Torthorwald is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Dumfries and Galloway Dumfries and Galloway ( sco, Dumfries an Gallowa; gd, Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It covers the counties of Scotland, historic counties of ...

, south-west Scotland. It is located east of

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...

on the A709 road to

Lochmaben Lochmaben ( Gaelic: ''Loch Mhabain'') is a small town and civil parish in Scotland, and site of a castle. It lies west of Lockerbie, in Dumfries and Galloway. By the 12th century the Bruce family had become the local landowners and, in the 14th ...

. The area was the property of the de Torthorwald family until the end of the 13th century, when the estate passed by marriage to the

Kirkpatrick Kirkpatrick is an Irish (Ulster) and Scottish surname, and occasionally a given name, possibly a Branches of the Cenél nEógain, branch of the Cenél nEógain of the Northern Uí Néill. The name traditionally relates to a Church (building), churc ...

s. In 1418, William de Carleil married the Kirkpatrick heiress. He may have been the builder of

Torthorwald Castle Torthorwald Castle is a large ruined rectangular tower at the centre of the village of Torthorwald just outside Dumfries in south west Scotland. History The first castle on the site was an Earthworks (archaeology), earthwork motte-and-bailey b ...

, which was erected around this time, possibly on top of an earlier a

motte A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to ...

. Torthorwald was erected as a

burgh of barony A burgh of barony was a type of Scottish town (burgh). Burghs of barony were distinct from royal burghs, as the title was granted to a landowner who, as a tenant-in-chief, held his estates directly from the crown. (In some cases, they might also ...

in 1473. Torthorwald Castle was occupied until 1715; only two of its walls still stand, to a height of around . The pre-Reformation church at Torthorwald belonged to the Trinitarian Friars of

Fail Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. One ...

in Ayrshire. The present parish church was erected in 1782 on the site of this earlier foundation. Torthorwald is now within the united Parish of Kirkmichael, Tinwald and Torthorwald, which was created in 1981. The 19th-century missionary

John Gibson Paton John Gibson Paton (24 May 1824 – 28 January 1907), born in Scotland, was a Protestant missionary to the New Hebrides Islands of the South Pacific. He brought to the natives of the New Hebrides education and Christianity. He developed small in ...

(1824–1907) grew up in Torthorwald. His evangelical work in the

New Hebrides New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium (french: link=no, Condominium des Nouvelles-Hébrides, "Condominium of the New Hebrides") and named after the Hebrides Scottish archipelago, was the colonial name for the island group ...

is commemorated in the church gate piers. Another building of interest is a 19th-century

cruck A cruck or crook frame is a curved timber, one of a pair, which support the roof of a building, historically used in England and Wales. This type of timber framing consists of long, generally naturally curved, timber members that lean inwards and ...

-framed and

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

cottage. Restored in the 1990s, the cottage is protected as a category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, and is maintained by a local heritage association. The village has a hotel, a village hall, and formerly had a primary school which closed in 2010. An annual Scarecrow Fun Day involves villagers erecting

scarecrows A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesley ...

in their front gardens.

Transport

There is a frequent bus service to

which takes about 15 minutes. The village was also previously served by the nearby

Racks railway station Racks railway station was a railway station in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, south of Dumfries, OS NGR NY 033 743, serving and effectively creating the village of Racks near the Lochar Water, 4 miles ESE of Dumfries; a rural community within ...

which closed in 1965.

References

CANMORE : http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/search_item/index.php?service=NAS&id=RHP3356 {{authority control Villages in Dumfries and Galloway Dumfriesshire Parishes in Dumfries and Galloway