The Harbour

Port Street branches off the High Street at Bridge House. It is now the official Sustrans cycle route leading to the new cycle bridge. Its imposing private houses belonging to port officials and merchants are reminders of Annan's success in trade and shipbuilding.

Many of the old warehouses are gone, but the harbour quay has been partially restored. In the 18th and 19th Centuries Annan was a major point for emigration. Waterfoot Road runs along the riverside merse to the remains of the two piers where families caught boats for the New World.

 

The Burns Cairn, erected by Annan's Solway Burns Club, commemorates the fact that Robert Burns as an exciseman patrolled the shore here. (information on the Solway Burns Club)

 

Shrimp boats still anchor in the Annan river mouth, and the haaf net fishermen can often be seen standing out in the tide for salmon and sea trout. The views across the Solway are sensational - the Lake District mountains to the south, here photographed at sunset, Criffel to the west, and the Pennines to the south east.

 

 

There is also a good view of the sandstone-faced embankment of the old railway viaduct, built in 1865-9. The metal viaduct itself was demolished in 1934-5, but the embankment still provides a popular walk.

 

The large boulder known as the Altar Stane, visited by the riders at the annual Annan Riding of the Marches, is just to the east of the line of the viaduct and on the edge of the main channel of the Solway. It marks the seaward boundary of the Royal Burgh.

 

 

Map of the town and area: