The heart of the old village, with its warmth, local interest, and friendliness, remains unaltered.
Smuggler’s Routes
In early times, because of their rock—bound shores and jagged aspect, Auchenmalg Bay and Portyerrock served as common landing places for Galloway smugglers bearing cargoes of spirits, tobacco, silk, wine, and candles from foreign lands to lucrative markets in Ayr, Paisley, and Edinburgh
I Hae Min o’ Kirkcowan
Once a year people emptied and burned the chaff in their mattresses. In Kirkcowan this was done at the New Mill Bridge.
Craichlaw
Craichlaw was, in its medieval form, a keep, or stone tower. Its earliest known proprietors were the Hamiltons, a family supposedly descended from the Earls of Leicester and related by marriage to the Earls of Moray.
Other Houses of Interest in Kirkcowan
Originally a timber house built in Norway, this building was carefully dismantled there, shipped to Scotland, and reconstructed at the site near Craichlaw by the laird.
Religion
Kirkcowan was obviously named in honour of an early saint. Over the years it has been variously ascribed to the memory of St. Conan, St. Coan, St. Owen, St. Kevin, and St. Comgan (or Comghain).
Minsters
JOHN McGHIE: died before 15641567 JOHN FINING: reader1627 JOSEPH CLELLAND1662 ALEXANDER ROSS, M. A. : from Dalrioch, Colmonell; deprived after a complaint to the Privy Council on 21+ February, 1663; later accused of holding conventicles and baptizing…
Education
The 1696 Education Act called for the heritors of each parish to provide a school and a schoolmaster for the parish.
River Bladnoch
The River Bladnoch forms the eastern boundary of the Parish of Kirkcowan, dividing it from the Parish of Penninghame.
Tarff Water
The Tarff rises in a bog in Carrick and, flowing southward as the boundary between the parishes of Kirkcowan and Glenluce