Although it may at first seem a little strange to be including a section about local history on this site I just had to do it. I feel the history of a place is such an important factor when trying to capture a visual image, it''s not just about what I see but what I feel as I look out over this beautiful landscape, who lived here, what did they do and how did they shape this place I love and call home.
Although no written mention of Auchencairn from before the 14th century has been discovered there are signs that this area has been inhabited from Mesolithic times (5000 - 4000B.C. approx.). The Mesolithic folk were hunters and fishers, and lived by collecting shell-fish, harpooning fish, and hunting seals, roe-deer, boar, badger, otter and wild cat. Their implements included harpoons of red deer antlers or bone. They had no axes and were not able to clear forest, and so had to keep to the shore and river mouths. Remains from this early period are scanty. One example of a deer-horn barbed fish-spear was found at Cumstoun on the Dee estuary near Kirkcudbright; there is an oyster-shell midden on the island of Heston at the top of the raised beach immediately below the existing house; and one stray find of a tiny stone tool was made on Torr. Most of our knowledge of these folk comes from remains in two main areas of Scotland - one on the West coast near Oban and the Isle of Oronsay, and the other in the Kirkcudbright area. From the evidence of Oban and Oronsay they must have arrived by sea; it is thought from Northern Spain and South-West France - not, of course, in a single voyage, but probably over several generations.
