Wigtown, a county forming the south-west corner of Scotland, the western half of Galloway, bounded on the W. by the Irish Channel, N. by Ayrshire, E. by the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and the Solway Firth, and S. by the Irish Sea. Its length from east to west is 30 miles, its breadth from north to south 28 miles. Area, 327,906 acres; pop. (1851) 43,389; (1891) 36,048. Wigtownshire is deeply intersected by two arms of the sea, the narrow inlet Loch Ryan (q.v.) in its north-western corner, and Luce Bay on the south, 16 miles long, 13½ wide at its mouth, as measured from the Mull of Galloway on the west—the southernmost extremity of Scotland—to Borough Head on the east. The western peninsula thus formed, known as the Rhinns of Galloway, is 28 miles long from Corsewall point in the north to the Mull of Galloway. The south-eastern portion of the county forms a blunt triangular peninsula—the Machers—ending in Borough Head, washed on the west by Luce Bay, on the east by Wigtown Bay, 15 miles long and 14 wide at its mouth, separating it from the Stewartry. The rest of the county north of the Machers and east of Loch Ryan bears the general name of the Moors, great part being occupied by bleak fells and high mosses. The surface is diversified, but the only hills that reach 1000 feet are on the northern borders—one solitary peak in the Rhinns, Cairn Piot, reaches a height of 593 feet. The chief streams are the Cree and Bladenoch, emptying into Wigtown Bay, the Luce (formed by the junction of the Cross and Main Waters of Luce) and Piltanton, into Luce Bay. The lakes are very numerous, but small—in one parish alone (Inch) there being no fewer than eleven. The climate is mild, but moist. There are neither minerals nor manufactures, the entire industry being agricultural, as much as 46 per cent. of the surface being arable. Excellent farming has made the most of but indifferent soil, and the dairy farms of the county deserve the reputation they have gained. The cows are frequently let for hire to bowers or practical dairymen, at from £9 to £12 per head, the farmer supplying all food and the dairyman the labour. Most of the cows are of the Ayrshire breed; the pure native breed of large black hornless cattle are seldom seen, still less the small Galloway pony formerly so popular. The principal towns and villages are Stranraer, Wigtown, Newton-Stewart, Whithorn, Glenluce, Newluce, Cairn Ryan, Portwilliam, Garlieston, Dromore, Portpatrick, and Lochans.
See W. M'Ilwraith's Guide to Wigtownshire (Stranraer, 1876); also the article GALLOWAY, and books enumerated there. For descriptions of the crannogs and other lake-dwellings found in Wigtownshire, see Robert Monro in Ayr and Wigtown Arch. Coll. (vol. v.), and the Rev. George Wilson in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. (vols. ix. and x.). The only ecclesiastical buildings of which ruins remain are the Cistercian abbey of Glenluce (1190) and the old cathedral of Whithorn.
WIGTOWN, the county town, a royal and municipal (and till 1885 parliamentary) burgh and seaport, is situated on the west side of Wigtown Bay, near the mouth of the Bladenoch Water, miles S. of Newton-Stewart by rail and 129 SSW. of Edinburgh by road. The only noticeable buildings are the parish church (1853) and the Tudor town-hall (1862-63). In the churchyard are the graves of the famous 'Wigtown martyrs,' an old woman and a young girl who, refusing the Abjuration Oath, were tied to stakes at the mouth of Bladenoch and drowned by the incoming tide, 11th May 1685. An obelisk to their memory also stands on the Windy Hill. An attempt has been made to prove that this atrocious sentence was never executed, as a recommendation to pardon stands in the Privy-council registers, but the fact that the sentence was carried out before this remission was conveyed to Wigtown may be considered to be proved as satisfactorily as any question of its kind can be by the Rev. Dr A. Stewart's History Vindicated (2d ed. 1869), in answer to Mark Napier's Case for the Crown (1863). Wigtown has a little shipping, and at Bladenoch Bridge there is a distillery. Pop. (1881) 1725; (1891) 1445.