On the Tarff

The Ford of Tarff south-west of Kirkcowan close to the farm of Kenmore (seen in the background) was on the smugglers’ route from Auchenmalg and other landing places on Luce Bay to Kirkcowan and the Ayrshire moors then on to the west of Scotland towns. However its other name, The Soldier’s Steps, dates from a different era, the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland in the 17th century. Soldiers and smugglers would presumably have had little use for the chapel which stood on the east bank and whose dry-stone remains made of river boulders are still visible.