Port William

Port William is a small fishing village in the county of Wigtownshire in south west Scotland. At present it comes under the administrative authority of Dumfries and Galloway. It is surrounded by the hamlets of Elrig, Mochrum and Monreith.

The original settlement was known as Killantrae, meaning 'The Church on the Beach' in Gaelic, and was probably founded not long after St Ninian arrival in nearby Whithorn towards the end of the 4th century.

Killantrae was swept away following the intervention of developer and landlord Sir William Maxwell of Monreith. In the five years until 1776 he built an entirely new village, complete with a good harbour and was renamed Port William. One of the earliest buildings still standing was the corn mill, located on the side of the Killantrae burn to take advantage of the power provided by its water. Port William is an example of a planned village, lying on the eastern shore of Luce Bay in Galloway. The harbour, built for the convenience of his tenant farmers, was one of the first in western Galloway.

The harbour was extended in 1790 and again in 1848, and it continued to have commercial importance until the end of the First World War. It then steadily became what you see today, a haven for small fishing and leisure craft. Further work was done to protect the harbour in the 1980s by building a breakwater to the western side of the harbour.

In the 1600s and 1700s Port William was known as much for the illicit activities of its smugglers as for the legitimate trade of its port. A more recent reflection of this seafaring heritage is found in the life-size fisherman's statue overlooking the harbour. This was once made of concrete, but following a public appeal it has been remade in bronze. The statue was part-funded by the millennium lottery fund.

The village at present has a population of approximately 460 and lies 23 miles east of the town of Stranraer, on the coast of Luce Bay. It looks directly over to the Mull of Galloway, the most southerly point of the Scottish mainland and on a clear day, both the Isle of Man, and Ireland are visible from the rugged coastline.

References

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/portwilliam/portwilliam/index.html