190 Topography of Dumfries. 



tury we would expect to find a very old and congested district 

 abutting upon it. That, however, is not realised on the Dum- 

 fries side of the river. Only one, the south, side of the Friars' 

 Vennel had houses upon it in 15 19. The whole of the tene- 

 ments from Irish Street to the Nith are named in the disposition 

 of that year"^! by John Logan, Vicar of Colvend. There were 

 only ten, including two back tenements, and they could not 

 have extended farther west than the high ground. Behind 

 these tenements were the lands of David Welsh'; fields, which 

 in 1 561 were growing lint. Adjacent, Under the Yairds were 

 orchards — the Sheriff's orchard, M'Brair's orchard — and on 

 the lands of the Chapel of the Willies were plum trees in 

 1521. On the opposite side of the street was the Frierhaugh, 

 fields also, with no buildings on them except at the corner 

 of St. David Street, until after 1549. And the name of this 

 portion of the town was the Newton and it M'^as outside the 

 Port, the latter standing between the south corners of St. 

 David Street and Irish Street. The Sandbeds Mill at the 

 end of the Bridge, which was, it must be remembered, at the 

 foot of the Vennel, with its accompanying " watergang " 

 extending from the Moat to the " bairns [shooting] butts " on 

 the Sandbeds was not built until between 1 522-6. '^^^ Nor was 

 the present line of buildings on the W^hitesands erected until 

 nearly the close of the i8th century. All the foregoing facts 

 do not suit the theory of a 13th century bridge. When it was 

 built it created in the isth and i6th centuries a New Town 

 as surely as the New Bridge in the beginning of the 19th 

 century created another New Town, from Castle Street to 

 the river. A marked contrast is apparent in the buildings of 

 the later, smaller, and marketless village of Bridgend. Its 

 name indicates its parentage and the buildings jostle together 

 in significant confession of the fact. It may also be pointed 

 out that if the bridge had been an early structure more 

 direct access to it would have been obtained from the market 

 place than has ever existed. Direct access to the river, be it 

 observed, was not to the Bridge from the north end but to the 

 ford from the south end of the market. We must take it then 

 that the line of the High Street had reached the corner of 

 Friars' Vennel, until then a passage mainly used as an access 



