Halcrow Stadium was a

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tra ...

stadium in Annan Road, Gretna,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

History

The plans to build a new greyhound stadium on a ten-acre site, west of Gretna were first instigated in 1983. The name Halcrow derives from Jim Halcrow a well-known Shetland

accordionist Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed i ...

. The construction was started by James Norman and sons as a replacement for the previous track at

Raydale Park Raydale Park is a football stadium in Gretna, Scotland. It is home to Lowland League side Gretna 2008 and now has a capacity of 1,030. Raydale formerly served as the home ground of Gretna until the club resigned from the Scottish Football ...

and the first race meeting took place in June 1986. Distances included 120, 300, 490 and 685 metres over a circumference of 380 metres, more recently distances of 280 and 470 metres were used. The racing remained independent and was not controlled by the

Greyhound Board of Great Britain The Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) is the organisation that governs licensed greyhound racing in Great Britain. It does not govern independent tracks or Northern Irish tracks and therefore has no jurisdiction over them. History It was f ...

. Amenities included several bars, a hospitality suite and function rooms for parties, weddings and traditional music events. The track was closed in April 2017.

References

{{Scottish greyhound tracks Greyhound racing in Scotland Sports venues completed in 1986 Sports venues in Dumfries and Galloway Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway