Kirkconnel, an ancient parish in Annandale, Dumfriesshire, annexed, after the Reformation, to Kirkpatrick-Fleming. Its graveyard, on a meadow within a fold of Kirtle Water, 2½ miles NNE of Kirtlebridge station, contains the ashes of ` Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Lee,' and those of her lover, Adam Fleming, in saving whose life she lost her own, from the bullet of her less favoured suitor, a Bell of Blacket House. Whether her own name was Bell or Irving is hard to determine, but tradition seems to refer the tragedy to some time in the 16th century; and it forms the theme of that sweetest of Scottish ballads-

I wish I were where Helen lies,
Night and day on me she cries;
Oh that I were where Helen lies
On fair Kirkconnel Lee!

Bell's Tower, the home of Fair Helen, was demolished in 1734.—Ord. Sur., sh. 10, 1864.

(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)