The Machars

View NW over the Machars from Isle of Whithorn
©2022 Gazetteer for Scotland

View NW over the Machars from Isle of Whithorn

A district of Dumfries and Galloway comprising farmland, heathland and shoreline, The Machars is the name given to the low and relatively flat peninsula of Galloway lying between Wigtown Bay and Luce Bay, to the south of the Galloway Hills. Its chief towns are Wigtown and Whithorn and its southernmost point is Burrow Head, overlooking the Solway Firth. Machars comes from Scots Gaelic, meaning a flat area of land. Much of the area is characterised by hundreds of low rolling hillocks that represent a drumlin field deposited by an extensive ice sheet flowing south towards the Solway Firth.


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