Agnews of Lochnaw

64 THE FIRST HEREDITARY SHERIFF. [1426.
There is considerable attempt at ornament about the windows,
and it now is a most respectable ruin, two yearly-men of the
farm whose name it bears, with their families, occupying the
first and second storeys respectively.
The situation was rather chosen for retirement than observa-
tion. It lies under the high fell of Craigcaffie, in a hollow, the site
of the old Castle of Innermessan, almost within gunshot, rising
betwixt it and the sea.
Formerly it was surrounded by a fosse, and further protected
by marshes, but both these have been drained.
There is a local story respecting the building, that the ground
being very boggy on which Neilson proposed to erect his tower,
he caused large packs of wool to be thrown into the trenches he
had cut, and that on these he laid the foundation stones. Tra-
dition also places a " murder hole " of a fabulous depth, and
which doubtless could reveal strange secrets, close to the
entrance door. An old man (ninety-six years of age), now alive,
distinctly remembers having seen the "Jouggs" or gorgets at the
old place, to which the lairds used in old times to fix offenders
caught red-hand — in a sort of pillory. Here they were held
by an iron collar round the neck, attached to a staple fixed
firmly in the wall.
About this time also the Stewarts of Garlies first acquired
lands to the West of the Cree. Glasserton was amongst their
earliest possessions in Wigtownshire, and there they built a resi-
dence ; they also very early built or acquired Clary, a strong
castle between Wigtown and the modern Newton-Stewart, for-
merly called Newton-Douglas.
Agnew of Lochnaw, now in alliance with the Douglases and
Kennedies, rapidly extended his property. By a charter under
the great seal, dated 1429, he acquired land in and near Inner-
messan ] l including various houses, a mill, and the curious moat-
1 In a charter of James I., date 1st February 1429, the gift bears "de nwlen-
dino cum tofta et crofta ; " and the description of the properties is " Jacens inter
torrentes in Baronia de Innermessan." — Beg. Mag. Sig., B. iii., N. 97. By this
we understand between the Messan and the Galloway burn.