Notes on the way
through Ayrshire - 100 years
ago
OLD CUMNOCK PARISH
South of Auchinleck.
The town of Old Cumnock stands in a hollow, where Glaisnock
Water from the south falls into the Lugar, on the north verge
of the parish, with a few villas and cottages extending into Auchinleck
Parish, 16 miles east of Ayr, 16 miles south-east of Kilmarnock, and
five miles north-west of New Cumnock. It is of a roundish form, with
street ends projecting in star-fashion round the main body; has a
spacious centre square, with an opening at each corner, and a neat Gothic
church of recent erection standing in the middle. The east side
of the square is occupied by the Black Bull Hotel, with
shops on each end of it; the south side is a splendid line of shops; the
west side is filled with shops, the Clydesdale Bank, and a small inn;
while the north side is partly assigned to business. The opening in the
south-west corner leads down a flight of broad stairs to some narrow,
humble streets, called the Deil’s Elbow, a name derived from a
steep turn in an old road; the opening in the north-west corner leads
down an irregular street of shops to Lugar Bridge, thence past the
residence of the late Rev. James
Murray, the poet ; that in the
north-east corner leads into a short street, with shops on the left and
the high garden wall of Hillside House on the right, and from
that up past the Cemetery, containing the monumented graves of the Rev.
Alexander Peden, the prophet, and
three martyrs, named Paterson, Dun,
and Richard,
in the place where, in 1686, stood the gallows tree. That elegant
commercial square was the Churchyard until the persecutors of the
Presbyterians, foiled in all their efforts to take the life of the
prophetic Covenanter, vented their horrid feelings by digging up his
body after it had lain six weeks in the Churchyard of his native parish,
and re-interring it here, at the foot of the gallows. The good people of
Old Cumnock were so affected by this cowardly proceeding that they
on their deathbed requested their friends to inter their remains at the
foot of the gallows, beside Mr.
Peden’s; and this they continued
to do until it became the regular burial place of the town and parish. The
old Churchyard being trodden over and unsightly in the heart of the town, they
removed the hurth stanes, levelled
the mounds, and gave it a thick covering of gravel--the best thing they
could do. Adjoining the south-east corner of the square is another
smaller and less symmetrical square, with shops irregularly ranged about
it. This is the ancient market place. Of the ancient streets diverging
from it, a narrow one, with shops on left side, goes west behind the
establishment of Hunter Brothers, in the big square; a very
narrow one passes north behind the Black Bull; another,
with shops right and left for some distance, extends its long length
east to the townhead; while a fourth, called Glaisnock
Street, goes south, Glaisnock Water crossing underneath it
unseen. This, the best street in the town, is lined on both sides with
first-class shops, and contains the publishing offices of two weekly
newspapers. The Royal Bank, an interesting Gothic edifice, is at the end
of Ayr Road, which extends west from Glaisnock Street, and is
studded with ornate cottages and villas. Farther up Glaisnock Street, on
the left side, is Cumnock Pottery; and a few yards off the
street, on the same side, are the engineering works founded by
the late George M‘Cartney,
whose inventive genius, displayed in the production of threshing
mills, made him and Cumnock famous over Scotland, some parts of
Ireland, and even America. Still farther south is a long array of grand
cottage residences, among which a very substantial Scotch-Gothic one,
with balustrade and pretty flower garden in front, catching the eye of
the passer-by, is the residence of the poet, A.
B. Todd,
whose father was a farmer in Fenwick. A little beyond this, on
the opposite side, is a large new Catholic Chapel; and beyond
that the station on the Ayr and Cumnock Railway, about
half-a-mile south from the square. The town is a police burgh,
possessing its own water works; has a new and stately Town Hall; three
public schools, for 650 scholars; a head post office, with telegraph,
money order, and savings bank departments; branches of the Bank of
Scotland, Royal, and Clydesdale Banks; Established, Free, United
Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, and Evangelical Union Churches,
and a Roman Catholic Chapel; two hotels, two railway stations, two
tweed factories, two engineering works, two cabinet
works, coach building, iron founding, and coal works, in its
neighbourhood. Population in 1871, 2903; in 1881, 3345.
It is now chiefly
remarkable for the number and quality of its retail shops; though in the
early part of the century it bore a distinctive characteristic in the
manufacture of snuffboxes of planetree wood, so beautifully artistic
in design and finish as to defy competition. The artistic inventor of the
Cumnock snuffbox was a Mr.
Crawford, a native of the parish.
This happened in a social period of Scottish history, when
it was the fashion for most men and many women and boys to carry a small
box of snuff, I and have a good sneeze and a hearty laugh with everybody
they met. Without the influence of lectures or literature, a sudden
decline in the use of snuff set in everywhere; and a corresponding decline
in the demand for the Cumnock speciality
brought much distress on the town, but most upon Mr. Crawford’s family,
who, it is said, were blamed entirely for the disastrous state of the
trade. In time of prosperity the number of "sneeshin’ mills"
produced varied from 25,000 to 35,000 annually, and they were sold at such
a price that a foot of rough timber made £100 worth. A few individuals
may still be employed in the art here, but the centre of the trade has
been transferred to Mauchline, where, in addition to snuffboxes,
numerous pretty little articles are made of planetree wood grown in places
mentioned in the works of Burns,
and command a steady market as souvenirs of the Poet.
The Rev.
James Brown,
D.D., Editor of "United Presbyterian Missionary Record,"
"Life of Rev. John Eadie,
D.D., LLD.," "Life of a Scottish Probationer," was born
here, March, 1835.
The beauty of the environs
is much enhanced by two lofty railway viaducts-one over the picturesque
valley of the Glaisnock, the other over a deep chasm of the
Lugar. Dumfries House occupies a low situation on the south
side of the Lugar, about two miles west of Cumnock, its heavily
wooded grounds-crossed by the Ward and Ross Burns, and
containing the ruin of Terringzean Castle - extending to a skirt of
the town, Its ancient name of Lochnorris was abrogated by the
Bute family, a branch of the
Royal Stewarts, at the time they
obtained the title of Earl of
Dumfries. Lochnorris, or Liffnoris,
and Terringzean, or Torringzean, were anciently separate
estates, and were the property and residences of Crawfords,
relatives of Sir William Wallace’s
mother. The most eminent member of
the Bute family
was John Stewart, third Earl,
born May 25, 1713. He succeeded his father,
1723; was made Knight of the Thistle, 1738; Privy Councillor, 1760;
Principal Secretary of State, 1761; and First Lord of the Treasury, May,
1762. We were then at war with France, and, having taken Canada from that
nation, were fighting on the European Continent for German interests. Lord
Bute, convincing Parliament of the
foolishness of exhausting the national strength in fighting the battles of
other people, concluded a treaty of peace with France, February 10, 1763,
securing solid advantages to the nation. No sooner was the treaty signed
than the Prime Minister found himself almost totally deserted by his
party, and retired from office - the best possible proof of his
extraordinary ability. He carried his party with him, as it were by a
spell of magic, and when the spell was over they rubbed their eyes,
exclaiming-" Confound it! where have we been?"
Such magical power in a statesman is a rare gift. It was brilliantly
manifested in Sir Robert Peel
when he carried the Corn Laws Bill, and in Mr.
Gladstone when he carried the
Irish Church Bill. Unfortunately for the nation, Lord
Bute did not return to politics.
With his magical ability and peace principles, he would have easily
averted the most foolish and disastrous war that has ever befallen our
nationality-the war against its own colonists in America, that drove them
to assume reluctantly what they had never contemplated, a seperate
nationality. While the-Government were thus engaged in hacking the nation
to pieces, the retired philosophical statement, Lord
Bute, was peacefully occupied with
the production of a great botanical work, which he published in nine large
volumes. Died in London, May 10, 1792, aged 79.
Logan House,
beautifully situated among trees on the elevated left bank of the Lugar
Water, one mile and a quarter east of Cumnock, has a pleasing
association with the greatest extemporaneous wit and humorist of Scotland,
Hugh Logan, "The Laird o’
Logan." It is now the, property
of Cunninghame.
Less than a mile southward of Logan House, in the middle of a bare
field, stands the old monumental stone of John
M’Geachen, who suffered martyrdom
here in 1688. Garrallan House and public school
are fully one mile and a half south-west of the town, in a district finely
cultivated, wooded, and watered with burns. Glaisnock House, on Glaisnock
Water, one mile and a half south, has recently been enlarged by
one-half, and bears a slight resemblance to the far-famed Abbotsford, on
the Tweed, but fronts the east instead of the north-west. The site of Borland
Castle, marked by grassy mounds and a few sturdy old trees, is two
miles on the road to New Cumnock. Borland
signifies boardland -- i.e., land
granted to the feudal chief for the supply of his board.
It is roughly calculated
that more coal remains to be worked in this than in any of the adjacent
parishes. Limestone is plentiful, and there is also ironstone. The surface
rises to the south more than to the east, and is corrugated with the
courses of numerous burns. The soil is of, medium quality, and under
tillage, excepting a little bit along Corsgailoch Heights in the
south-west, a, round benty hill towards the south-east, and a small
part at the east end, mostly in the farm of Craigshield, which is
clad in heath, bent, sprit, and bits of fine grass and rush bushes where
cultivation has been carried on at an earlier date. The renowned
"field to field" practice is diminishing at some other point the
cultivated area. The length of the parish, east and west, is about 10
miles; breadth across the west, four miles; across the east, one
mile-comprising 14,140 acres. Population, 4861.
and .co.uk