Anwoth is a settlement near the Solway Firth

Solway Firth

The Solway Firth is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven in Cumbria, to the Mull of Galloway, on the western end of Dumfries and Galloway. The Isle of Man is also very...

 in the Stewarty of Kirkcudbright

Kirkcudbrightshire

The Stewartry of Kirkcudbright or Kirkcudbrightshire was a county of south-western Scotland. It was also known as East Galloway, forming the larger Galloway region with Wigtownshire....

, in South West Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, within a parish of the same name in the Vale of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway

Dumfries and Galloway

Dumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. It was one of the nine administrative 'regions' of mainland Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government etc. Act 1973...

. Anwoth lies a mile (1.5 km) to the west of Gatehouse of Fleet

Gatehouse of Fleet

Gatehouse of Fleet is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, which has existed since the mid-18th century, although the area has been inhabited since much earlier...

.

Anwoth's most famous inhabitant was the Rev. Samuel Rutherford

Samuel Rutherford

Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and author, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.-Life:...

 (1600? - 1661), who was the minister at Anwoth Old Kirk from 1627 until 1636 when he was banished to Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

. On a nearby hill, there is Rutherford's Monument, a 55 foot high granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

 erected in 1842. A millennium cairn

Cairn

Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...

 opposite the monument lists the names of all the ministers of Anwoth and Girthon until the year 2000 when it was erected. The Old Kirk was in use until 1825, but is now just a ruin.

West Anwoth Parish Church was built in 1826–1827. It is a Walter Newall

Walter Newall

Walter Newall was a Scottish architect and civil engineer, born at Doubledyke in the parish of New Abbey, near Dumfries in south-west Scotland...

 Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 box style church with tower and hood-moulded windows. It closed in 2002.

The Church of Scotland sold the Church to a neighbouring family who now keep it as a hall for ceremonies and parties. The church was re-roofed in 2007 and is being kept in the best of condition.

An ancient fort on nearby Trusty's Hill was occupied by Iron Age people and may have been attacked and burned by a Pictish raiding party, who carved a series of symbol stones in a rock beside the entrance passage.

Anwoth was one of the locations for the 1973 cult film The Wicker Man.

Literary allusion

Anne Ross Cousin

Anne Ross Cousin

Anne Ross Cousin was a Scottish poet, musician and songwriter. She was a student of John Muir Wood and later became a popular writer of hymns, most especially "The Sands Of Time Are Sinking", while travelling with her minister husband from 1854 to 1878...

's hymn, The Sands of Time are Sinking, mentions Anwoth, because of its historic spiritual connection with Samuel Rutherford. Verses 9 & 10 of her original nineteen stanza poem are:

The little birds of Anwoth, I used to count them blessed,

Now, beside happier altars I go to build my nest:

Over these there broods no silence, no graves around them stand,

For glory, deathless, dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

Fair Anwoth by the Solway, to me thou still art dear,

Even from the verge of heaven, I drop for thee a tear.

Oh! If one soul from Anwoth meet me at God’s right hand,

My heaven will be two heavens, In Immanuel’s land.

External links

• Map of Anwoth
• Anwoth in Scotland – photos by Alan Newble
• Trusty's Hill and Rutherford's Monument – a circular woodland and farmland walk.
• Trusty's Hill