Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Craigenputtoch

Craigenputtoch, a lonely farm at the head of Dunscore parish, in Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire, lying, 700 feet above sea-level, at the SW base of Craigenputtoch Moor (1038 feet), 10 miles WSW of Auldgirth station, and 15 WNW of Dumfries. From. May 1828 to May 1834 it was the home of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) and his wife, Jane Welsh (1801-66), she having inherited it from her father, whose ancestors owned it for many long generations, going back, it may be, to great John Welsh of Ayr (1570-1623). Here he wrote Sartor Resartus, here received two visits from Lord Jeffrey, and hence sent Goethe a description of his residence as ' not in Dumfries itself, but 15 miles to the NW, among the granite hills and the black morasses which stretch westward through Galloway, almost to the Irish Sea. In this wilderness of heath and rock our estate stands forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed, and planted ground, where corn ripens, and trees afford a shade, although surrounded by sea-mews and rough-woolled sheep. Here, with no small effort, have we built and furnished a neat substantial dwelling; here, in the absence of professional or other office, we live to cultivate literature according to our strength, and in our own peculiar way. ' In 1867, the year succeeding the death of Mrs Carlyle, he bequeathed the estate-773 acres, valued at £250 per annum-to Edinburgh University, to found ten equal competitive ' John Welsh bursaries,' five of them classical, five mathematical.—Ord. Sur., sh. 9, 1863. See Carlyle's Reminiscences (1881), and his Life by J. A. Froude (1882).


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a lonely farm"   (ADL Feature Type: "agricultural sites")
Administrative units: Dunscore ScoP       Dumfries Shire ScoCnty

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