Topographical dictionary of Scotland > Volume 2

WICK
WIGT
The rocks are chiefly of greywacke and greywacke-slate ;
and the substrata, sandstone of various colours, lime-
stone, and flagstone, which are extensively quarried ;
and the last, after being dressed for pavement, is ex-
ported in large quantities. Veins of iron, lead, and cop-
per ore, have been discovered in some places. The
rateable annual value of the parish is £17,028. Hemp-
riggs House, the seat of Lady Duffus, and of consider-
able antiquity, is a spacious and handsome mansion,
finely situated, and surrounded with plantations. Acker-
gill Tower, the seat of Sir George Dunbar, fourth
baronet of Hempriggs, anciently the baronial castle
of the Keiths, stands on the southern bank of Keiss
bay, and is a noble and commodious rectangular struc-
ture, eighty-two feet in height, and of which the walls,
crowned with battlements, are thirteen feet in thickness.
The whole edifice, though bearing throughout the hoar
of antiquity, is in a state of entire preservation. Stir-
coke House, the seat of William Home, Esq., of Scou-
thel ; Thrumster House, the seat of Robert Innes, Esq.,
and Rosebank, the seat of Kenneth Macleay, Esq., of
Keiss, are also good mansions.
The ecclesiastical affairs are under the superin-
tendence of the presbytery of Caithness and synod of
Caithness and Sutherland. The minister's stipend is
£'232. 1. S., with a manse, and a glebe valued at £50
per annum ; patron, Sir George. The church, erected
in 1830, is a spacious structure of blue stone with dress-
ings of freestone, in the early English style of architec-
ture, with a spire, and contains 1981 sittings, including
146 on forms ; it is conveniently situated at the western
extremity of the town. There is a preaching station at
Bruan, where a building has been erected which con-
tains about. 600 sittings ; the station is now connected
with the Free Church, and the minister has a manse
and glebe, granted by the family of Sinclair, baronets
of Ulbster. A church was built by government
near the bay of Keiss, at an expense of £1500, in
1S27 ; and in 1833 a quoad sacra parish was assigned
to it : the minister has a stipend of £120, and a manse,
by endowment of government. A church, also, of which
the foundation stone was laid in 1841, has been erected
at Pulteney-Town. There are places of worship for
members of the Free Church, the United Secession,
Reformed Presbyterians, Baptists, Independents, Origi-
nal Seceders, and Wesleyans ; and during the fishing-
season, a Roman Catholic chapel is open for strangers,
chiefly from Ireland. The parochial school is nume-
rously attended, and well conducted ; the master has a
fixed salary of £34. 4. 4., and the fees average about
£55 per annum. There are schools at Keiss, Noss,
and Ulbster, each of which is endowed with £7. 10.
from a bequest by the Rev. William Hallowall, to which
an equal sum is added by the Society for Propagating
Christian Knowledge. There are also schools at Thrum-
ster and Stircoke, for each of which the proprietors
have built houses, and have given an endowment in
land to the master, to whom, also, a salary of £25 each
is paid by the General Assembly. At Pulteney-Town
is a school supported by the British Fishery Society ;
there are numerous Sabbath schools in the parish, and
also many private schools. Among the monuments of
antiquity are, the ruins of Pictish houses scattered
throughout the parish, and the ruins of two ancient
castles called Linglass, with which it is said a village
611
was connected ; they are both of conical form, and are
said to have been destroyed by fire. At Ulbster is an
upright stone, inscribed with illegible characters, sup-
posed to have been erected to the memory of a Danish
princess, married to the founder of the clan Gun, and
wrecked on her arrival at Caithness. Along the coast
are the remains of the baronial castles of Auld Wick,
Girnigoe, Sinclair, and Keiss. In the churchyard, and
opposite to the door of the parish church, are the roof-
less walls of Sinclair's aisle, part of the ancient church
of St. Fergus, in which was deposited the heart, cased
in lead, of George, fifth earl of Caithness, whose body
was interred in the church of St. Giles at Edinburgh.
There are also still some remains of several places of
worship thought to have been originally built by the
Culdees. The parish confers the title of Baron on the
Marquess of Breadalbane.
WIER, an island, in the parish of Rotjsay and
Egilshay, county of Orkney ; containing 96 inhabit-
ants. This is a small low island, divided from that of
Rousay, on the south-east side, by the narrow channel
of Wier Sound ; it is about two miles in length and one
in breadth. The isle has a productive soil, but the cul-
tivation is indifferent. There are some ruins of a church ;
and at a little distance from them, on an eminence, are
those of a castle, built about the middle of the twelfth
century.
WIGTON, or WIG-
TOWN, a royal burgh, a
sea-port, the county town,
and a parish, in the county
of Wigton or Wigtown,
105 miles (S. W. by S.) from
Edinburgh ; containing, with
the village ofBladnoch, 2562
inhabitants, of whom 1972
are in the town. This place
is supposed to have been long
occupied by the Saxons, who
in the 7th or Sth century
made themselves masters of this part of the country,
and from whom the town is said to have derived its
name, in the Saxon language descriptive of its situation
on a hill. The ancient castle founded by that people,
and of which slight traces of the fosse are still discerni-
ble on the side of the hill, subsequently became a resi-
dence of the kings of Scotland ; and during the dis-
puted succession to the Scottish throne it was delivered
into the custody of Edward I. of England, who ulti-
mately restored it to John Baliol, whom he appointed
successor to the crown. In 1206, a convent for Domini-
can monks was founded here by Devorgilla, daughter of
Alan, Lord of Galloway, and mother of Baliol, King of
Scotland. It was endowed with lands by Alexander III.,
and subsequently with a grant of the fishery of Blad-
noch by James III., and with other possessions by
James IV., who generally lodged here while on his pil-
grimages to the shrine of St. Ninian at Whithorn, and
also by James V. The convent was situated on an
abrupt ridge to the south-east of the town, overlooking
the bay of Wigton ; but no traces of the buildings can
be now discovered, though, within the last century,
human bones and various sepulchral remains have been
dug up on the ground supposed to have been its ceme-
tery. Many of the lands of this district early formed
412
Bursh Seal.