Notes on the way - Through
Ayrshire - 100 Years Ago
Ardrossan Parish
Ardrossan
signifying castle on the small promontory
ON the sea shore, north-west of
Stevenston. The town of Ardrossan is well situated for trade and pleasure,
at the sea side, about 20 miles by road and rail and 14 miles by sea
north-north-west of Ayr, and 31 miles south-west of Glasgow. It stands
partly on a promontory, somewhat rocky and rugged of outline, that extends
south-west into the sea half-a-mile, by an irregular wideness of
one-fourth of a mile, flanked by two beautiful sandy bays, called the
North Bay and the South Bay. The portion of the town next to the north Bay
is edificed with regular straight streets, and that next to the South Bay
is partly a beautiful crescent. There are many ornate cottages and
handsome detached villas, including the Earl of
Eglinton, Baron Ardrossan’s, seaside residence, The Pavilion.
It is a police burgh; has a Town Hall; a post office, with telegraph,
money order, insurance, annuity, and savings bank departments; branches of
the Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank; two public schools; Established,
Free, United Presbyterian, Evangelical Union, and Episcopal Churches; two
or three hotels, well stocked shops in abundance, two railway stations;
and an excellent harbour, constructed at great expense, with the view of
drawing a large amount of shipping from Lanarkshire, as the sea passage
from Glasgow to the North Channel is 50 miles shorter by Ardrossan than it
is by the Clyde. The exports of coal and iron are large; and timber trade,
shipbuilding, ironfounding, and rope and sail making are carried on. Two
newspapers are published weekly-The Ardrossan and Saltcoats
Herald and The Ayrshire Weekly News, the former being the first
penny paper established in the county, dowering this brilliant little town
with a distinctive honour as a county instructor. Population in 1871,
3845; in 1881, 4036.
Though the modern town of Ardrossan has
been built mostly within the present century, it has a connection with
remote antiquity as a village attached to Ardrossan Castle, and was
in existence at the time of Wallace, who, by
way of strategy, set fire to a house, and when the English soldiers, whom
he wished to dislodge from the castle, let down the drawbridge and marched
out to extinguish the flames, he put them to the sword, slew them every
one, and threw their bodies into a vault at the bottom of the castle,
which from that day to this bears the name of Wallace’s Larder.
Ardrossan Castle (Ardrossan signifying castle on the small promontory)
stands on rocks called the Castle Craigs, and its base is loved by
the sea waves. It has been a ruin ever since it was demolished by Oliver
Cromwell and his Scotch friends to prevent its occupation by the
party of Charles II., and looks very old.
The earliest known possessors of the Castle, and the barony of
Ardrossan (which comprised the whole parish), were Barclays,
whose names appear in charters from the twelfth century. The last of the
Barclays was Sir Fergus de Ardrossan, who had
horses so fleet as to be like no other horses, and their unearthly speed,
it was said by his baffled competitors, was owing to a bridle which he
possessed that was enchanted by the devil. His family consisted of two
promising youths, a son and a daughter. This precious son and heir to hand
down the family name and barony, like any other athletic youth, conceived
an excessive inclination to put the bridle on one of the horses and have a
gallop, which the father would never allow. One day, as Sir
Fergus was going from home, he charged Lady
Ardrossan to take care that the son did not back any of the horses;
but the ambitious youth watched his chance, bridled and mounted a
high-spirited one, and away he sped like fury, and was killed. When Sir
Fergus returned he was so enraged that he killed the mother of his son,
left Ardrossan, left his motherless daughter, horses and all, and took up
his abode, with a single male attendant, in the solitary tower of
Kildonan, on the lonely shore of the island of Arran. Long
years after, on the day before his death, he gave his servant order to sew
his dead body in a bullock’s hide and place it on the sea sands when the
tide was out. The waves returned, carried it out to sea, and, strange to
say, washed it ashore at Ardrossan, where it was taken up with the
serecloth and interred in the adjoining chapel. The daughter got married,
and her Ardrossan passed to the house of Eglinton.
The surface of Ardrossan
parish is of moderate elevation and levelness in the south and east,
marked here and there and yonder with small plantation clumps and heights,
and is nicely cultivated. Knockewart Hills, in the
north-west, have summits 757 and 794 feet above sea level. A romantic
scene this, with an ancient cairn on one apex, an ancient fort on another,
and a loch and woods between. It is one of the best points of view in the
county. From Ardrossan promontory, north-east to three-quarters of a mile
from Dalry, the length of the parish is fully five and a half miles; and,
across the middle, its widest part is fully three and a half miles. Area,
6668 acres. Population in 1871, 7221; in 1881, 7754.
Ardrossan view By Kenny Monaghan
and .co.uk