Continuing along this road, passing the first junction, the route passes the viaduct which crosses over the Water of Luce. Opened in 1861, the magnificent Glenluce Viaduct has eight brick arches, each of which has a span of 42-feet. It was originally part of the Port Patrick Railway and functioned until it became one of the many casualties of the Beeching cuts in 1965.
The path exits from the woods on to the approaches to the Wigtonshire County Golf Club, tall grasses bowing gently as we passed through. There is a small water feature here, an inlet off the sea, over which there is a small footbridge. The footbridge deposits you on an area called St Helena Island and from there it is a short walk on to the beach.
From the sands you are looking out over Luce Bay which is twenty-miles across at its widest point. The range was in use from the 1930's by the RAF as a bombing range. In the 1990's, responsibility for the range was passed to a private company 'QinetiQ', who now operate this range and many others on the MoD's behalf. The company is a major provider of various targets for live-fire training, estate management as well as the testing and evaluation of weapons systems. Luce Bay is still considered to be MoD property and is used for training, testing and evaluation purposes on a regular basis, therefore, access is restricted.
At times we were down by the water's edge, at others walking along the back of the beach admiring the dunes and the various grasses that grow there. In such circumstances Joanna and I seldom walk together, giving ourselves the freedom to roam across the space to our heart's content. Sometimes coming together; other times hundreds of yards apart. At various points on the walk there are bombing targets set in the water that proved very useful as progress markers. Sometimes it is difficult to have a sense of onward progression on very long straight sections and it is useful to try and find a marker that breaks up the land.
The walk itself is enough of a distraction as you pass from hamlet to hamlet and one lovely, small bay to another. The walking is primarily on a rough grassy path, occasionally pebbles, and it can be quite over-grown in parts. The views from the path out across Luce Bay to the The Machars peninsula are just sublime. The climate here is subject to the Gulf Stream and you can find some exotic plants growing wild in the low sand dunes.
Coming off the woodland section is the aptly named Dyemill, the house of the same name situated just above the shore and where we needed to take to the road to go round it. This unusual mill was used to mill seaweed (18th C) to acquire a brown dye.
Also in the grounds of the estate are the remains of a motte (motte & bailey castle), while well to the rear of the main house, below Long Park Hill, are the ruins of the Medieval (Mid-16th C) Killaser Castle, the ancestral home of the McCulloch family, who formerly held Ardwell. In an earlier walk we passed by Cardoness Castle, west of Gatehouse of Fleet, which was also owned by the McCulloch's who in Medieval times were a formidable Galloway family, particularly in this area.
I can find no references to a chapel or church on this location. However, there is reference to a house of that name on the Ardwell Estate, visible on the OS Map of 1847 / 48 and described in the New Statistical Account of 1839 as 'erected as a porter's lodge' and used as a 'factors' house by the local estate.
It's as well sometimes that you do not know what tomorrow brings!