Coordinates: 55°07′12″N 3°21′25″W / 55.120°N 3.357°W / 55.120; -3.357
Lockerbie (Scottish Gaelic: Logarbaidh) is a town in the Dumfries and Galloway region of south-western Scotland. It lies approximately 75 miles from Glasgow, and 20 miles (32 km) from the English border. It is a small town, with a population of just 4,009 at the 2001 census.
Lockerbie has a well developed transport network for a town its size. It lies next to the A74(M) motorway and has a railway station on the main Glasgow–London West Coast Main Line. Lockerbie's town hall is its most imposing building and is an excellent example of Scottish baronial style, built in the typical local red sandstone. The building looks over a war memorial built after the Second World War, with its characteristic bronze statue of an angel atop a white base with inscriptions.
Historically the town has been a trading post for both cattle and sheep. Because of its proximity to the borders, the cattle trade with England dominated the local economy for a long time. The town is home to sheep auctioning to this day.
About 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of Lockerbie along the C92 road to Dalton are the remains of Hallmuir prisoner-of-war camp.[1] After the Second World War this camp housed up to 450[2] Ukrainian volunteers from the Galician Division of the Waffen SS. They built a chapel which remains in use, currently holding Ukrainian services on the first Sunday of every alternate month.
Lockerbie bombing
Lockerbie is known internationally as the site where, on 21 December 1988, the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed as a result of a terrorist bomb. In the United Kingdom the event is referred to as the Lockerbie disaster, the Lockerbie bombing, or simply Lockerbie. Eleven townspeople were killed in Sherwood Crescent, where the plane's wings and fuel tanks plummeted in a fiery explosion, leaving a huge crater. The 270 fatalities (259 on the plane, 11 in Lockerbie) were citizens of 21 nations.
The subsequent police investigation was the largest ever mounted in Scottish history and became a murder inquiry when evidence of a bomb was found. Two men accused of being Libyan intelligence agents were eventually charged in 1991 with planting the bomb. It took a further nine years to bring them to trial. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was gaoled (jailed) for life in January 2001 following the 84-day Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial under Scots law, at Camp Zeist, Netherlands. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted, and returned to Libya. In March 2002, Megrahi's appeal against his conviction was rejected, and he remained in Greenock prison, near Glasgow.[3] In September 2003, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission started a review of Megrahi's case, and granted him a second appeal on 28 June 2007 against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing.[4] On 20 August 2009 the Scottish Government released Megrahi from prison on compassionate grounds as he has terminal prostate cancer. Libya attracted further international opprobrium as a result of the scenes of open jubilation witnessed in that country upon Megrahi's return.[5]
Lockerbie Academy
Lockerbie Academy, the town's public high school, became the headquarters for the response and recovery effort after the Pan Am Flight 103 disaster. Subsequently, the academy, in cooperation with Syracuse University of Syracuse, New York, USA, which lost 35 students in the bombing, established a scholarship at the university for two of its most outstanding graduating students. Each year, two graduating students spend one academic year at Syracuse University as Lockerbie Scholars before they begin their university study. The scholarships have led to a lasting relationship between the university and the town. The rector of Lockerbie Academy, Graham Herbert, was recognised in November 2003 at Syracuse University with the Chancellor's Medal for outstanding service.
A former student of the Academy, Helen Jones, was killed in the 7 July 2005 London bombings. In her memory, a new scholarship has been set up, awarding £1000 towards further education to aspiring accounting students from the Academy.[6]
Lockerbie Drama Club
Lockerbie war memorial, "Tower" chip shop, and town hall, 2006.
Lockerbie Drama Club was formed before the Second World War by members of local churches. Originally known as Lockerbie Churches Drama Club, plays were performed in the town hall. In 1964 the club acquired land at the corner of Well Street and Well Road, along with a prefab corrugated iron building that had been a workshop in the Technical department at Lockerbie Academy. This building became the Little Theatre. Lockerbie Drama Club puts on two plays per year and holds play readings during the summer. [7]
Lockerbie Ice Rink
Located across the road from Lockerbie Academy, it is one of the oldest indoor ice rinks in the country. Built in 1966 it has a long successful history. In curling it has given rise to World and European Champions and Olympians in the adult, senior and junior disciplines. It also provides skating during most weekends. The ice rink is closed between April and September. It has also recently received funding for a new roof.
Recently, the Ice Rink has been in the news following the death of a young female skater, who fell during a public skating session.[8]
Dryfesdale Lodge Visitors' Centre
Dryfesdale Lodge Visitors' Centre, formerly a cemetery worker's cottage, was opened on 25 October 2003 after extensive renovation work funded by the Lockerbie Trust and is maintained with grant assistance from Dumfries & Galloway Council. The Lodge's vision is that it should be a living, growing, flexible facility that can respond to the needs of visitors and the community.
There are two exhibition rooms in the Lodge and also the Dryfesdale Room that is used as a quiet room for visitors to reflect. A permanent exhibition room displays ten history panels depicting Lockerbie's unique past stretching from its pre-historic origins to 1988's terrorist attack and beyond. Located within the cemetery grounds, just a short walk away, is the Lockerbie Memorial Garden of Remembrance.
Dryfesdale Lodge Visitors' Centre is not just a memorial to the disaster but is also a tribute to the community of Lockerbie and in its short life has already had many hundreds of visitors from home and abroad.
Lockerbie House
Lockerbie House was built in 1814 for Sir William Douglas, 4th Baronet of Kelhead and Dame Grace Johnstone and their children; Mary, Henry Alexander, William Robert Keith Douglas, Charles Douglas, 6th Marquess of Queensberry and John Douglas, 7th Marquess of Queensberry. It was inhabited at one time by several different members of the Douglas family through the generations. Such family members include both Archibald Douglas, 8th Marquis of Queensberry PC (son of John Douglas) and his wife Caroline Margaret Clayton (daughter of General Sir William Robert Clayton MP) and their children British mountaineer Lord Francis William Bouverie Douglas, Lady Gertrude Georgiana Douglas, John Sholto Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig and later the 9th Marquess of Queensberry, Clergyman Lord Archibald Edward Douglas and the twins Lord James Douglas and Lady Florence Dixie (who married Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie, 11th Baronet.) John Sholto Douglas was a patron of sport and a noted boxing enthusiast. In 1866 he was one of the founders of the Amateur Athletic Club, now the Amateur Athletic Association of England. The following year the Club published a set of twelve rules for conducting boxing matches. The rules had been drawn up by John Graham Chambers but appeared under Queensberry's sponsorship and are universally known as the "Marquess of Queensberry rules". It is thought that such rules were created within the compounds of Lockerbie House, possibly within the room now known as "The Queensbury Dining Room". It is also thought that at one point Oscar Wilde may have also stayed here for a short amount of time due to his affair with John Sholto Douglas's son the author and poet Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas.
Lockerbie House is an important establishment within Lockerbie, in the past having owned most of the land and housing within the town mainly through the Johnstone Baronets and Douglas family. Like much of Lockerbie this Georgian house is built of old red sandstone and contains approx. 40 bedrooms, situated within 78 acres of secluded woodland and gardens, several outbuildings including a gatehouse, a 2 acre walled garden, croquet lawn, orchards, helipad and a hunting dog pen. The property up until recently also possessed a large stable block but that has since been partly converted into a house with the remaining stables used by a local riding school. Due to the vast size of the property it has frequently been used as a county house hotel in order to help pay for its maintenance and/or provide a prosperous business.
References
- ^ Description of Hallmuir POW camp on All About Lockerbie website
- ^ History of Ukrainian chapel on Nothing to See Here website
- ^ BBC's "on this day" website
- ^ SCCRC's decision on Megrahi's second appeal against conviction
- ^ "Lockerbie bomber withdraws appeal". BBC News. 14 August 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8201188.stm. Retrieved 14 August 2009.
- ^ Helen Jones' scholarship
- ^ Lockerbie Drama Club
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7838952.stm
See also
External links
