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From Stewartry of Kirkcudbright Memorial Inscriptions pre-1855, vol 3, by Alison Mitchell, published 1993 by the Scottish Genealogy Society, Edinburgh, Scotland:
- "This ancient parish consists of a narrow strip, about 18 miles long, extending from the bare hills in the north to a fertile plain beside the sea. Girth-avon meant "sanctuary by the river". The parish church existed by the 12th century and was on a low eminence near the centre of the plain.
- "Murray of Broughton was propretor of all the farmlands of the parish, lived at Cally, and developed a planned town at his gates. This grew rapidly into Gatehouse of Fleet which became a burgh of barony in 1795, with cotton mills and many workshops, and reached its peak of population in the 1840s witha gradual decline thereafter.
- "With the centre of population removed to Gatehouse of Fleet the congregation built a new parish church in the burgh in 1817. (A Congregational church and an Episcopal chapel had already been built there.) The old parish church on the knoll at Sandgreen was left a roofless ruin but the surrounding burial ground was used until the 20th century."
Note: Sandgreen as described in the Gazetteer for Scotland is a caravan park on Aird Bay. The location of the old church and cemetery on the OS One-Inch Map 1885-1890 is at the settlement of Girthon, some 3km inland.
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