Kirkcudbright

Today's the day ……………………….. to spy

The name 'Kirkcudbright' (pronounced Kur-coo-bri ) is thought to have been derived from 'The Kirk of (Saint) Cuthbert'.

There's no church of that name remaining now - although there is a graveyard that would once have belonged to it.  The first historical reference to the kirk occurs in 'The Life of St Cuthbert', written by Reginald of Durham.  In it he tells the story of the visit of Ailred, a Cistercian monk from Rievaulx Abbey, 'to the ancient church dedicated to St Cuthbert'  in March 1164.  It seems that by then the kirk was well-established with its own clerical community.

From around 1200 onwards however, many of the local clerical functions of the old St Cuthbert's Kirk were taken over by the Augustinian Priory of St Mary de Trail,  on present-day St Mary's Isle to the south of the town.  The Priory was the property of Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.

That's it shown on an English spy's map of Kirkcudbright and the River Dee in the 1560s …………………..