image: The busy harbour at Portpatrick.

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Explore The Rhins & Beyond From The Downshire Arms Hotel

image, the Downshire Arms Hotel, photographed at sunset, October, 2005.

The Downshire Arms Hotel provides an excellent base from which to explore this beautiful part of Scotland. Portpatrick sits on the west coast of what is known as the Rhins of Galloway. Within the Rhins we have four Golf Courses - Dunskey, Portpatrick, Lagganmore and Stranraer. More golf courses are within easy drive of Portpatrick too, so please ask us if you need more details about combining a relaxing holiday break with a few rounds of top quality golf! Enjoy sailing, or just looking at boats in general? Visit the Downshire Arms Hotel during Boat Week - a great festival, with lots to see and do for the whole family!

image: Rock carving at Portpatrick, the legend reads; Basking Shark. image: Our local lifeboat, the 'Mary Irene Millar'. image: The village and the harbour front get increasingly busy as the summer progresses. image: The local lifeboat and visiting Thurso lifeboat in Portpatrick harbour.

Gardening enthusiasts will doubtless be delighted with our abundance of truly outstanding gardens. The award winning Logan Botanic Garden is about 15 miles to our south, whilst closer at hand Dunskey Gardens can be reached quite easily by foot or road. En-route to Logan Botanic Garden one passes Ardwell Gardens at Ardwell, which are well worth a look at too! The Gulf Stream laps our shores here, allowing for the more unusual and exotic plants to flourish in the warm climate we usually have all year around.

image: Boats in the harbour at Portpatrick. image: memorial in the nearby old Kirk to Robert Haslam. image: The Suggler's Cove, curio shoppe about 25 metres from our door. you never know what you may find in this Aladdin's cave. image: Luxury boats in Portpatrick harbour.

Slightly further afield we have the truly stunning landscape that is Glenwhan Gardens, where Tessa Knott transformed, by hand, 12 acres of wasteland into a fantastic collection of exotics & naturals. Lochinch Castle has a beautiful garden beside the Black Loch and the White Loch. Lochinch is also home to the Galloway Garden Festival! Need a Hair & Beauty salon makeover ladies whilst here? Try DG9!

image: Glenwhan Gardens at Dunragit. image: Glenwhan Gardens, open April - September. image: The Logan Botanic Garden stand at the Galloway Garden Festival, 2004. The event will be repeated in 2005 at the same location.

Portpatrick, The Downshire Arms Hotel and Port Logan (just beyond Logan Botanic Garden) were extensively featured in the television series '2000 Acres of Sky'. (Portpatrick was transformed into 'Portree', whilst Port Logan became the island of 'Ronansay'.) In fact, the ferry used in the filming of the series can be seen in Portpatrick harbour, and offers coastal trips during the summer. Port Logan has an interesting Fish Pond, where one can feed the fish by hand. If Sea Angling is your thing, then you're coming to the right place! Silver Line Charters operate right out of the harbour - rod and bait hire available if you don't have your own. Seafishing Scotland operate out of Drummore, at the bottom end of the Mull of Galloway, and there are others available for charter too.

image: Pollack fishing is good in the local waters. this one caught with Seafishing Scotland. image: A old but romantic ruined chapel at Castle Kennedy. (Picture courtesy of SRWD)

If Scotland of old is your thing, then the Rhins have much to offer - as does the entire region of Galloway! Drive over to Glen Trool near Newton Stewart and follow the 'Raider's Road', then visit Bruce's Stone and see where he eluded the 'Auld Enemy'! Explore the Mull of Galloway with its legends of Smugglers and Excisemen. Also, whilst in Portpatrick, please check out the monument 'The Hands', positioned near the Portpatrick Lifeboat Station. It commemorates the crew of the lifeboat who, in 1953, tried desperately to save the passengers and crew of the ferry 'Princess Victoria' which went down with most crew and passengers in a tremendous storm.

image: 'The Saxon' - Donaghadee Lifeboat in harbour for the ceremony to commemorate the Princess Victoria. image: The sculpture of 'The Hands' on the rocks at Portpatrick. image: Portpatrick harbour looking towards the bowling green and headland.

Worth a visit too are the Kirkmadrine Stones near Sandhead, believed to be the oldest Christian inscribed monument in Scotland, whilst over at the Isle of Whithorn is the cave of St. Ninian. Add to that the Wigtown Booktown, Castle Douglas Foodtown, Creetown Gemrock Museum and there is plenty to see and do, eat and read! Oh yes, and the coastline is littered with long abandoned castles, crofts and enigmatic standing stones, all reflecting the areas diverse history. By the sea one can frequently see Dolphins, Basking Sharks, Seals, plus a wide variety of seabirds & migrants, making this area a nature-lover's paradise. The Downshire Arms Hotel at Portpatrick makes for a great base from which to explore, discover and delight! See you soon! The management - and our regulars - many of whom crew the local Portpatrick Lifeboat - are proud to support the RNLI. Please help support this worthy cause! Your donation = Lives Saved!

information@thedownshirearms.co.uk | (+44) 01776810300
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