A lifetime of Islands: Island 392 - McCook's Craig/Dorn Rock, Portpatrick, Dumfries and Galloway

Friday 15 September 2017

Island 392 - McCook's Craig/Dorn Rock, Portpatrick, Dumfries and Galloway

This was an unexpected island. I visited the lovely village of Portpatrick on a sunny evening on my way to County Donegal and spotted an island in the harbour. It is currently called Dorn Rock but on late 19th century Ordnance Survey maps it is called McCook's Craig. I don't know at what point its name was changed. It is connected to the north side of the harbour by a stone and concrete breakwater. It is about 75 metres long by 25 metres wide and is a rock with rough grass growing on it.

Portpatrick is one of the few breaks in the south west facing coastline of the Rhinns of Galloway (the bit that is hammerhead shaped), which was suitable for the building of a harbour. The village was used as a port for ships carrying mail, cargo and people to and from Donaghadee in Ireland as least as far back as 1620. Following plans drawn up by John Smeaton in 1768, a breakwater was constructed on the south side of the inlet and completed in 1774 or 1778 (depending on which source you believe). However work on the north breakwater was abandoned in 1801 after repeated damage by the sea.

The engineer Sir John Rennie began work on improving the harbour in 1821. After his death later the same year, the work was carried on by his son, who was also Sir John Rennie. The plan was to build two piers, one on the south side and another on the north, curving towards each other and leaving a 61 metre gap as the entrance to the harbour.

The South Pier, which was built of Welsh limestone and incorporated the 1778 breakwater was completed c1832. A small 14 metre high lighthouse on the end was completed in 1836. However the pier and the lighthouse were damaged by a storm in 1839 and had to be repaired.

A breakwater on the north side of the harbour, which linked McCook's Craig to the mainland, was completed c1835. The North Pier, which jutted out into the sea in a south south westerly direction and at right angles to the McCook's Craig Breakwater, was still unfinished in 1839.

The railway reached Portpatrick in 1862 but a few years later Irish bound passenger traffic moved to the much more sheltered port of Stranraer where boats sailed to Larne in Ireland. Portpatrick Harbour fell into disuse soon after and in 1871 the lighthouse on the end of the South Pier was dismantled and shipped to Colombo in Sri Lanka, where it was re-erected. The lighthouse on the inner end of the pier was relit and remained in use until 1900 when it was replaced by Killantringan Lighthouse at Black Head to the north of Portpatrick. The branch line from Stranraer to Portpatrick closed in 1950.

Dorn Rock has a flagpole on its highest point, which was flying the St Andrew's flag when I visited. It also has a large rusty anchor on display and a memorial plaque to Rockin Robin Waddell "who rocked this rock on many occasions" (1967-2014) and who was a local guitarist.