Kirkpatrick Durham
Kirkpatrick Durham is a village and parish in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It is located north of Castle Douglas. The village was developed in the late 18th century as a handloom weaving centre, within the existing parish of the same name. The present church was built in 1850 by Dumfries-based architect Walter Newall.
In the 19th century the minister here was nominally the Rev. George Duncan. Isabelle Wight Duncan was his wife and mother to nine of their children. In 1860 she published a book that went up against On the Origin of Species. Her book reconciled the emerging geological discoveries with the stories of Genesis.
John Gerrond the self-styled "Galloway Poet", was born at Gateside of Bar in Kirkpatrick Durham. His works include Poems on Several Occasions, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, The Poetical and Prose Works of John Gerrond, and The New Poetical Works of John Gerrond, the Galloway Poet. He died in the cholera epidemic in Dumfries in 1832.
