The Murder Hole

There was an original 'Murder Hole' - a well on the Glen Trool to Straiton road, where the bodies of travellers who had been robbed and murdered were dumped.   When S R Crockett was writing The Raiders, he transported the Murder Hole idea to this strange feature near the edge of Loch Neldricken, high in the Galloway Hills.   This painting is by James Faed, Jnr (1856 - 1920), who loved working in Galloway.


My father was brought up in St John's Town of Dalry - a place I learned to love too - in the heart of the Galloway Hills.   Fortunately, tourists visiting Scotland will usually skirt the area, driving up the M74 way to the east.    Artists and authors have fallen for the area though - think of John Buchan in The Thirty Nine Steps, or Dorothy L Sayers in Five Red Herrings......