Carsethorn

Carsethorn is where the Solway starts to feel like the sea. By the time the river Nith reaches Carsethorn it has given up its integrity and become a firth. A single row of cottages sits facing a shore so wide that at low tide you can lose sight of the water altogether.

Across the water the Lake District fells stack up in blues and greys, and the light changes constantly. I have stood there in four seasons and never seen the same view twice.

Why visit? A long walk on the shore, a pint with a view, and a bus home.

Which bus

• Service: 372 Dumfries – Sandyhills (Houston’s Minicoaches)
• Alight at: Carsethorn, opp Hotel
• Runs: daily, eight or nine journeys each way

The best bus in the fleet

I have said it before and I will say it again in every article in this column: the 372 is the finest bus service in Dumfries and Galloway. It leaves town by Islesteps and Mabie, drops into New Abbey under the shadow of Criffel, then swings south through Kirkbean before it turns along the shore. This is quite the route if you love changing rural scenery.

Carsethorn is the first stop after Kirkbean. You don’t have to worry about where to get off, there’s only one stop as it’s a dead end road into the village and the bus stops by the pub and turns around. There is nowhere else to be.

The jetty and the emigrant plaque

Depending on the tides, you’ll see the wooden stumps of the old jetty as you look out to sea from the beer garden. In the garden you’ll see a monument in the shape of an old hull. Carsethorn was once the port of Dumfries proper, and from this shore, in the eighteen hundreds, sailings went to Liverpool, and from Liverpool to the whole world. Families from all over the south west walked to this village with everything they owned in a chest, boarded a ship and never came back. The local heritage society reckons some 21,000 people left Scotland through this one small jetty, bound for Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In 1872 a whole farmtoun near Glenmidge, nicknamed The Busy Bit, sailed from here for Sydney.

It is an odd thing, standing on a pretty beach and thinking of it as the last of Scotland someone ever saw.

The shore walk

To the south (right if you stand your back to the Steamboat Inn), the coast rounds towards Powillimount, with rockier going, caves in the low cliffs and the Thirlstane arch if you time the tide. Either way, keep an eye on the water. The Solway tide comes in faster than walking pace and it does not care who you are.

If you would rather not leave the village, just walk the sand in front of the village until you feel you have earned a pint, then walk back. That still counts.

John Paul Jones

A mile up the road at Arbigland is the cottage where John Paul Jones was born, the gardener’s son who went to sea from Carsethorn, fought for the American side during the Revolutionary War, and is remembered on that side of the Atlantic as the father of their navy. What you may not know is that the war was brought to these shores from the now USA. The cottage is a small museum, and they tell a good story. Ask locally about opening times and seasons before you set off up the road. It is a pleasant walk in any case, past fields and old estate walls.

The Steamboat Inn

The Steamboat sits right on the front, and there is no better place to sit with a drink and watch the tide do its work. Get a table at the window or, if the weather allows, outside, and give the tide the time it deserves. If it’s blowing a hoolie, try and get a seat by the open fire.

The bus home

Buses back to Dumfries leave from across the road, and there are eight or nine a day, so the timing is generous. There’s a bus back roughly every 2 hours and you can take shelter in the quirky little bus shelter with its collection of books. Check the timetable before you get comfortable, though, because the last one is earlier than you think and Carsethorn is a long walk from anywhere. Get on, sit on the left for the Criffel view, and be back in Dumfries in under an hour, sandy, salty and better for it. One gotcha to be aware of is that the bus goes along Laurieknowe / New Abbey Road on the way out and Pleasance Avenue on the way back into town. It doesn’t drop you off at the Whitesands.

Source for the emigration figures: Kirkbean Parish Heritage Society, Carsethorn.