Craigenputtock

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Craigenputtock is the craig/whinstone hill of the puttocks (small hawks). It is an 800-acre (3.2 km²) upland farming estate on the watershed between Dumfries and Galloway, 16 miles (26 km) from Dumfries and Castle Douglas. It comprises the principal residence - a two storey, 4 bedroomed Georgian Country House (category B listed), 2 cottages and a farmstead. three hundred and fifteen acres of moorland hill rising to 1,000 ft (300 m) above sea level, three hundred and fifty acres of inbye ground of which forty acres is arable/ploughable and one hundred and thirty five acres of woodland/forestry. It was once the residence of the well known writer Thomas Carlyle who wrote many famous works there.

It was the property for generations (circa 1500) of the family of Welsh, and eventually that of their heiress, Jane Welsh Carlyle, which the Carlyles made their dwelling-house in 1828, where they remained for seven years (before moving to Carlyle's House in Cheyne Row, London), and where "Sartor Resartus" was written. The property was bequeathed by Thomas Carlyle to the Edinburgh University on his death in 1881. It is now home to the distinguished Carter-Campbell family (see Burke's Peerage and Gentry Carter-Campbell of Possil) and managed by the C.C.C. (Carlyle Craigenputtock Circle).

"It is certain," Thomas Carlyle said of it long after, "that for living and thinking in I have never since found in the world a place so favourable.... How blessed," he exclaims, "might poor mortals be in the straitest circumstances if their wisdom and fidelity to heaven and to one another were adequately great!"

Craigenputtock is now known to be one of South West Scotland's best kept secrets.