The sun warms my face as I pause between the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies to gaze at the rolling hills of Dumfries and Galloway beyond. I am not, surprisingly enough, in outer space. I’m at the Crawick Multiverse, a cosmos-themed land art installation in the south of Scotland that was built on the site of an old open-cast coal mine and is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.
The galaxies here are huge, spiralling mounds of earth, their perimeters reaching out towards one another but never quite touching.
“These galaxies are slowly moving towards each other, and eventually they’ll collide,” says Gillian Khosla, chair of the Crawick Multiverse Trust. “When that happens, it will be the end of our universe.” Thankfully, we’ve got a few billion years until then.
We stroll around the grounds and watch as visitors climb the mounds, looping around the spirals to reach the sandstone boulders on top. Parents are chased by kids, who are less interested in the cosmological ideas of the art than the fact it happens to double up rather well as an obstacle course.
“We’re open to everybody’s way of looking at it,” laughs Caroline McMillan, a local farmer and Crawick Multiverse trustee, who joins us for the walk. “It can be an artsy thing, or it can be a nice place to come for a coffee – or to roll down some hills with your kids.”
The coal mine that once operated here was shut and abandoned in the 1980s, when the “black gold” ran out. The land is owned by the Duke of Buccleuch – one of Scotland’s largest landowners. In 2005, he invited the late land artist Charles Jencks to transform it.
“It was a depleted site,” says Khosla. “Everything was removed that was worth money and nothing was left. What open-cast coal mining tended to do was take, take, take; and what we’re trying to do here is add – add interest, diversity, nature and add value to the community.”
McMillan lived in a house overlooking the site for much of the development. “It was grey and uninteresting,” she says. “Now it’s green and there’s a lot more biodiversity – ponds and dragonflies. It’s created jobs and it’s somewhere people bring people now; family and friends.”
The installation was built with existing materials – sandstone boulders were transformed into planets and black holes. At the centre is a 400-metre avenue lined with hundreds of stones on a north to south bearing, leading to a central amphitheatre that hosts concerts in summer.
Above it all, the Belvedere viewpoint offers sweeping 360-degree vistas of this eclectic 22-hectare (55-acre) site, where megaliths pose cosmological conundrums amid the farmland and hills of the Nith valley.
“Charles wanted to make this a place people would come to from all over the world, and we’re starting to go down that track now,” says McMillan.
It’s a Saturday morning, and families run among superclusters and climb on rocky comets. This remains a little-visited part of Scotland, despite its beauty, which is particularly apparent in early spring, with the sun shining and daffodils disrupting the greenery. Some old coal bings (piles of waste rocks) are still visible beyond the boundary walls, though digging ended decades ago.
I continue my artistic voyage at A’ the Airts, a community art centre and cafe in the historic town of Sanquhar, just minutes from the Crawick Multiverse. Andy Williamson, chair of the centre, is originally from the neighbouring parish of Kirkconnel. Decades ago, like many in the local area, he worked at the Fauldhead colliery in Kirkconnel, which at the time was the largest pit in Dumfriesshire. In Sanquhar and Kirkconnel, thousands once relied on the pits to earn their living. The closure of the mines had a profound impact here, still felt today.
after newsletter promotion
“It was devastating,” says Williamson. “In its heyday, Kirkconnel had a population of about 5,000 or 6,000. It’s down to maybe 2,000 now. The village never recovered.”
A’ the Airts has a busy programme of music, film and poetry – some of it inspired by that mining legacy – as well as workshops on quilting, pottery and the distinctive Sanquhar knitting pattern. “I think one of the redeeming features of a mining village anywhere is the community spirit,” Williamson says. “That’s still relevant here. Everybody pulls together.” Green shoots sprout from mined land.
Sanquhar is a picturesque town with a long history. On the edge is the ruin of a 13th-century castle where Scotland’s national hero William Wallace is said to have battled the English and Robert the Bruce is also believed to have visited. The poet Rabbie Burns frequented the town in the 1780s, often staying the night. Sanquhar is also home to the oldest working post office in the world, established in 1712.
The story of such Scottish legends is told at the Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum, which is to be found in an 18th-century baroque building on the high street that also houses old Davy lamps and mining pickaxes.
Today, there are new paths leading to Sanquhar Castle, new play parks and increasing tourism. “It’s all about making the place a bit better for the next generation,” says Lisa Black of the Sanquhar Enterprise. “That means something.”
I spend a comfy night at the Nithsdale hotel before continuing my journey on the Southern Upland Way – a hiking route running 214 miles, coast-to-coast across the south of Scotland.
The trail turned 40 last year and marked that anniversary with sculpted way markers, which were installed at the start and end of the three sections (western, middle and eastern) that make up the trail.
Sanquhar marks the end of the western Spirit of Galloway segment and the beginning of The Big Hills section through the centre of Scotland. I’m walking the eight miles to Wanlockhead, the highest village in Scotland and home to the Museum of Lead Mining, which offers the only underground mine tour in Scotland.
It is early, and I follow a farm road steeply out of Sanquhar as a dawn chorus of song thrushes, blackbirds, robins and wrens sing to welcome in the day. A pair of curlews pass overhead as I cross rough, scenic moorland, and the sun slowly rises over the Nith valley behind me.
Crawick Multiverse costs £8.50 for an adult day pass, £5 for five to 16-year-olds, free for under-fives, and £25 for families, crawickmultiverse.co.uk. Single rooms at Nithsdale Hotel from £69, doubles and family room from £72, nithsdalehotel.com. Support was provided by South of Scotland Destination Alliance. More details from Scotland Starts Here