In 1882-4, Frances Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland described Rhinns like this:
Rhinns, the western one of the three districts of Wigtownshire. Known to the Romans as Chersonesus Novantum, it takes its present name, like the Rhinns of Islay, from the Celtic roinn, 'a point or promontory;' and it forms a double peninsula, washed on the W side by the Irish Channel, and on most of the E side by Loch Ryan and Luce Bay. ...
With the rest of the county it is connected by an isthmus, 57/8 miles wide at the narrowest, between the head of Loch Ryan and the head of Luce Bay; and it measures 28¼ miles in length from N by W to S by E, 5½ miles in extreme breadth, and about 120 square miles in area. It begins on the B at Corsewall Point, and terminates at the S in the Mull of Galloway, each of them crowned by a lighthouse; it attains a maximum altitude of 593 feet in Cairnpat, and mostly consists of lowland, which, at a comparatively recent geological period, was clearly under marine water; and probably, after becoming dry, it was for some time an island or a series of islands. The parishes comprised within it are Kirkcolm, Leswalt, Portpatrick, and Kirkmaiden, most of Stoneykirk, and a small part of Inch.—Ord. Sur., shs. 7, 3, 1, 1856-63.
Rhinns through time
Rhinns is now part of Dumfries and Galloway district. Click here for graphs and data of how Dumfries and Galloway has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Rhinns itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Rhinns, in Dumfries and Galloway and Wigtownshire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/21905
Date accessed: 20th April 2024
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