Notes on the way
through Ayrshire - 100 years
ago
NEW CUMNOCK PARISH
South of Old
Curnnock. The town of New Cumnock lies widely scattered about
the confluence of Nith River, Afton Water, and Moorfoot
Burn, five and a half miles south-east of Old Cumnock. It
consists of a centre part, called The Castle, on the large round Castle
Knowe, in the middle of an elongated plain, and two widely detached
wings on the north and south sides of the plain, which is a mile broad
and flanked with sloping, cultivated fields, rising to hills, adorned
with some belts and round clumps of plantation. The left wing of the
town, at the north side of the plain, is called Pathhead. It
contains a branch of the Bank of Scotland, some shops, a hotel, and the
railway station. The tip of this wing, which extends half-a-mile east,
is called Mansfield village. The right wing, at the south side of
the plain, is called Afton-Bridgend. It contains a Free Church, a
few shops, and an inn. Between it and the Castle, on the west side of the
Afton, are the Old Mill and Shelling Hill, by oral
tradition the scene of the very old song, "The Mill, Mill, O,"
a version of which was written down by Burns.
Afton Water winded close by the old Mill and Castle in
those days.
"As I cam doon
yon water side, An’ by yon Shellin’ Hill, O,
There I spied a
bonnie, bonnie lass, An’ a lass I lov’d richt weel, O.
"The mill,
mill, O, an’ the kill, kill, 0, An’ the coggin’ o’ Peggy’s
wheel, O-
The seek an’ the
sieve, an’ a’ she did leave, An’ danced the miller’s reel, O."
Near to the Mill,
on the old Mill Road to the Castle, are the Established Church, a
hotel, several shops, a large new public school, in the Gothic style;
and the Royal Bank, of Grecian order. The Castle spreads
over the east brow of the Castle Knowe, and contains about 20
shops; a post office, with money order and savings bank departments; the
Castle Inn, and-on the top of the knowe - a Free Church, and the
ruin of the first church of the parish, erected in 1650, standing
in its richly monumented old Churchyard. The ancient castle from which
this, the oldest part of the town, derives its name, has all vanished.
About 1780 the hewn stones of its walls were removed to build
dwelling houses, and some of them may be traced in the property once
belonging to John
Burnside;
and rebuilt with the same stones by Samuel
Gibson. Oral tradition, or perhaps
only the sound of the name, connects it with Comyn,
Lord of Galloway, whose title to
the throne of Scotland was disputed by
Bruce, Earl of Carrick. If it
signifies Comyn Neck, that is Comyn Castle, it might be
built by John Comyn, Justiciar of
Galloway, during the minority of Alexander
III., about 1250. Records
may still exist, though we have been unable to find them. It is likely,
however, that they would be destroyed when the Castle and lands passed
by violence to Dunbar,
at first a competitor for the crown, and a strong enemy of Wallace
and the family of Comyn.
But supposing the name to be more remote, and of Celtic origin, it will
signify - Cum, a glen, and Knock, a castle. Cumlock,
or Cum Loch, is a name of the place which has descended by oral
tradition side by side with the written name of Cumnock. There
are now three small lochs some distance to the west of the Castle. But
in wet weather almost the whole plain assumes the character of a loch,
nearly surrounding the Castle; and there are evidences, not admitting of
a doubt, -that before the wearing down of a trap dyke across the
The most favourably
distinguished member of the Dunbar
family, who for several centuries
continued to possess the lands and live in the Castle of Cumnock,
now called New Cumnock, was Gavin,
son of Sir James,
born here about 1460. In 1488 he was appointed Dean
of Moray; in 1503, Archdeacon of
St. Andrews, Clerk Register, and Privy Councillor to James
IV. ; and in 1518, Bishop of
Aberdeen, where he proved himself a most munificent benefactor by
completing the building of the Cathedral, erecting a bridge over the
Dee, and endowing an hospital. "De Ecclesi Aberdonensis," and
"Contora
Mansfield House
stands about a mile east of the town, in fine wooded policies, facing
the south. It is a seat of the
Menteith family. Sir
James Stuart Menteith, second
Baronet, born 1792, is the author of a geological work on the
Snowdon range. Died here in 1870.
David Wood,
poet, a native of the parish, published, about the year 1830, a small
volume of poems in the local dialect.
THE VILLAGE OF
CONNAL PARK is built near Connal Burn, one mile south-west of
Old Mill. Population, 495.
South Boig Old
Steading, close by, on the left side of Connal Burn,
consisting of a one-story dwelling-house, milk house, and byre, in a
line facing the south, with old trees at the back, is the birthplace of A.
C. M‘Michael, poet and
essayist.
The seat of Ardnith
stands a little to the west, on the east side of the wooded Tippet
Knowe.
CRAIGBANK VILLAGE,
one mile farther on the same Dalmellington Road, has a Free
Church, a public school, and two or three shops. Bank House is near it,
on the left.
The hamlet of DALLEAGLES,
on the same road, four miles from New Cumnock, is pleasantly
situate at Dalleagles Burn Bridge. It has a public school, a
provision shop, a joiner’s shop, and a smithy. From this name it is
believed that a church had been erected here by some French people at a
very early date. The name of Marshalmark, a farmhouse near it,
leads to the supposition that the eglise was a temporary
building for the use of an army sent by Philip
of France to assist King
John Baliol, Lord
of Galloway, or the patriot Sir
William Wallace of Black Craig,
New Cumnock.
On the north side of
the parish, about three miles north of Dalleagles, is the lofty
moorland wild of Corsgailoch, on which there stands a monument to
the martyrs - Joseph Wilson, John
Humphrey, and John
Jamieson-who were hunted down and
shot here in 1685. The soldiers left them unburied on the moor;
but one of the four who were hunted, having escaped, gave information to
their friends in Galloway, who came and buried them on the spot
where they fell. The monument was erected in 1838. In
excavating its foundation, the bodies of the martyrs were discovered
lying in the moss, in the clothes in which they had been shot; and,
though they had been buried 153 years, their flesh was still in good
preservation. In a field on the farm of Lower Westland, at the foot of
the Knipe Hills, three miles east of New Cumnock, stands a
monument to the memory of the martyrs,
Hair and Corson,
who were shot here. On the north side of the Nith from the
Knipes, rises the much more striking and beautiful Corsancone
Hill. The River Nith, the Scotch Helicon, rises
in the south-west of the parish, flows, first north and then eastward,
to the March with Dumfriesshire, just past Corsancone, three and
a half miles east of the town, and 12 miles from its source. From there
it gradually bends to south-east in its course through Dumfriesshire to
the Solway Frith, its entire length being about 53 miles. The Loops o’
Nith, before passing Corsancone, are of singular beauty, but
of small extent compared to the sinuosities of the Forth. A small, round
cloud of mist has now settled on the top of Parnassus, and an old rhyme
says-
"When
Corsancone puts on his hat, You may be sure it will be wat."
Afton Water
rises in the south, among mountains, at the march with Kirkcudbrightshire.
" There, from
the misty heights afar, Sweet Afton murmurs down the glen,
By many a wood and
many scaur-, Until it bursts upon the plain "
at New Cumnock,
eight miles distant. Its upper course is gentle, through an open
moorland valley, past Mounthraw Burn and Shepherd’s House,
to Castle William Falls, one mile and a half. Castle William
is a protuberance of loose rocks, resembling the ruins of a castle, but
not presenting anything in the shape of walls or mortar. How it got the
name of William no one really knows, there being no record; but oral
tradition says it was a residence of Sir
William Wallace or some of his
guards when, during his Protectorate, the head-quarters of his
Government was Black Craig.
For another mile and a half below this, the Afton descends
rapidly among boulders between rocky banks, mostly covered with bent and
sprit, to Craigdarroch and the Craigs Shepherds’ Houses,
in the bottom of a vast glen, where it is joined by the Craigs Burn,
also from the south. In the fork between it and the Craigs Burn
is the Stey-Amoury Hill or Craig, rising (part of it sheer
perpendicular) to a great height- its apparently overhanging, black,
frowning face looking down the glen, daring the stranger to go near it.
The name of this hill, we think, shows plainly that it was here where Wallace
had his Armoury. A mile farther
down the Afton, at the mouth of this great cleft, is the
Shepherd’s House of Black Craig, supposed to occupy the site of Wallace’s
dwelling of "Black Craig;" but it seems too far
from the Armoury, and would be the proper place to have guards
stationed, if his own residence was at the Craigs Shepherd’s House,
immediately below the Armoury Craig, and within the fork. As Henry
the Minstrel calls Wallace’s
place the "Black Rock," as well as the "Black
Crag," the description applies exactly to the Armoury Craig,
and not to Black Craig Hill, which is a mountain of
prodigious size, rising on the east side of the Afton and the
Craigs Burn to a height of 2298 feet. Though there is hardly any
vegetation on its Afton front, it aspect is blue-gray, and it appears to
have acquired the name of Black Craig by thousands of people at a
great distance, who never were up the glen, mistaking it for its famous
little black sister, the Stey-Armoury, shut in from view between
it and Craigdarroch Hill. Henry
says that, in 1297, Wallace
" To ye Black
Crag in Cumno past agayne. Hys
househald set with men off mekill mayne.
Thre monethis thar
he duellyt in gud rest."
And again- " In
Cumno syne till hys duellyng went he."
And at a later date,
apparently after the hero’s return from France, he says-
" And Wallace
past in Cumno with blithe will, At the Black Rock, quhar he was wont to
be. Apon that sted a rayal
hous held he."
This appears to have
been the only home which the national hero ever bad of his own; and, of
all the scenes in the Land of Wallace, this, his head-quarters,
is far the most romantic. As there is no evidence to the contrary, we
must take it for granted that most of his seven years of comparative
obscurity, from July 22, 1298 - when he retired from the position he had
won as Commander-in-Chief and Guardian of the kingdom, in favour of Comyn,
whose place it was by inheritance rather than fitness - until August,
1305, when he was betrayed into the hands of Edward,
and executed, were spent here, with the exception of a visit which he
made to Philip, King of France,
in 1303. Near to the Craigs, some 40 gold
coins and upwards of 140 silver coins, of
James V., were laid bare by a
shepherd’s foot, March 1882 But we must hasten down this
classic stream through another of its famous scenes. Northward of Black
Craig Hill, on each side of the glen the hills spread out wider and
less steep. We pass at intervals five "clear winding rills,"
and enter planted and natural woods - fir - trees, rowantrees, hazels,
hawthorns, sloethorns, birks, bramble-berry bushes, briers and other
coppice-wood, primroses and mayflowers-clover-scented banks and green
valley holms, and join the concert of shilfowls, blackbirds, doves, and
mavises, that all seem to sing the same song in their own tongue:-
" How lofty,
sweet Afton, thy neighbouring, hills, Far mark‘d with the courses of
clear winding rills : There daily I wonder as noon rises high, My flocks
and my Mary’s sweet cot in my eye.
" How pleasant
thy banks and green valleys below, where wild in the woodlands the
primroses blow : There oft as mild evening sweeps over the lea, The
sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
" Flow gently,
sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, sweet river, the theme
of my lays ; ‘My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently,
sweet Afton, disturb not her dream."
On emerging from a
mile of woods, we are soon at the Park Ford of the ancient Dumfries
Road, made by the Romans in their fruitless attempt to conquer
Scotland. Here is a scaur showing the crop of a coal seam. New
Cumnock contains a large and rich coal basin. As a field for the
geological student it is exceptionally instructive, as almost every coal
seam to be met with in Scotland is here represented; and their aggregate
thickness appears to be upwards of 80 feet. Those belonging to the lower
section, and having an aggregate of about 36 feet in thickness,
extending over a very small area, have been mostly worked out, as also
some of the finer seams in the upper section. But there is still a great
store of splendid coal. Limestone, with and without fossil remains, is
abundant. Ironstone, lead, and antimony have been worked on a small
scale. Freestone is quarried at Coalburn and other places, and a fine
potter’s clay is got at Bentstone. The surface, where suitable
has been cultivated with great energy by a big and hardy race. Farming
is on the dairy system, and the females are widely famed as cheese
makers. The parish is about 12 miles in length, and from the head of
Cameron Syke south to the head of Afton Water its breadth
is 10 miles. The farmhouse of Brockloch is near its centre. Area,
48,O96 acres. Population in 1755, 1497; in 1871, 3434; in 1881, 3781.
"Flow gently,
sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream..........."
Back
to the Fields is a rich and thought provoking journey through the history of a
small and seemingly insignificant mining town called New Cumnock in Ayrshire,
South West Scotland. It is commonly thought of as a place you drive through to
get to somewhere more important. However, using a variety of local archive
material and personal accounts of the long and varied history of the town, we
hope to show that even in the most unlikely of places there are heart-felt,
emotional and fascinating stories to be told.
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