Sanquhar /ˈsæŋkər/ (Scots: Sanchar,[2] Scottish Gaelic: Seanchair[3]) is a town on the River Nith in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, north of Thornhill and west of Moffat.

It was also where the Covenanters, who opposed episcopalisation of the church, signed the Sanquhar Declaration renouncing their allegiance to the King, an event commemorated by a monument in the main street.

The antiquary, William Forbes Skene even considered it the probable location of the settlement named Corda in Ptolemy's Geographia.

This place is associated with a local legend of a "heidless horseman" who is supposed to have ridden down from it as an omen of death, a story which possibly has some origin in a Celtic head cult.

The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott (1822) attest that Robert the Bruce hid in the forests about this hill after he had killed one of his rivals, John "the Red" Comyn.

[8] During the reign of Robert the Bruce the Crichton family obtained the lands round about Sanquhar and ruled over the area from the mid-14th until the mid-17th centuries.

In July 1617, the King of Great Britain, James VI and I, travelled through Scotland to Glasgow, and on his way home stopped at the castle in Sanquhar.

With its position as the only major town in a large area, and situated by the River Nith, it seemed that whenever any remarkable political movement was going on people would go to Sanquhar to proclaim their testimonies on the subject.

It was here, in 1680, that Richard Cameron, with a band of armed supporters, posted on the town cross the first declaration of Sanquhar renouncing allegiance to Charles II.

[12] The year 1685 saw the second declaration, by James Renwick, who also took a large armed party into Sanquhar, frightening all the townspeople who thought a battle was coming.

Burns called the town "Black Joan" in his ballad "Five Carlins" in which he represented the local burghs as characters.

He would stay overnight at the Queensberry Arms in the High Street, making friends with the owner, bailie Edward Whigham and calling it "the only tolerable Inn in the place".

A traveller's account early in the 18th century tells us: 'Gloves they make better and cheaper than in England, for they send great quantities thither.'

While knitting died out as an industry, the presentation of traditional Sanquhar gloves is an important part of local celebrations even today.

[21] The decline of traditional industries hurt the town, but now new manufacturers are moving in and there is a strong sense of community in the burgh.

James Brown, who wrote an important history of the town, is also credited with writing the rules universally used for the sport.

He sent one of his servants to tie a branch from a rowan tree over the doorway of the witch's house in Crawick, which ended the curse.

For a long time, a large rowan tree flourished in the front yard of the church, perhaps partly to keep these evil spirits away.

We have no pleasanter memory than that of the weavers playing quoits, of which they were very fond, on the summer evenings on the "Alley", a long strip of ground on the banks of the stream behind the Village, while their wives, with their clean "mutches" sat about or sauntered up and down chatting and gossiping, and the bairns were either scrambling along the wooded banks of the Crawick or "paidling" in its clear water, the pleasant babble of the stream as it rushed over the dam-head mingling with the voices of the men at their game and the joyous shouts and laughter of the children.”[27]In the late 1930s, Sanquhar was the home to Crawick Wheelers, a very successful Cycling Club which was instrumental in the setting of a number of Scottish Time Trial records.

They would then ride from Sanquhar to Dundee or Perth and take part in Time Trial races before returning home on the Sunday.