Concept

Sanquhar

Résumé

Sanquhar ˈsæŋkər (Sanchar, Seanchair) is a village on the River Nith in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, north of Thornhill and west of Moffat. It is a former Royal Burgh. It is notable for its tiny post office, established in 1712 and considered the oldest working post office in the world. It was also where the Covenanters, who opposed episcopalisation of the church, signed the Sanquhar Declaration renouncing their allegiance to the King, an event commemorated by a monument in the main street. The church of St Brides contains a memorial to James Crichton, a 16th-century polymath. The ruins of Sanquhar Castle stand nearby. Nithsdale Wanderers, the local football team, were formed in 1897. In 1924–25, they won the Scottish Division Three. The name "Sanquhar" comes from the Scottish Gaelic language An t-Seanchair, meaning "old fort". A 15th-century castle ruin overlooks the town, but the name predates even this ancient fort. The antiquary, William Forbes Skene even considered it the probable location of the settlement named Corda in Ptolemy's Geographia. The ancient hill fort at Tynron Doon is located about 28 kilometres away from the town. This fort is described in Archaeology of late Celtic Britain and Ireland by L R Laing (1975) as "a well-preserved multivallate hillfort" which probably began its existence in the Iron Age and continued to be used throughout the Dark Ages and into the early Medieval period. During Roman times the fort would have been in Selgovae territory; after the Romans departed it lay on the borders of the Strathclyde Britons and the Galwyddel. This place is associated with a local legend of a "heidless horseman" who is supposed to have ridden down from it as an omen of death, a story which possibly has some origin in a Celtic head cult. The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott (1822) attest that Robert the Bruce hid in the forests about this hill after he had killed one of his rivals, John "the Red" Comyn. In the 9th and 10th centuries, waves of Gaelic settlers came to the area from Ireland.

Source officielle

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanquhar

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