County town: Kirkcudbright
Kirkcudbrightshire was established as a sheriffdom in the 12th century, part of the region of Galloway. Its name derives from the church of St Cuthbert, reflecting the importance of the Northumbrian saint in this part of southern Scotland.
Kirkcudbrightshire is the eastern half of the Galloway peninsula, a county of rugged moorland, rocky coastline, and wooded river valleys. Kirkcudbright, its county town on the Dee estuary, became an artists' colony in the late 19th century, attracting E.A. Hornel and the 'Glasgow Boys'. The county's landscape of granite hills, lochs, and ancient oak woods has a wild beauty characteristic of the Scottish-Irish Sea margins. Dundrennan Abbey, where Mary Queen of Scots spent her last night in Scotland before fleeing to England in 1568, lies near the coast. The Galloway Forest Park, partly within the county, is one of Britain's darkest dark-sky sites.
The Statistical Accounts of Scotland — the Old Statistical Account (1791–99) and the New Statistical Account (1834–45) — provide detailed parish-by-parish descriptions of Kirkcudbrightshire at two moments of transformation. Aubrey draws on these accounts when generating reports for Scottish locations, providing historical context specific to the parish and county.
Scotland's 33 traditional counties, established as sheriffdoms from the 12th century onward, were the administrative framework of the country until the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1975 replaced them with regional councils. They remain the reference framework for historical records, genealogy, and cultural identity.
An Aubrey report for a specific location in Kirkcudbrightshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data, Statistical Account records, and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.
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