Raiders Tales

Did you know that Dumfries and Galloway is the birthplace of the bicycle? Stuart Paterson tells us the story of the man behind the invention: Galloway-born blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan.

The Edinburgh Road was used by smugglers moving goods that had been landed at the coast, all the way across to the capital to sell. One of the smugglers, Mc Harg, a dealer in contraband tea who regularly stopped off at the Murray’s, was in the habit of obtaining second-hand books of various sorts in the city which he gave to the young Alexander Murray.