Newton Wamphray
Encyclopedia
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...
. Wamphray is the name of the surrounding parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
and of the Wamphray Water
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
, which flows south-west through the Wamphray Glen
Glen
A glen is a valley, typically one that is long, deep, and often glacially U-shaped; or one with a watercourse running through such a valley. Whittow defines it as a "Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is "narrower than a strath."...
to join the River Annan
River Annan
The River Annan is a river in southwest Scotland. It rises at the foot of Hart Fell, five miles north of Moffat. A second fork rises on Annanhead Hill and flows through the Devil's Beef Tub before joining at the Hart Fell fork north of Moffat.From there it flows past the town of Lockerbie, and...
near the small village, or hamlet
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...
, of Newton.
The village is near the M74 motorway
M74 motorway
The A74 and M74 motorways form a major motorway in Scotland. Following an extension opened on 28 June 2011, it connects the M8 motorway west of Glasgow to the English border at Gretna, creating an alternative route for traffic moving from the south to the west of the city...
, near Annandale Water
Annandale Water
Annandale Water is a loch in Annandale, Dumfries and Galloway, in the south west of Scotland. It is part of Annandale Water service station at Junction 16 of the A74, close to Johnstonebridge, Dinwoodie and Newton Wamphray, and halfway between Moffat and Lockerbie.Before the opening of the Motorway...
, roughly halfway between Moffat
Moffat
Moffat is a former burgh and spa town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, lying on the River Annan, with a population of around 2,500. The most notable building in the town is the Moffat House Hotel, designed by John Adam...
and Lockerbie
Lockerbie
Lockerbie is a town in the Dumfries and Galloway region of south-western Scotland. It lies approximately from Glasgow, and from the English border. It had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census...
, and has for centuries been close to the direct Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
to Carlisle route, which around 1776 was made into a turnpike
Turnpike trust
Turnpike trusts in the United Kingdom were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for maintaining the principal highways in Britain from the 17th but especially during the 18th and 19th centuries...
road suitable for mail coaches travelling between England and Glasgow. Newton is on the main railway line south from Glasgow, and from about 1847 had its own station called Wamphray, but this closed in the 1960s.
Newton Wamphray primary school has been closed for several years, local children generally go to primary school in Lockerbie. The old school building now lies largely abandoned while the nature of its ownership is investigated. The old manse
Rectory
A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...
near the 1834 church has become a hotel; the historic church has been used for regular services over the past few years.
There are various historic and pre-historic sites near Newton Wamphray, including standing stone
Standing stone
Standing stones, orthostats, liths, or more commonly megaliths are solitary stones set vertically in the ground and come in many different varieties....
s and the remains of a motte-and-bailey
Motte-and-bailey
A motte-and-bailey is a form of castle, with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade...
. A feud between local reiving
Border Reivers
Border Reivers were raiders along the Anglo–Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. Their ranks consisted of both Scottish and English families, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims' nationality...
families in the 16th century is remembered in the ballad, The Lads of Wamphray
The Lads of Wamphray
The Lads of Wamphray is Child ballad 184, existing in fragmentary form. According to Walter Scott and others, the ballad concerns a 16th century feud between reiving families from Wamphray in the Scottish Borders.-Synopsis:...
.
Before the 20th century the village was sometimes called Newton, or Newtoun, of Wamphray, and described as being in Annandale
Annandale, Dumfries and Galloway
Annandale is a strath in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, named after the River Annan. It runs north-south through the Southern Uplands from Annanhead to Annan on the Solway Firth and in its higher reaches it separates the Moffat hills on the east from the Lowther hills to the west...
. Newton suggests "new village or farmstead", a placename derived from Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
niwe (new) + tun (farm). Scots toun meant a farm settlement before it came to mean a 'town'. The etymology of Wamphray is uncertain; some suggestions link 'Wam' to Gaelic Uamh (cave). Older spellings include Wamfry or Wamfray.
Sources
- Statistical Accounts of ScotlandStatistical Accounts of ScotlandThe Statistical Accounts of Scotland are three series of documentary publications covering life in Scotland in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries....
- Great Britain Historical GIS Project: Wamphray
- Dictionary of Scots Language: toun