342 Royalty of the Burgh of DuMFRiEii. 



Burghs being limited to " watching and warding " on behalf 

 of the community the territory embraced in the Charter of 

 Erection. With the progress of time, however, land became 

 a subject of commerce, and in subjects outwith the royalty of 

 a Burgh services of a civil or religious nature and payments 

 in money or in kind came on the renewal of the investiture 

 to be substituted for military service, while now for nearly 200 

 years the only forms of feudal tenure that the law has recog- 

 nised have been (i) feu farm holding where the return is a 

 substantial payment in money or grain, called a feu duty ; (2) 

 blench holding, where the return is illusory and is merely 

 stipulated for as an acknowledgment of the superiority ; and 

 (3) burgage holding applicable only to subjects situate within 

 the territory embraced in the Charter of Erection of a Royal 

 Burgh. 



In the case of Dumfries, the area covered by the original 

 Charter, what is known as the royalty, embraced in addition 

 to the subjects lying within a perimeter joining the original 

 customs ports a considerable extent of ground outside, but 

 none of it across the river. Evidence exists that the location 

 of these ports was shifted from time to time as the population 

 increased and the town proper extended its limits by encroach- 

 ing on the common property outside. 



At the date of its erection the population of the Burgh 

 was in all probability segregated in that portion of the present 

 High Street extending from its junction with Bank Street to 

 the Millburn Bridge and onwards as far as the Kirkgate Port, 

 which was situated at or near the pent house end of Mill Street 

 (now called Burns Street). The original perimeter of the 

 inhabited area was therefore very limited in extent, and all 

 the tenements that it enclosed were necessarily held on burgage 

 tenure. Outside of it, as far as the limits of the royalty, there 

 extended what then constituted the common good, lands over 

 which the inhabitants had rights in common, known as the 

 territory of the Burgh, which when ultimately divided up and 

 disposed of to individual owners were spoken of as the burgh 

 roods or the burgh acres. 



The gradual growth of the town towards the Moat, near 

 which a customs port was placed known as the Townhead 



