Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

AYRSHIRE
AYRSHIRE
pleted in 1S73, starts from the Glasgow and Neilston
Branch of the Caledonian system at Crofthead on the
southern border of Renfrewshire, sends off a branch to
Beith, and goes by way of Stewarton to Kilmarnock.
(See Wm. M'llraith's History of the Glasgow and South-
western Railway, Glas. 1880.) — The head seaports of
Ayrshire are Ayr, Troon, and Ardrossan ; and the other
chief harbours are Ballantrae, Girvan, Irvine, Saltcoats,
and Largs.
The royal burghs are Ayr and Irvine ; a parliamentary
burgh is Kilmarnock ; police burghs are Ardrossan, Cum-
nock, Galston, and Stewarton ; other towns are Beith,
Catrine, Dairy, Girvan, Hurlford, Kilbirnie, Kilwin-
ning, Largs, Maybole, Muirkirk, Newmilns, Saltcoats,
Stevenston, Troon, Annbank, Auchinleck, Bankhead,
Dalmellington, Darvel, Eglinton - Works, Kilmaurs,
Lugar, Mauehline, Tarbolton, Waterside, and West Kil-
bride ; and the principal villages are Afton-Bridgend,
Alnwick-Lodge, Ballantrae, Barrmill, Bensley, Castle,
Colmonell, Common-Dyke, Connel Park, Craigbank,
Craigmark, Cronberry, Crosshill, Crosshouse, Dailly,Dal-
rymple, Den, Dernconner, Doura, Drakemuir, Dreghorn,
Dunlop, Elderslie, Fardlehill, Fairlie, Fenwick, Fergus-
hill, Gaswater, Gateside, Glenbnck, Glengarnock, Kirk-
michael, Kirkoswald, Langbar, Monkton, New Prestwick,
Ochiltree, Overton, Pathhead, Patna, Prestwick, Riddens,
Skelmorlie, Sorn, Southfield, Symington, Whitletts, New
Cumnock, and Straiton. Some of the principal mansions
are Culzean Castle, Dumfries House, Fullarton House, Eg-
linton Castle, Loudoun Castle, Kelburne House, Brisbane
House, Auchinleck House, Killochan Castle, Kilkerran,
Blairquhan Castle, Dalquharran Castle, Bargany, Ber-
beth, Enterkine, Barskimming, Sundrum, Auchencruive,
Balloehmyle, Craufurdland, Logan House, Fairlie House,
Cambusdoon, Shewalton, Lanfine, Craigie, Auchen-
drane, Rozelle, Pinmore, Glenapp, Sorn Castle, Milrig,
Auchans, Caldwell, Blanefield, Corsehill, Auehenames,
Knock Castle, Auchenharvie, Treesbank, Gadgirth, New-
field, Cairnhill, Rowallan Castle, Doonholm, Bourtree
Hill, Glenmore House, Mansfield House, Knoekdolian,
and Swinlees. According to Miscellaneous Statistics of
the United Kingdom (1879) 721,947 acres, with total
gross estimated rental of £1,121,252, were divided among
9376 landowners ; one holding 76,015 acres (rental,
£35,839), sis together 175,774 (£182,405), nine 134,543
(£89,326), seven 52,592 (£27,729), thirty-nine 116,543
(£126,786), forty-seven 68,573 (£205,299), fifty 34,879
(£55,224), two hundred and two 42,921 (£89,322), one
hundred and forty-one 9925 (£23,452), two hundred and
fifty-two 5818 (£31,084), five hundred and sixty-nine
1916 (£51,748), and eight thousand and fifty 2251 acres
(£202,731).
The county is governed (1S81) by a lord-lieutenant, a
vice-lieutenant, 4S deputy-lieutenants, a sheriff, 2 sheriff-
substitutes, and 288 magistrates ; and is divided, for
administration, into the two districts of Ayr and Kil-
marnock. The sheriff court for the Ayr district is held
at Ayr on every Tuesday and Thursday during session ;
the commissary court, on every Thursday ; the sheriff
small debt court, on every Thursday ; the justice of
peace court, on every Monday ; the quarter sessions, on
the first Tuesday of March, the fourth Tuesday of May,
the first Tuesday of August, and the third Tuesday of
November. The sheriff court for the Kilmarnock "dis-
trict is held at Kilmarnock on every Wednesday and
Thursday during session ; the sheriff small debt court,
on every Thursday ; the justice of peace court, on every
alternate Monday. Sheriff small debt courts are held
also at Irvine in every alternate month, at Beith and
Cumnock four times a year, and at Girvan three times
a year. The police force, in 1880, exclusive of that in
Ayr and Kilmarnock, comprised 120 men, and the salary
of the chief constable was £400. The number of persons,
in 1879, exclusive of those in Ayr and Kilmarnock, tried
at the instance of the police, was 1106; convicted, 104S;
committed for trial, 31 ; and charged but not dealt with,
238. The prison is at Ayr, Kilmarnock having been dis-
continued in 1880. The committals for crime, in the
annual average of 1836-40, were 71 ; of 1841-45, 118 ; of
1846-50, 178 ; of 1851-55, 125 ; of 1S56-60, 105 ; of 1861-
65, 100 ; of 1864-68, 94 ; of 1869-73, 83 ; of 1870-74, 76 ;
of 1875-79, 93. The annual value of real property, in 1815,
was £409,983 ; in 1843, £520,828 ; in 1865, £876,438 ;
in 1881, £1,257,881, 14s. 3d., of which £113,819 was for
railways. The amount for lands and messuages, in the
last of these years, comprised £381, 740 in Kyle, £388,150
in Cunninghame, and £176,261 in Carrick. The county,
exclusive of its three burghs, sent one member to parlia-
ment prior to the Reform Act of 1867 ; but it was divided
by that into two sections, north and south ; and it now
sends one member from each of the two sections. The
constituency in 1S81 of the northern section was 3711 ;
of the southern, 3920. Pop. (1801) 84,207, (1811)
103,839, (1821) 127,299, (1831) 145,055, (1841) 164,356,
(1851) 189,858, (1S61) 198,971, (1871) 200,809, (1881)
217,504, of whom 106,724 were males and 110,780 females.
Houses inhabited (1881) 40,789; vacant, 3654; building,
260.
The registration county takes in part of West Kilbride
parish from Buteshire, and parts of Beith and Dunlop
from Renfrewshire ; comprises 46 entire parishes ; and
had, in 1SS1, a population of 217,615. Forty -four of the
parishes are assessed, and two unassessed, for the poor ;
and 35 of them, in three combinations of 13, 16, and 6,
have poorhonses at respectively Ayr, Kilmarnock, and
Maybole. The number of the registered poor, in the
year ending 14 May 1SS0, was 4760 ; of dependants on
these, 3682 ; of casual poor, 2781 ; of dependants on
these, 2905. The receipts for the poor in that year
were £50,712, 10s. ; the expenditure was £47,424,
9s. 2Jd. The number of pauper lunatics was 475 ; and
the expenditure on their account was £8613, 15s. 6d.
The percentage of illegitimate births was 8 '5 in 1872,
7'1 in 1878, and 77 in 1S79.
Excepting Ballantrae, Colmonell, and Glenapp, in
the presbytery of Stranraer and synod of Galloway, and
Largs, in the presbytery of Greenock, all the parishes of
Ayrshire are in the presbyteries of Aye. and Divine and
synod of Glasgow and Ayr. In 1879 the county had
123 public schools (accommodation, 27,789), 32 non-
public but State-aided schools (7037), 20 other efficient
elementary schools (1816), and 2 higher-class public
schools (1070) — in all, 177 schools, with accommodation
for only 37,712 children, the number of children of
school age being estimated (1878) at 38,607.
The ! territory now forming Ayrshire was in the 2d
century a.d. the southern part of the region of the
Damnonii, one of whose towns, 'Vandogara,' is placed
by Skene ' on the river Irvine, at Loudon Hill, where
there are the remains of a Roman camp, afterwards con-
nected with " Coria " or Carstairs by a Roman road. '
Two battles are said to have been fought, in early times,
in the SW of Kyle, the one between some native tribes
and the Romans, the other between two confederacies
of states of the natives themselves ; but both battles, as
to at once their date, their scene, the parties engaged,
and the results, are so obscure as scarcely to be matters
of history. Even the ancient inhabitants, as to who
they were, whether descendants of the Damnonii or
immigrants from the regions of some other tribes, from
the establishing of the Roman domination onward
through many centuries, cannot be historically identified.
They seem, on the whole, from such evidence as exists,
to have been in some way or other, more purely Celtic
than the inhabitants of most of the other low countries be-
tweeen the Grampians and the Tweed. Their descend-
ants, too, down to so late a period as the 16th century,
appear to have spoken the Gaelic language, or at least
to have understood it. The entire territory, after the
withdrawal of the Romans, became part of the kingdom
of Strathclyde or Cumbria ; but, in the 8th century,
Kyle and Cunninghame became subject to the kings of
Northumbria. The Saxons, under these kings, seem
to have taken a firm grasp of the country, to have re-
volutionised its customs, and to have indoctrinated it
with love of Saxon usages ; and they have left in it
numerous traces of their presence and power. Alpin,
King of the Scoto-Irish, invaded the territory in the
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