Transactions aS 
approximate estimate of the extent of such fund might be very 
difficult. On the other hand, the following stray reference seems 
to stand alone in the record, although it serves to remind us of 
the liabilities to which the Bridge, the Mill, the great grange, or 
“ Barnsbuith,” and their surroundings of ‘the Brigend of Dum- 
fries,” were constantly exposed in the nature of things :— 
At Drumfries the 28th of May, 1521. 
“The Alderman, Baillies, and Community of Drumfries has 
set to Thom Cunynghame in heritage ane Mylshed with ane 
Watergang distrinzeand fra the Moit to the Barnsbuith of the 
Sandbeddis, payand thairfore zeirly 20s. If the Myll-stob does 
ony skaith to the Sandbeddies, or to the Willies, the said Mill 
(of the Sandbed) sall be distrenzit (for the damage).” 
As we understand this entry, we suppose the place-name of 
the “ Staikfuird” had been descriptive of some ford of stakes or 
mill-dam barrier of the river Nith in that locality. The Staik- 
fuird Mill, as one of the Mills of the College and Barony of 
Lincluden, must once have been of no small importance. Of old 
the eastern foreshore and bank of the river Nith, from the march 
of the College lands of Nunholm downwards to the Bridge of 
Nith, seem to have been in general described, in whole or in part, 
as the ancient ecclesiastical lands of Dumfries : the haughs of the 
vicinity of the river-bed and as far as the Staikfuird and Green- 
sands being comprehended within the limits of “ the Moitlands ” 
and “the Over-Haughs” as descriptive of such pasture grounds. 
To the haughs there succeeded a general eastern foreshore of 
sand and gravel levels of river bank, reaching beyond the bridge 
and mill. This flat region, in virtue of its nature, was collectively 
known as “The Sandbeds,” which were singled out again dis- 
tinctively as the Upper and Lower Sandbeds ; or, later, as the 
Green and the White Sands. Between the Friervennel and 
“the Moit,” and beyond, riverwards, there seems to have been 
little else than orchards, fields, and open spaces, with occasional 
granges, or barns. At or about the northern verge of the Green- 
sandbeds, and by the Staikfuird ford, the “ water-gang” of the 
“Old Sandbed Mill” had its origin in the Nith, flowing onward 
through the said sandbeds until it supplied the mill and tanneries, 
regaining the Nith somewhere beyond “the Newtown” quarter 
of the burgh. Beyond the Brigend the mill-stream, or “ water- 
gang,” intersected the great high road to Galloway as it crossed 
