Old Photographs New Luce Scotland

Old photograph of cottages and people in New Luce in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. This Scottish village is located in the traditional county of Wigtownshire. The coast to coast walk, the Southern Upland Way, passes close to the village. The Covenanter Alexander Peden spent time preaching in the village. Peden was born at Auchincloich Farm near Sorn, Ayrshire, about 1626, and was educated at the University of Glasgow. He was a teacher at Tarbolton and then ordained minister of New Luce in Galloway in 1660. In June 1673 while holding a conventicle at Knockdow near Ballantrae, Ayrshire, he was captured by Major William Cockburn, and condemned by the Privy Council to four years and three months imprisonment on the Bass Rock and a further fifteen months in the Edinburgh Tolbooth. In December 1678 he, along with 60 others, was sentenced to banishment to the American plantations. They were transported by ship to London, where they were supposed to be transferred to an American ship, however the American captain on hearing the reason for their banishment released them. Peden made his way north again to divide the remaining years of his life between his own country and the north of Ireland. His last days were spent in a cave on the River Lugar in the parish of Sorn, near his birthplace and his brother's farm in Auchinleck, and there he died in 1686, worn out by hardship and privation.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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