drummore - background

00, British Railways, Scottish Region, 12 @ .5 foot

Back to Drummore

Drummore, the most southerly village in Scotland, is at the south end of the beautiful Mull of Galloway. The village is 16.8 miles from the ferry-port of Stranraer that has a rail links to  Glasgow and till the 1960s to Carlisle. Drummore is a sea-side village, there is some seasonal tourist activity including angling, and a small fishing industry. The main occupations are stock-rearing and dairy farming - there's was a diary at Colfin and a creamery at Sandmill. Historically the economy was more diverse with coal and lime (fertiliser & mortar) landed at the quays. There was a brick and tile works on the northern outskirts of Drummore and a slate quarry at Grennan. There were Mills at Sandhead (dye), Ardwell (meal & beans), Logan (sawmill & windmill), and Drummore (Wylie's watermill).

  Portpatrick
 

In 1877 a Galloway MP, M. J. Stewart, proposed the building of a railway from a junction with the Portpatrick Railway southwards to Ardwell, where he lived, with the possibility of a later extension to Port Logan or Drummore. He employed a surveyor to plan the route and estimate the cost. It was opposed by the feudal landowner, the Earl of Stair, and finally abandoned after the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1882. If built from Whiteleys Junction on the Portpatrick Railway to Drummore the railway would have been 15.2 miles long. However all trains would have worked to/from Stranraer. The stopping places would have been Lochans, Stoneykirk, Sandhead, Ardwell, Logan, and Drummore. Initially all would have been stations however in the 1930s some might have been downgraded to halts. Like the Portpatrick and Whithorn branches passenger services would have been withdrawn in 1950. Goods services would have been withdrawn shortly thereafter.

 Whithorn

The railway would have served the parishes of Stoneykirk and Kirkmaiden with a population of 6,002 in 1851 declining to 3,542 in 1951. The railway would also have served the village of Lochans, part of the parish of Inch but there's no demographic data below parish level. The current Bus services are 5 to/from Stranraer Monday to Saturday, 2 to/from Stranraer school days, and a Community Transport round trip Mondays to Fridays. This is comparable to services on nearby branches (table below): -

An idea as to local railway architecture is given by the photos of Portpatrick (top) and Whithorn (above) stations.
 
Photos left and right show Drummore's vernacular architecture of white washed random stone.