SUMMER 2017

After a very long period of no additions, inspiration was gathered from an old scrap book which was in the possession of the late Dr Rawson of Mauchline. Thank's to his daughter Jennifer Alexander, and Jimmy Davidson, the scrap book which seems to have been compiled by the Rev Wilson Baird is now digitised and available as a pdf file, of around 114 meg.

Added a page and scrap book compiled by Wilson Baird, minister at Mauchline for over 40 years.

 

=====================================

 

APRIL 2014

Added a pdf of the layout of the grave stones in Sorn old cemetery, source, may have been the local council of the day, publication date unknown.

SORN OLD CEMETERY GRAVE LAYOUT

 

JANUARY 2014

Added some photographs taken on Troon Beach on 26th January of the filth and litter that is kicking around the so called award winning shore, as well as littering in land near Mauchline.

====================================================

SEPTEMBER 2013

Added a PDF file of part of the Mauchline Parish Church session book from the time of Burns. (34,378k).

 

JUNE 2013

NWEMILNS:- Added an interesting image of Newmilns High Street, bought recently from a postcard dealer as unidentified, and added a page for Brown Street.

GALSTON: - Added images from Wallace Street, Cessnock Lodge, Sornhill, and Haystack Day. A few more to come.

Added about 1.4 gigs worth of raw scans of old Muirkirk Advertisers. These are temporary until time can be made available to create the permanent pdf files of the ADVERTISERS. The raw scans may be of interest to Muirkirk historians in the mean time. Scans uploaded so far are the Christmas editions, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, issue 02 - 17 from 1907, and the complete year of 1917. Whatever the initial interest last year when the Dec 1917 issue was uploaded, it had literally thousands of hits. During tests at city broadband speed, the 500mB files downloaded in minutes.

Updated the local aircraft crash sites to include a WW2 Spitfire which came down near Auchmillan Hill / Sawerston in 1942. Investigation by Jimmy Davidson.

Added a pdf of MAUCHLINE AND CATRINE NEWS, and the CUMNOCK EXPRESS, courtesy of Maureen Leggat. The links are added to the reference section

Added a section from the newsletter of The Atlanta Burns Club re The Poet and the President, compiled by Jimmy Davidson.

Added the mauchline_war_memorial link to the main Mauchline index. An oversight in my part, as this article has been written and on line for some time, but lost in the updates page as the only link. Also added 3 images of WW1 soldiers to the page.

 

MARCH 2013

Added three months worth of Muirkirk Advertisers from OCTOBER, NOVEMBER and December 1916. As in the past, the weekly four page newspaper is set in monthly pdf files. I have tried these in Mauchline, which would probably not qualify as city broadband speed, and download was within a few minutes. I can't recall exactly, but it was minimal. In Sorn, speed is very different, but there is no point in creating these files for the slowest connections, only to have to go back and reload decent res versions at a later date.

There has been no visible additions to this site for some months, but work is regularly being done in the background, in the shape of scanning work. The old Advertisers for example are now all scanned up to 1946. The paper was started in 1907 as a weekly, therefore more or less 40 years worth has already been scanned!! Not a bad years work. A number of other contributions have been made recently which will eventually find their way on line.

====================================================

NOVEMBER 2012

Added a few more Muirkirk Advertisers from 1926 and 1940, as I said before, added at random.

Added a story written by Jimmy Davidson about a plane crash in 1948.

 

OCTOBER 2012

Added a few more Muirkirk Advertisers from random dates. 1941 (January / February) and 1916 (June), 1915 (Jan & Dec).

Added a page with pdf articles relating to the Gibson's from Poosie Nansie's, supplied by their Australian decendents.

Added an article edited by Jimmy Davidson about the Mauchline Boxworks of W & A Smith.

Added an article and some photos by Jimmy Davidson about the Ballochmyle Quarries.

Added a menu item, and an index for the forth coming Muirkirk Advertisers, and added a few files as a start to a mamouth project.

Added menu items for Mauchline Traders, and added William Baird and Pearson's. There are more Mauchline traders pages to be added thanks to some old bill heads obtained recently.

 

SEPTEMBER 2012

Added a feature on the relaunch of the dining area in Poosie Nansie's, Mauchline. (NB April 2013, Kitchen closed)

 

AUGUST 2012

Added a few extra Butterfly photos here, including a rarer COMA butterfly sighting in Sorn.

 

July 2012

Added a page of photos taken on 5th July during a thunderstorm, and after the rain.

Still busy scanning our way through the back archives of the Muirkirk Advertisers. I imagine that developments on line will happen quite soon, with regards getting the collection on line and in the public domain.

 

April 2012

Added a few paragraphs and a pdf about George McMurdo's book of poetry. George issed two editions. An Ardrossan edition and a Kilmarnock edition!! Click for more details.

Added a PDF of a Strathclyde Regiona Council circular from the early 1980's about nuclear war in Strathclyde. I wonder how much this scaremongering cost the tax payer!! This is about 30 meg, to preserve quality of the faded print.

Added a 6,166k PDF of this year's Mauchline Holy Fair digital slideshow advertising poster.

Added a 6,903k PDF of "Mauchline Pays Tribute To Burns" from the Daily Sketch from 1898.
This allows us to date this little book and the images within to 1898 as well. pdf/mauchline_in_pictures_unid_book.pdf

Also added an article about Cycling in the Land of Burns from Cycling World October 26th 1896.

 

October 2011

Added e-book with Muirkirk connections, The Ha' to Wanganella. This is the memoirs of former Muirkirk resident, John Ferguson, who moved to Australia in the 1950's.

Added a couple of postcards of Auld Killie, found on ebay recently of Duke Street and Portland Street

It has been a busy couple of weeks, preparing Jame's Taylors latest production, CAIRNTABLE RECOLLECTIONS for on line publication. The book is now available here as a pdf download. If this is anything like as popular as the last book, it will break the servers back!! Well maybe not quite, but it really is amazing month after month, the downloads from this site. Cairntable Echos by far outnumbers anything else on this web site with the monthly hits.

 

September 2011

Added a Dick's Garage billhead to the Kilmarnock pages. Duke Street and Traders.

Added an old page found recently from a "foxhunt" that Mauchline CB Club held. This may have been around 1982 or 1983ish. Try as I might, I can't seem to find the roads this took.

Added a pdf of Mauchline being featured in the well known publication, THE DANDY!! Click to view.

Added a couple of images to Ayr home page

Added an image of Darvel from my own collection

Added some images of Galston from my own collection. (Burnhouse Raw - Cessnock Road, The Muckle Brig, and Loudoun Castle)

Added a page for poetry relating to Galston, starting with "THE CLI MINE", AND "SWEET BOGHA'"

Added some images of Newmilns from my own collection, and a dozen from the collection of Isobel Marshal. Also added some photos of the interior of the Covenantor's in Newmilns, courtesy of David Simm. Some old tickets are included, including "Its a Secret" disco. It's a Secret had many disco's in the area in the late 70's early 1980's.

Created a fairly major update of Kilmarnock images, using the cards I have recently been collecting from ebay and postcard fairs. Split up some of the street views into PORTLAND STREET, KILMARNOCK CROSS, DUKE STREET, KING STREET. There will probably be more to come as more images come to hand. A few images have been added to the Parks page as well. A card of Bellfield House is also added.

Added a page to act as an index to Mining in Ayrshire. This is not the specialist subject of the writer, but many articles have come up recently to make it worthy of reproducing them here. Recently added an article from COAL, the NCB magazine about the disaster at Knockshinnoch, New Cumnock.

Added 3 interesting cards from the Burns National Memorial Tower, with two unidentified distinguished looking chaps. If anyone has any idea about vintage cars, maybe they can tell us what date / type of vehicle the fellows have.

UPDATE: We have removed Jimmy's "Carntable Recollections" book for now, whilst an additional proof read is made. We were a little premature in uploading. The completed works will be available probably withing the week. Don't worry, it is in hand.

Added large image of Loudoun Street during Millennium Celebrations with Fred Dibnah's steam engine, courtesy of Jimmy Davidson.

Added some interesting text about the Wilson, Davidson and Amphlet companies of Mauchline which is courtesy of Alex Wilson, Mauchlineware expert. This can be read below the Smith's article.

Added a page for Mauchline War Memorial at the Catrine Roadend, which includes lists of the names of the fallen. Images have been added to the war memorial page.

Added a photo of a Peuter Jug from Mauchline Free Kirk which came in via e mail from Hillary Bagshaw in Portsmouth.

Added a tribute to "Uncle Alex" from Jimmy Davidson, and a mining badge.

Added Jimmy Taylor's latest book in pdf format. CAIRNTABLE RECOLLECTIONS is a 379 page pdf (approx 15mB).
(To save to your PC, "right click" and "save target as" or "save link as" etc. Remember to install Adobe Acrobat Reader)

The above is a great companion set to go with Jimmy's Cairntable Echos book which has been available on line here for some years, and still achieves a great number of downloads per month. According to the stats, some almost 6000 in the first two weeks in September alone!! We would be most interested to hear how the pdf looks in the "KINDLE" readers.....

 

June 2011

Added some youtube videos and embeded them into the John McAtee page, to help Big Joke & co promote their Jolly Beggar's Cantata DVD.

Added some different images of the FOGHOUSE, in Ballochmyle Estate.

Added an image on the Coogate page that shows a bust high above the street. It is only the second image that we have come across that shows this. Can anyone explain the following. Is it Burns or Jean, as it's not quite clear enough to be sure, and where is it now??

Added a pdf book from Mary Imrie of Failford. This is an unid book, with no cover, or company name on it. Shots are from Mauchline area. There is an interesting one of the Coogate, where the bust on the roof is to be seen

Added a couple of images on the Howford Bridge page.

Working a little at the Poosie Nansie's postcards page. Some peculiarities noticed.

Added a page about John McAtee, and The Jolly Beggar's Cantata.

Added a few images of Nance Tinnock' s, Mauchline, and the Whitefoord Arms, Mauchline.

Added some new images and included higher res images on the page for Mauchline Road, Catrine

Made new pages for Mauchline:

Millennium Celebrations / Fred Dibnah / Loudoun Spoot day.

Plaques around Mauchline (Old and new)

Mauchline Holy Fair 2011

 

Continue to work on the on line hi res "slideshow" of Mauchline

Updating the page for commercial postcard reference numbers

Been tidying up the Mauchline on line slideshow ((high res images) and including text where appropriate. A lot more work to do on these pages yet though.

Tidied up the Mauchline Poosie Nansie's pages, and added a number of images, and a couple of extra pages, including KKK images (Kitchen Kronies Klub). Added some images of the photos from the wall that have disappeared.

Added a page for Ayr, to make use of some old images lying in the ayrshirehistory.com archives.

Upgraded the pop up menu a bit. Under Other, there is a list of other areas which were hidden in the site index etc. At least they are out amongst the other links in the main menu structure now. (Parent / Child menu to give it the correct title).

 

April 2011

Added a page with press cuttings about the 1966 flood, after a discussion in the Black Bull in Mauchline suggested another date!!

Not a lot of work done on this site recently. Been busy at other projects.

New page added for a collection of Sweetie Papers / Confectionary Wrappers / Crisp Pokes call them what you like, from the 1970's. These have been scanned from an old scrap book, recently unearthed. There is quite a bit more to add to this part of the archive.
Click here for a trip down memory lane.

Added a few extra images of Failford Village

February 2011

Added a page for unidentified buildings and other little nick nacks. Started the page rolling with an unidentified building with a Walter Wood Harvesting machine sign. This goes nicely with a badge supplied by Joe Rae.

Joe also supplied a photo of an Auchenclough Rural trip.

Added a page with photos from February 1984 blizzard that came through Sorn on a Saturday night.

 

January 2011

Added a load of Winter photographs connected to the River Ayr, and created a RIVER AYR home page / index page. This is in OTHER in the POP UP MENU at the top of most significant pages.

 

January 2011

Added a video, 77 mB or there abouts of the ice on the River Ayr breaking up on 10th December 2010. Apologies for the camera work, as the video camera was only one camera being worked at the time!!!!

 

December 2010

Added spectacular views of the River Ayr just outside Ayr at the Stepping Stones. These amazing images were taken on 30th December, after seeing some national press coverage. A video of Ice breaking up will be added early in the New Year, but as this is being added on Hogmanay, there will be nothing else done to the site until next year!!!

 

September 2010

Added a pdf of a McArvail book of Mauchline views.

Altered some text in connection to a Sorn Castle gardener, named wrongly in the Sorn drama page. Tnx to Rab Borland for the corrections.

Also added a name to an unid face in Sorn Village Hall opening day.

NB: Please report inaccuracies, typos, unid faces not named, broken links etc. Or send your own memories and knowledge. Click the contact button.

Added a couple of Kilmarnock street view postcards.

Added a better scan of Kemp's Hoose, by Barskimming Bridge, Mauchline. This was scanned from the original photo this time by Alexa Pirrie. The page the photo is on comes under Baskimming Bridge and Kemp's House.

Started higher res images project. Full res images should be at least 1280 pixels wide in future. File sizes will be a little larger, but hey, most folks have broadband nowadays. The image of St Germain Street, Catrine was one of many requiring an update.

Added another few photos on the Sorn Civil War page

Added a page with photos of Mauchline Cross closed completely for roadworks, August 2010.

Added an old bit of Currie's of Auchinleck sticky tape!!

Added an interesting article from the 1977 Burns Chronicle on Mauchlineware by Buist.

Added a photo of Sorn Castle Sawmill, not long before it was demolished.

Added a photo of Muirkirk Cricket Club from a 1913 postcard.

Added Sorn Village boundary photo, with old SORN sign at Woodlea.

Added a couple of horse photos to the Sorn People in Military Uniform inc "Sanny Fae The Sorn".

Added a good quality image of a slab of fossil from River Ayr.

Added matchbox from Wee Train Inn, Galston.

Rescanned matchbox from The Greyhound Inn, Sorn.

Began update and text additions to the Mauchline hi res slide show. Time required to work through this.

Added a newspaper cutting and poster on the Mauchline Ware page.

Added a photo that was on another page of Damhead, Sorn.

Added views of Kilmarnock from Glencairn Square, and of Kilmarnock's King Street.

Added a high res image of the view of Sorn from the 1980's from the TV tower (1st image onm page).

Added a page of Transport in Sorn. Thinking on other items to add, after the Loudoun Gypsy timetable.

Added a 1.3 meg pdf of a few pages of Holly House sale in Montrose. Mr Somervell formerly of Sorn was the former owner, and a bit of his family history is published here.

Added a few photos on the Sorn Inn pages, and started to try and make a list of previous landlords.

Added a few photos on the Greyhound Inn, Sorn pages and started to try and make a list of previous landlords. Tidied the page up a little, and added a couple of hand coloured images to the page, and a photo of Findlay, the owners in the 1960's.

Added a set of photos of the final days of the Greyhound, Sorn before renovation in 1992.

Added a page for the Sorn Civil War battles that took place in Kilknowe field in 1985 and 1986.

Added pdf of the tourist board booklet for the 1986 Sorn battle (4.6 meg)

Added a PDF of various scribbles and poetry discovered about Sorn (7.3 meg)

 

August 2010

Added PDF of the brochure issed on the day of the opening of the Loudoun Spout, June 2000

Added some images from Mauchline's late Ham Radio operator, Dave Tannock, GM2BUD.

Added an image of "Kemp's Hoose", by Barskimming Auld Brig, emailed by Alexa Pirrie recently.

Added a pdf of Stroma Hamilton-Campbell's speech at the Loudoun Spoot day, which was a short history of Netherplace.

Added a pdf of part of a wartime autograph book from Ballochmyle Hospital which was owned by nurse Esther McCall, and supplied by Eileen Quinn from Killie. The complete book was not scanned, only a sample of the entries, and from memory, most of the very artistic entries. The scans have been kicking around the PC for about 10 years!!

Added a pdf of the chapters associated with Mauchline from RAMBLES THROUGH THE LAND OF BURNS by Archie Adamson 1879.

Added Interview Miss Hyslop, Mauchline teacher - 1971. Thanks to Bob Ramsay for the original article created by Lyall / Strawhorn / Glennie. Again this has been in the archives here for a number of years. (13M pdf)

Added a pdf of page of a book published by HISTORIC SCOTLAND by so called experts and writers, claiming Burns died in Mauchline!!!!

 

July 2010

Added the pdf book, BURNS AT MOSSGIEL by WILLIAM JOLLY - 1881. Thanks to John Chalmers for the loan of the original book

Added a few Mauchline articles taken from the pages of old Burn's Chronicles. Incidentally, I was told verbally by the current editor some years back that it was OK to use material from these publications, so long as the source is quoted etc. Google have also reproduced old issues in their archives, and allow non commercial "fair use".

Burns Chronicle 1892, Issue 1 - A Brief Summary of the Life of Burns (627k .pdf)

Burns Chronicle 1893, Issue 2 - Mauchline Topography - Robertson (1,226k .pdf)

Burns Chronicle 1896, Issue 5 - More Mauchline Topography - John Taylor Gibb (960k .pdf)

Burns Chronicle 1897, Issue 6 - Laying of Foundation Stone at Mauchline Tower (1,352k .pdf)

Burns Chronicle 1898, Issue 7 - Mauchline Kirkyard - John Taylor Gibb (7.953k .pdf)

Burns Chronicle 1899, Issue 8 - Opening of National Burns Memorial, Mauchline (1,566k .pdf)

Burns Chronicle 1912, Issue 21 - Review of Gibb's Mauchline Town & District (202k .pdf)

Burns Chronicle 1919, Issue 28 - Mauchline in Burn's Time - John Taylor Gibb (543k .pdf)

Also added the Mauchline pages of the Hundredth Ann of Burns, 1859 from Ballantyne. This describes the great celebrations in the village at that time.

All these articles and other related Mauchline pdf material can be accessed using this link

Added a PDF file of Ballochmyle Hospital Jubilee booklet, produced by Dr Rawson in 1990. I scanned this booklet courtesy of Andy Barnes back in 2002, and noticed that nothing had been done with it since!! Sometimes we are a little slow here!!

Added extensive shots of The Barony Lums being demolished

Added a PDF booklet of the contents of the Burns Tower in Mauchline, from 1962. Now it lies empty!! I noticed in May the old Clockie Broon clock seems to have been taken elsewhere now as well.

Added two letters from John Farquhar Gray of Gilmilnscroft, from August and September 1809.

Created a couple of pages for Auchinleck, Curries, and some street views.

Found a photo of Big Jim the Fruiter's old van in Sorn in the 1980's

 

 

June 2010

Updated the Sorn Traders page, after unearthing SAM ROBERTSON'S old billheads from the 1960's, and an old "Girdwood The Baker's" bag.

Created a page and added a letter about the closure of Sorn Police Station in 1970, and also some photos of John Black the Polis man.

Added a couple of photos in the Sorn Filling Station's page, supplied by Rosina Mabon and Muir Nisbet.

Added a page for Sorn Drama Group after flyers and photos appeared

Added a 1970's photo of the way into Sorn from the West in the Dalgain Mill page, sent by Jen Gibb of Winnipeg.

 

 

January 2010

Added a 64 meg video file of the River Ayr during the ice break up on January 15th. Unfortunately this happened at night, so the video clip is of night time quality, but still spectacular, and very Arctic like. This was only a few steps from the ayrshirehistory.com office!! It is a .mov file, and will play in VLC player or even the dreaded Quick Time, with all it's start up and pop up rubbish.

Added an obscure recording of an alarm system at Ballochmyle Hospital, original donor in the 1990's forgotten.
"I say, is that taken from viny old chap"

Added a collection of Netherplace photos from Stroma Leith, including a fantastic 1928 aerial shot of the house with Mauchline in the background.

Added some newspaper cuttings and family photos relating to Wayne Taylor in the Sorn air accident pages

 

December 2009

Added a page of views of Sorn from the South, 23rd December 2009 in the snow.

 

September 2009:

Added a 30 meg zip file and higher res scans of Baird Family Tree hand written sheets

Added tribute to Willie Lyle of Mauchline

Added a few photos of Loudounkirk, Galston after a visit to the site.

 

August 2009: (The most productive month for some years!!)

Added a page with bill heads of traders of Sorn.

Added a page for Sorn Bowling Club, which includes proposals at the planning stage in the mid 1970's.

Added a 650 megabyte avi file of a DVD produced in July 2009, called Mauchline at Work. (Right click, save target as etc) This is the same content as the DVD except for the DVD menu structure. This will play on many PC video players, including VLC player, which is one of the better pieces of software, and will play most common video formats. It is also free!! NB. The download will require a decent broadband connection for 650 megabytes. Let me know of any successful downloads. Thank you.

Added a couple of photos of the Dalespark Tavern / Ellerslie Inn in Kilmarnock, now gone.

Added a few more butterfly and moths on the ayrshirehistory.com wildlife page

Added a page with old golfing photos from Ballochmyle and Bogwood at Mauchline

Added graphic to the pdf of Sorn Parish History from 1898 by Helen Steven.

Added pdf of John Gall's Muses Behind The Plough book, from around the 1930's. This rare book had a couple of pages missing, which are filled in by poorer quality photostats, which for some reason seem to reproduce smaller, and have to be magnified. The original jpegs were all the same width as the photostats. Odd.

Separated comments and added new page about copyright and common decency.

Separated comments and added new page with a list of contributiors as best as can be found / remembered since starting this undertaking. Sorted out contributors into alphabetical order, a job which needed done for many a long year.

The ABOUT page becomes News from HQ, see site index. as well as the "Other" part of the pop up menu.

This site index will also include links to pages from other areas which are not available within the pop up menu system.

Added a few other images to the Darvel pages

Added a page for occasional wildlife photos from around Ayrshire, under OTHER/ SITE INDEX in the menu structure.

Added a page for tickets and flyers to the Catrine collections.

Changed the layout of the historical reference index page. It no longer has buttons for individual villages. The material is simply listed on one page for now. There are named anquors at the top of the page for each village, or for "general", where a book or article features more than one of the areas.

Added a 13,214k pdf of Catrine Scouts Booklet Beau Geste, from 1936.

Added a 7,642k pdf of a Catrine Sports Day, programme of events from 1931

Added a 4,101k pdf Catrine Bleachworks Benifit Society Rulebook from 1937

Added a 9,088k pdf of a Catrine Works Further Education Plan from 1947

Added a 4,879 pdf of Catrine Bonnie Jean Benevolent Ass constitution 1956

Added a 1,663k pdf leaflet concerning Catrine New Mill for sale.

Added an 18,009k pdf of Mauchline Scout Fete - 1939.

Added an 5,346k pdf of Mauchline Scout Fete - 1950.

Added an 8549k pdf of Mauchline Coronation Celebrations - 1953.

Added a 9,413k pdf of Mauchline Official Guide, c1953 courtesy of Bob Ramsay.

Added an 8.903 pdf of Mauchline Exhibition 1955 booklet, courtesy of Bob Ramsay.

Added a 20,548k pdf of Mauchline Exhibition 1959 booklet, courtesy of Rab Lawrence.

Added a 28,576k pdf of Mauchline Town and District by John Taylor Gibb on Historical reference page, (with three individual separate outside covers). This book has been on line for years, but now this easy to use pdf file should be beneficial. On the html version, the photos are linked to scans of the original negatives in many cases.

Added a 14,798k pdf of c1903 Guide to Mauchline, Catrine and Sorn. This is also available in html format, and a limited version retyped.

Added a few photos of Sorn in the 1980's when there was a pub in the village, and even a filling station. (At that time there would even have been two pubs!!) There were none of the moronic speed bumps which have been imposed on the villages in Ayrshire in recent times.

Added newspaper cutting about the Aircraft accident on the moors in 1956. Also added a new page with photos from recent times of hiking expeditions to the crash site.

Added a large number of photos and a movie from a boat trip to Ailsa Craig in August 2009. Not really a historic page, more current, but may prove interesting to anyone who fancies a boat trip. There are good shots of the former industrial past though in connection with Mauchline Curling Stone Works. Main link from the pop up menus will be in "Other" - "Site index / Other Items"

Added James Taylor's full book as a 9 meg .pdf file, Cairntable Echoes. This is after a long time when there was only a part of it available. This was due to Jimmy selling the printed version at the time. Now he has given permission to make the full book available in the public domain.

Added a couple of modern SORN CASTLE photos taken on a misty dusk

Added a load of old receipts to MAUCHLINE TRADERS

Added a couple of receipts to Sorn Brigen' pages

Added a couple of old receipts to Crosshands page

Added some old receipts to DARVEL TRADERS

Added some photos of what has always in living memory been known as Peden's Cave in the Cleugh Glen, Sorn. Also some photos of tourists visiting the site.

Added some poorish res images of Safeway at Glencairn Square, Kilmarnock and the old BMK building beside it from 2004.

Added an almost two hour recording of old John Orr from New Cumnock remembering life in a mining village, and the recue at Knockshinnoch. John gave this recording to me in 2001. (WARNING - 76 MEG).

Added some images of the Irish Coastline taken from Mauchline Hill Top in June 2009.

Added some tickets and memories from the Mauchline National Burns Memorial opening and foundation stone laying days, 1896 and 1898.

Added a curious pre 1928 touched up image of Mauchline War Memorial.

Added a couple of night view from Mauchline. Mauchline Parish Church at dusk, and Loudoun Street. Both can be seen on the Mauchline Parish Church page. Also added a couple of modern images to the same page.

Added a page with "Granny's" old recipe for pancakes and scones!!!

Added a few pages and images in the Kilmarnock section, as well as Galston and Newmilns.

A few newer images added in the Darvel street views page as well.

A couple of more modern images are added in Mauchline's Coogate page, when Curling Stone Place was being built.

Had some more foreign tourists passing through trying to find what has always been called Peden's Cave in the Sorn area. So high time I published a page of photos of the place in the Cleugh woods.

Uploaded a photo I have meant to put on line for years. The old bridge over the Burn O' Need in the woods between Brigen' and Sorn Mains, in that valley. It is to be seen at the bottom of the bridges of Sorn page.

---

July 2009:

Finally after a period of inactivity, I have again begun work on this archive. I was inspired by the reclaiming of ayrshirehistory.com domain name. I had to use ayrshirehistory.eu as a temporary measure since last year, when the former hosting company vanished, along with our and their own web sites. I have never found out why.

Since reclaiming the domain, I have gradually added pages for the Irvine Valley towns of Galston, Newmilns and Darvel. Loudoun Hill has a new page as does Kilmarnock, Auchinleck and Cumnock. These have been added due to the images I have in the archives here, some of which I have taken myself, some are from other sources. It seems a shame to have historical images kicking around on hard drives, when they could be shared and made public.

A page which had no links until now is Tarbolton. Willie Lyle's collection contained a few shots from that area.

I have spent some time and changed the navigation menu structure somewhat. I have also changed the blues to plain old black and white. Much easier on the eye I think.

---

July 2008:

After a long period of zero updates to this site, mainly due to time and enthusiasm, a minor update has been added. The BBC are filming some footage of Mauchline in connection with the 2009 250th anniversary of Burns. Local man Hughy Love can often be heard singing the Burns in the pubs. Added a few of his songs. The inspiration for this addition came from the interest from the folks at the beeb. They were especially interested in local folks still keeping up with tradition.

---

March 2007:

Added a new image of the box which is in The Burns House Museum, Mauchline, which houses the Ballochmyle Silver Quoit. This was at the request of the Mauchlineware Collectors Club. The photo we had up on line was before the box had been restored. Also added photos of a trophy presented to Mauchline Quoiting club by Marcus Bain JP, in 1895. The offer to display this in Mauchline's Burns House Museum was remarkably turned down by the council.

---

February 2007:

Added a form to contact ayrshirehistory.com after the amount of spam was increasing. Click the contact button to send a message. The old address was a little ropey for some considerable time, mail bouncing etc, but is now 100% again.

The new host set up in January 2007 has proved to be a great success. The site can be updated at any time. This was the main problem with the former host. Incredibly the site was limited to one update per month, with NO FTP facilities!!

The work on the links within the site is complete, and took quite a while to perform all the checks. Many old files had links with upper case in the names, eg castle.JPG. or Castle.jpg. This is fine in windows servers, but in a linux server, all files and links require to be lower case. Many files have also been changed to .html, instead of .htm. Although this was quite a task with such a large web site, the results are completely hidden from the public view. All the web pages will be exactly the same, from the outside. From our point of view, it meant a chance to repair so many minor "rough edges" which have crept in over the years. What this means in plain English is that anyone who has been on the site in the last month or so and noticed some photos do not appear, or links broken etc, should see an improvement. Anyone finding a broken link, use the form on the contact page to let us know. Thank you.

---

January 2007:

A lot of links have been found not working recently. The reason for this is that the new server has a Linux operating system, meaning it requires links and filenames in lower case. Our original pages did not always have lower case names etc. This is being worked on. If anyone notices a broken link or image not showing, e mail kenny at the address in the contact page.

Added a page with some interesting fossils which were found in the Sorn strech of the River Ayr. Currently seeking more info on these ancient relics of a very different time.

The .com version of this site has a new server and is being run on both .org and .com again for the time being. A change of server at last means we have the ability to update the site at random, if and when necessary. The previous hosts could not set up FTP facilities, and only allowed one update per month!!! This may encourage me to become more industrious, and produce some new pages/ material. A big thanks to Tony Hudson for his work in setting up the new server address, and refining some of the rough edges to the operation.

Removed the so called free forum. It filled up with spam, and that was that. May have some kind of an alternative shortly.

---

---

Jan 2006

Added yet another new guestbook, as the current freegb.net effort was hardly ever on line. Let's hope for better luck this time...

A couple of contributions came in via e mail recently. A lovely group photo outside the Failford Cafe on the Failford Village page, and some interesting images all the way from Australia of Sorn Estate, the latter not on line yet.

The local government here in East Ayrshire have decided to grant another year of web support. So we have now until June 2007, and then this web site may be taken off.

It is a sobering thought that in 9 years on line an archive such as this has not even been granted a permanent server.......

Nov 2005

Added a few extra photos of Burns National Memorial opening day, and laying of foundation stone, 1896.

Added the Baird Family History pages.

Reality strikes again, and we are preparing again for the site to be removed from the local authorities server. No reason has ever been given, and therefore come June, Ayrshirehistory.com may well cease to exist despite the obvious local historic content. The amount of money per year to host a 500meg site would be too much.

June 2005

A contribution from George Black, son of Policeman PC John Black included George in the forces, John Black on duty, and a Catrine football team.

April 2005

Because of the amount of e mails received about old Muirkirk recently, contact details for our Muirkirk correspondent Jimmy Taylor are now added to the Muirkirk home page. . Also in recent weeks there has been trouble with spam entries in the guestbook. This includes adverts for on line gambling, as well as a few strange entries like the guestbook being used for communications of some sort. They are deleted easily, but apologies if there are entries there for a few days sometimes.