DUNROD

A vanished place

BEFORE THE ARMY range came to Kirkcudbright, Dunrod was both an address and a telephone exchange. There is almost nothing left of Dunrod Mill now – it stood where the barrier closes the road down to Mulloch Bay, almost in the centre of the Range.

Dunrod ceased to be a working mill after the First World War and became the local telephone exchange and post office. There are many tales told about the old miller who could be heard wheezing while listening in to conversations. After the miller the postmistress was Miss Thomson, a sister of the late Sam Hainings wife and the great-aunt of Donald.

When I was small I didn’t know that there were such things as telephone numbers. I thought that you just picked up the phone and asked Miss Thomson for Milton or Torrs or Dromore or whatever. One of the advantages of a small local exchange happened when my parents were at Milton for the evening and a call for my father was put straight through to Milton. On being asked, Miss Thomson said, "I saw the car going past and I was sure that was where you would be going." The fact that the visit had been arranged by phone the previous night probably had nothing to do with it.

There was a small Post Office hut at Dunrod, where the postman sorted out his mail and had a rest, Mulloch farm beyond Dunrod being the end of his run. Although Dunrod was only five miles from Kirkcudbright, the postal address was Castle Douglas. "Dunrod Road", so the postmen said, was from Castle Douglas out past the cemetery and on to Douganhill crossroad on the Dalbeattie Road. It then turned right through Auchencairn, Dundrennan and on to Dunrod – about 18 miles. The postmen that I remember were Johnny Murray, Tom McJannet and Snowy Gallacher. The first vehicle I ever drove was the post van, while sitting on Snowy’s knee. There were very few cars about in those days and it was on a farm road.

The Dunrod telephone numbers are now ‘Townhead’ numbers. There is no Dunrod postal address and the name survives only in the ‘Dunrod Barrier’ on the Army Range.

Jim Gordon
Whaupcroft
The Lake
Kirkcudbright