised.

A company of Levellers might consist of about fifty men with a captain, and, according to the account in The Castle Douglas Weekly Visitor, “each man was furnished with a strong kent (or piece of wood) from six to eight feet in length, which he fixed into the dyke at the approved distance from the foundation and from his neighbour. After having ascertained that all was ready, the captain bawled out, 'Ow'r wi't, boys,' - and ow'r accordingly it tumbled, with a shout that might have been heard at a distance of miles.”

Dragoons had to be brought into Galloway to suppress the movement; but they behaved with restraint, and only a few lives were sacrificed. The malcontents made their last stand at Duchrae in the parish of Balmaghie [north of Castle Douglas], where the military took over two hundred prisoners. As they were being marched to Kirkudbright, many of them were allowed to escape; but the leaders were brought to trial. Some were punished with fines or imprisonment, and others were banished to the plantations [of the West Indies, where they would have become white slaves].

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