LOCHRYAN COASTAL PATH

 

Walk created by the Rotary Club of Stranraer

Opened Summer 2009

 

The Lochryan Coastal Path stretches for eleven miles from the Tourist Information Office in Stranraer to meet with the Ayrshire Coastal Path at Glenapp Church - a beautiful coastal walk providing panoramic views of Lochryan and adjacent lands.

Sections of the walk include steep gradients and stout footwear is recommended for the off-road sections.  

All walkers using the path do so at their own risk and are expected to take responsibility for their own actions, the safety of themselves and others, the welfare of livestock and wildlife, and the avoidance of damage to crops, all in keeping with the recommendations of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.

 Lochryan plays host to ferry traffic as well as pleasure craft and the loch and its entrance will be visible from the coastal path.

 Innermessan

Innermessan is one of the oldest recorded sites in the district, with the motte which is located on the pudding-shaped hill having been built in Norman times as the base for a wooden fortification to control the local population.

The site immediately to the north of the Motte was used as a shipyard during World War I to build ships from concrete to ease the shipping shortage caused by enemy activity. The slipway and yard with workshops were used during World War II and until the late 1950s to serve the landing barges and small craft used in connection with Cairnryan Port.

Leffnol Point

 In medieval times an earth and stone boundary wall, called the "Diel's Dyke" was built, which ran from Leffnol Point, through the Galloway Hills, to near Annan in Dumfriesshire. This dyke was to protect a tribe of Celts called Novantae who held this south-west corner of Scotland for centuries from AD 79. In World War II Leffnol held sidings for the storage of up to 2000 railway wagons on the Cairnryan Military Railway. A large engine shed was built to the north of the road entry along with a coaling stage and water tanks, etc.

Cairnryan

During World War II No. 2 military port was built at Cairnryan.  It had three piers and a railway which linked it to Stranraer. Thousands of troops were based locally in military camps.

At the end of the war 86 U-boats were assembled in Lochryan prior to being scuttled in the Atlantic.

For a period after the war the port was used to load superfluous ammunition into barges for dumping at sea. Thereafter, ship-breaking became the main industry and many well known Royal Navy ships including HMS Valiant, HMS Eagle, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Bulwark were broken up. The Lochryan lighthouse was built in 1847 by Alan Stevenson, uncle of Robert Louis Stevenson.

 Laight Hill

North of Cairnryan the walk follows the Old Coach Road which was the main route between Stranraer and Ayrshire from the early 1700s until the early 1800s.  

The standing stone located on Little Laight Hill and known as the "Taxing Stane", is said to commemorate the burial of Alpin, king of the Scots of Dalriada, who was murdered in Glenapp in AD741. It was also a boundary marker between the old kingdoms of Galloway and Carrick along with two further standing stones, now in the nearby forestry plantation.  The nearby four gun 3.7 inch anti-aircraft gun battery was one of four which protected Lochryan and there were two adjoining camps, one for the army and the other for ATS personnel.

 Glenapp

Part of a herd of wild goats roam freely along the coastal hillside from Finnart Bay to Downan Shore. They are difficult to locate because of the vast grazing area they have access to, which can be spread out from the A77 road high on the Glenapp hillside.

Glenapp Church is the point where the Lochryan Coastal Path joins the Ayrshire one. The church was built in 1849-50 at a cost of £456.15.8d. It has a memorial window to Elsie Mackay, third daughter of the 1st Earl of Inchcape, who was killed in 1928 when her plane crashed while attempting to make the first east to west crossing of the Atlantic. The name "Elsie" was picked out with rhododendrons on the hillside opposite – now sadly overgrown.

This information is from an illustrated leaflet prepared by the Rotary Club of Stranraer which gratefully acknowledges the support and consent of the landowners and tenants whose lands the path occupies, as well as the contributions from the following:

Dumfries & Galloway Regional Council (Access Officers & Criminal Justice Department), Scottish National Heritage, Solway Heritage, Lendal Trust, Landfill Communities Fund and Shanks Waste Solutions.