Kirkcudbright

Coordinates: 54°49′55″N 4°02′53″W / 54.832°N 4.048°W / 54.832; -4.048

Kirkcudbright (/kərˈkuːbriː/ kirr-KOO-bree; Scottish Gaelic: Cille Chuithbeirt) is a town and parish in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It lies in the lieutenancy area and historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire, of which it is traditionally the county town.

The town lies southwest of Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie at the mouth of the River Dee, some four miles from the Irish Sea.

History

An early rendition of the name of the town was Kilcudbrit; this derives from the Gaelic Cille Chuithbeirt meaning "chapel of Cuthbert", the Anglian saint whose mortal remains were kept at the town between their exhumation at Lindisfarne and reinterment at Chester-le-Street.

Spottiswood, in his account of religious houses in Scotland, mentions that the Franciscans or Grey Friars had been established at Kirkcudbright from the 12th century. No traces of the Greyfriars or Franciscan dwellings remain in the parish of Kirkcudbright.

Kirkcudbright Stewartry (UK Parliament constituency)

Kirkcudbright Stewartry, later known as Kirkcudbright or Kirkcudbrightshire, was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1708 to 1801 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1918. It was represented by one Member of Parliament (MP).

The first election in the stewartry was in 1708. In 1707-08, members of the 1702-1707 Parliament of Scotland were co-opted to serve in the 1st Parliament of Great Britain. See Scottish representatives to the 1st Parliament of Great Britain, for further details.

In 1918 the area was combined with Wigtownshire to form the Galloway constituency.

Boundaries

The Stewartry of Kirkcudbright was a Scottish stewartry (later considered to be a county and sometimes called Kirkcudbrightshire), which had been represented by two commissioners in the former Parliament of Scotland. The constituency included the whole stewartry, except for the Royal burghs of Kirkcudbright (which formed part of the Dumfries Burghs constituency) and New Galloway (which between 1708-1885 was included in the Wigtown Burghs district).

Kirkcudbright (Parliament of Scotland constituency)

Kirkcudbright was a royal burgh that returned one commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland and to the Convention of Estates.

List of burgh commissioners

After the Acts of Union 1707, the commissioner for Kirkcudbright was one of the Scottish representatives to the first Parliament of Great Britain. From 1708 Kirkcudbright, Annan, Dumfries, Lochmaben and Sanquhar formed the Dumfries district of burghs, returning one member between them to the House of Commons of Great Britain.

References

See also