ANNAN IN Last Four DecabEs or 18TH CENTURY. 163 
insects of Australia; and from America he received a specimen 
of the butterfly known as the monarch. ‘Two rather interesting 
birds had been shot during the winter—the bernicle and the 
bean goose. 
ANNAN IN THE LAST Four DECADES OF THE 18TH CENTURY. 
By Mr Frank MILLER, Annan. 
In August, 1764, Annan was visited by Thomas Gray, 
whose “ Elegy in a Country Churchyard ’’ was already univer- 
sally popular. He does not appear to have been favour- 
ably impressed, for he declares that the inn where he dined 
was bad, and describes the dwellings of the people as “ huts of 
mud with no chimneys.’’ Probably if the poet had found more 
solid comfort at the hostelry he would have presented a more 
flattering picture of Annan. But it cannot be denied that in the 
seventh decade of the eighteenth century the town was un- 
attractive in appearance. Every vestige of the old castle had 
disappeared, with the exception of the inscribed stone that 
attracted Pennant’s notice in 1769. The Town Hall was desti- 
tute of architectural merit, though it possessed a steeple of which 
the untravelled burgesses were proud. The church was a barn- 
like erection at the west end of the town, where the dismal grave- 
yard that was connected with it may still be seen. In the kirk- 
yard, under the shadow of sepulchral yews, the schoolhouse had 
stood prior to 1739 ; but happily the children of the parish were 
now taught and whipped in a building that, if scarcely less 
humble than the one it superseded, was undoubtedly situated in 
a healthier locality. The principal inn was the homely King’s 
Arms—afterwards known as the Buck Inn—where Bonnie Prince 
Charlie on a bleak December day in 1745 had found shelter. 
In the front wall of the inn was a sun dial, a public timekeeper 
which is preserved and exhibited in the new Buck Hotel. At the 
time of Gray’s visit to Annan the High Street extended from 
Kilncloss to Bridge-end, a distance of about a quarter of a mile; 
and it was lined on each side with small houses, too many of 
which were of the type referred to by the poet. As yet “the 
high town street’’ was unpaved, but it had been cleared of 
“peat stacks’’ by the vigorous action of the Town Council. 
Butts Street, or “The Butts,’’ as I have often heard it called, was 
