River Cree

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The Cree at Newton Stewart

The River Cree is a river in Kirkcudbrightshire and which forms much of the border between that shire and Wigtownshire. The main town on the course of the Cree is Newton Stewart and below that town it enters the Solway Firth in a broad estuary, which opens further into Wigtown Bay. Wigtown (Wigtownshire) and Creetown (Kirkcudbrightshire) stand on either side of the estuary.

The tributaries of the Cree are the Minnoch, Trool, Penkiln and Palnure which drain from the Range of the Awful Hand, the labyrinthine range of mountains and lochs, bogs, burns and crags, rising at its highest to The Merrick; Kirkcudbrightshire's county top at 2,764 feet above sea level.

Historic interest

The River Cree in former days provided a route from the coast up into the forested hinterland. It is a dividing river, not just between the two counties but between villages, as there were very few bridges until the 18th Century. On such bridges as there were, tolls and local customs duties were levied. The Cree was also the source of power for the textile mills built in Newton Stewart in the 18th Century when water power was a key element in industrial development.

Most of the time, the Cree is fordable and the old site of the main ford, just below the present bridge, is still detectable in the street layout of Newton Stewart. The location of the first, wooden bridge and the boat ferry are still identifiable local landmarks just to the north of the present bridge.

A new steel bridge, the Sparling Bridge, was strung across the river downstream of the Town Bridge in 1998 as part of an attractive riverside walk. This bridge is named after the fish - the Sparling or Smelt ('Osmerus eperlanus) which still breeds in this estuary. Largely for this reason the Cree estuary "The silty Cree" is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, partly due to the sparling that breed there.

The remaining bridge downstream of Newton Stewart is the by-pass bridge, built in 1979 to carry the A75 trunk road round the town.

Before there were proper roads, and before the railway came to Galloway in the 19th Century, bulky goods such as coal and fertilisers, gravel and grain, timber and stone, were transported by sea. The Cree has a winding, silty estuary, not good for navigation, but there was a harbour at the Carty Port, a couple of miles south of Newton Stewart, and others further down the estuary at Wigtown and Creetown from which coastal cargoes were traded. Regular services linked the Solway ports with Liverpool. Although both of these ports are now almost derelict, there are still active fishing ports further south around the Machars peninsula at Garlieston, the Isle of Whithorn and Port William.

The estuary

The shore is also home to fishing traditions, wildlife and a large expanse of salt marsh - the "inks". Wigtown Bay is now a recognised wildlife reserve, where salt marshes are grazed by sheep all year round and by huge flocks of wild geese in winter. The bay is particularly noted for the important numbers of pinkfooted geese that winter on the inks.

Salmon fisheries using stake nets can still be seen in the bay but are no longer common. Other traditional methods of salmon fishing using "haaf nets" have also declined. However, enthusiastic anglers return year after year to the Cree and fine fresh-run salmon are still caught in worthwhile numbers.

The silty Cree estuary is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, partly due to the sparling that breed there.

References