Only the dead remain

July 13, 2022, 7:00 am , by Richard Lutz

Richard Lutz wanders through a vanished village

We walk down a wiggly farm road and take a dirt track that meanders into a pristine valley. Oak and beech, now in full leaf, border the curves and cormers of our path. It leads into Nithsdale nestled in the folds of southwest Scotland.

We are heading to Dalgarnock or, actually, what used to be Dalgarnock. It has disappeared, swept off the floor of this green valley, swept away from history many centuries ago. All that is left is its cemetery where stories are written in stone and carved into the eroding fragments of the dead church which once graced the spot.

Today, there are more than 200 gravestones corralled in the old hamlet’s cemetery. And despite resting in a sward of early summer green, quiet beside the blue ribbon of the River Nith, it is linked to a story of blood and violence. And its story is etched into this white cross, the Martyrs Cross of Dalgarnock:

It lists 57 men and woman who took part in a series of murderous battles between a religious group called the Covenanters and government armies in the 1600’s.

For 25 years the Covenanters suffered brutal persecution, were hunted and killed and cruelly suppressed in what was called ominously called The Killing Time. Their names and where and when they died, are carved on the cross in blood:

George Allan, Penpont
James Bennoch, Ingliston 1685
William Brown, Sanquhar
John Corsan, New Jersey 1685
James Colvin, Scarvating 1679

The monument was erected centuries after the rebellions and pays tribute to the guerrilla soldiers who fought protecting their religious freedom. Murderous outrages were committed on both sides. More names:

John Hair, New Cumnock 1685
Thos. Harkness, Grassmarket 1684
William Heron, Lochenkit 1685
Andrew Hunter, Dumfries Prison
Elizabeth Hunter

Some are linked to the nearby Enterkin Raid when the Covenanters attacked troops escorting prisoners to Edinburgh to be either executed or sold as slaves in North America. The names continue:

Robert Morris, Sanquhar
John Muirhead, Leith prison 1685
James Muncie, Edinburgh Prison
John Mundell, Edin. tolbooth 1685
Rev. James Renwick, Grassmarket 1685

The tombstone of James Harkness is especially laced with venom. His eternal wrath boils forever from beyond the grave. Part of his inscription reads:

“He would not give up and swear allegiance to that beast, The duke of York…

And In spite of all their hellish rage, A natural death he died,

In full assurance of his rest, With Christ eternally.”

Outside of the silent cemetery still, it seems, brimming with Covenanter hurt and pain, rounded humps rise from the ground where the village had stood. There is an old well hidden in undergrowth. Inside, a medieval baptism font stands stolid on a stone stump. Old graves lean on each other. Some are carved with tools of a trade or names of relatives. Others tersely describe those buried, those never to be forgotten. Around the site, meadowsweet with its deep perfume bursts into white bloom.

It embroiders the Dumfrieshire fields and lines the roads. Centuries ago, its deep heady scent was used to disguise domestic odours. Maybe the Covenanters used it to help forget The Killing Times, the sword and flame.

Surrounding the Dalgarnock burial ground are other hints of history: a single standing stone, traces of a Roman quarry, the spot where a radical religious sect once built a platform so they could ascend to heaven, and, further afield, tales of a headless rider on a black horse intent on hot revenge when spurned by his lover’s powerful family.