SALTCOATS

" Scotland's Quaintest Burgh "

It's Lost Links and Landmarks Restored

The town of the Nineyards and "My lord's Garnel House"

At the harbour nothing remained but the rusty hurries. The old crane fell into use as a juvenile gymnasium; the stair, up which men climbed to a balcony to obtain a view of the horizon, was swept away; gradually there dwindled that religious veneration which surrounded the rough stone at the pier end with its undecipherable register of persons drowned at sea. The sea, beaten back by the active control of years, now took possession of the sparsely inhabited quay, overleaping the breast work and obliterating channels, tearing through the deserted patches of railway and burrowing its way through the harbour approach so as to make a yawning cleft that it required some temerity to negotiate.

The Salt Pans, which had seen the beginning of life in Saltland and the last of which still lingered mournfully on the quayside, rocked under repeated storms. These, the oldest landmarks of Saltland, eventually yielded to the powers of time. The sea-wall, rent and torn in many places, came to present a melancholy aspect to the harbour it had so long befriended. Its powers of resistance seemed to lessen as the sea, asserting its old mastery, gripped it in relentless folds, shaking it to its rocky foundations. The features of waterside activity grew fewer and fewer as the years went by; and over all there came to brood a spirit of desolation. Well might the name " Ichabod " be written on the ancient sea ramparts, for truly its glory has departed.

The appearance of the town in the year of the Union was entirely rural, not withstanding that the harbour was a reality. The extended village lay for about a quarter of a mile eastward from the quayside, around what had been a creek, at the extremity of the Firth of Clyde. On the rising ground, which was known as "The Hill", rested the houses of the little notabilities, the salt grieves and the retired mariners and their families.

From the King's highway, leading out of the harbour, the little upward incline, going abruptly towards the shore, took the wayfarer over a course of furze and rock towards Stevenston.

On the rocky knoll above the village, known as Kyleshill, only a house or two, some gardens and a farm were visible. At its base lay the outermost house of the village (now absorbed in the eastern corner of the Convalescent Home). Behind Kyleshill the Bog Cottages showed their grey stacks amongst the green trees and foliage and a bridge known as the Bowbridge, spanned the waters of the Flush, which ran down into the heart of the town's green meadow.

Further inland lay the as yet unbroken crofts or runrigs, near the site of the original chapel of Saltcoats, the gardens, which had once pertained to the monks of Kilwinning, then still blooming sweetly on the pretty ascent of the Chapelhill. Near the western crescent of the harbour bay the ancient windmill stood in solemn loneliness on the rocky promontory, around which has been drawn an enchanting ring of fairy legend and romantic association. The site is still known by the poetic name of Castleweerock. What had become of the nine patches of territory that had been given to the aborigines of Saltcoats by the Lord Glencairn?

Sub-division was by no means rapid and thus by a peep into the books of the Bailiary Court of Cunninghame and from other equally reliable data, we are enabled to piece together the fragments of residential life in the village two hundred years ago. Of the original nine yards, four only lay unbroken - those of James Brown, the "tailor" of old Saltcoats; of Robert Brown, a Sailor; of Captain Tom Bolton, worthy progenitor of a race of seafarers; and Thomas Morial, sailor, the husband of Gillies Bolton, the name of whose family (so the oldest townsfolk can tell us) became engraven in the very lanes and hedgerows of the village. There are other little celebrities whose names have come down on the lip of tradition only. In the Chapelwell neighbourhood, the grandmother of the elderly townsman remembered hearing of "Lapsie' a house and land, the house of Gregan Lyle and a house called Barshames, near the Chapelhouse and yard". Robert Bolton had a house far westward "ayont the croft" and John Bolton's was at the crofthead. Wolheugh, a long forgotten patch of territory, was an adjunct of Chapelhill.

In the midst of the Green Mailing, near the burnside - which recalls the now long - buried stream that ran through the Chapelwell Gardens - stood the historic Garnel House where Lord Montgomerie received his meal rents. John Bolton held the Coalhills. Jean Mc Neil reigned as local queen of the Close Mailing, adjoining the Closewell district of to-day; and in a recessed part of the highway, almost on the border line of the march between the Lords Montgomerie and Cunninghame, the fires of Hugh Paterson's smiddy and the sound of his anvil, gave definite picturesqueness to the rural aspect of the embryo town.

 
The King's Highway and the Town's Ancient Vault

In some of its thoroughfares Saltcoats appears to be much older than it is, for many of its Eighteenth Century dwellings have disappeared in sweeping "improvements" and others have been altered out of recognition. Above the cornice line of what seems to be a new building, a curious crow-step, or a bulging chimney, show that only the front is new and that an old, old house lies behind.

Along the old King's Highway, or what is now Quay Street, no such pretension exists. It is at once old and interesting, full of the artistic suggestiveness of the salty days and odorous of the old fishing and seafaring life which moved through and around it. Often do the townsmen and strangers ruminate over its story, to most of us nowadays an unintelligible jumble of cross legend and crack, laughter raising reminisces and rude raillery.

Lets us trace it to its beginning. In the early years of the reign of Queen Anne, there was a smith in Stevenston known as William Miller, who made remarkable change upon the structural appearance of this old highway. The ground which lay nearest to the harbour baisin was except for an old brewery, then an unbuilt-on track, which the hill-dweller viewed unobstructedly the shimmering expanse of water it belonged at the time to the Laird of Gargunnock who gave it to the Stevenston smith and there the latter in 1703, erected his dwelling house on the base of what had been the brewhouse, there also he had his stable.

It is now a big three-storey house, but the early history of the western side of the highway lies under it. In George Third's time William Miller's grandson held the post of tide office in Saltcoats. For a long time nothing stood between Miller's house and the possession of John Wyllie, a wright, nearer the north end of the street. Rapidly, however, as the trade of the harbour proceeded, the intervening spaces filled up and became a packed colony of life, by closes giving admission to the braes at the rear.

Between the house of Wyllie, the wright and the yard of William Miller, there came to be erected the house of John Johnstone, merchant, afterwards the house of John Goudie, innkeeper and beyond Wyllie's, going towards the cross-roads, was the house of John Galtry, grieve to the Craigie Saltpans at Ayr, who came to exercise his skill in the Saltpans of Saltcoats. The still old-fashioned house that became built on the site of William Miller's yard was long the Arran Hotel, the favoured resort of the island visitors. The personality of Tam Graham lingers in local memory beside it; and the first Temperance Hotel in Saltcoats (opened in the year that ushered in the Volunteer movement) is still recognisable beside it. The interest of this side of the old street lies in relation to its strange vennels and must be reserved for a later chapter. On the opposite or eastern side of the King's highway stood the salt Girnals of the Cuninghames. They were ancient of the ancient and held the stores of salt as they came from the adjacent Pans. Down to a very recent date, their appearance was recognisable in the close that bears their name, the Girnal pronounce locally "Garnel" Close. They lay to the left, past the gable of the corner house; and in the words of a native, "looked just like the stalls"

The Close is full of memory, although its appearance is greatly altered since the days when Betty McKinnon's change-house lay back in the upper left hand corner, giving a cosy welcome on a cauld nicht and a shelter from the searching winds that moaned through the unprotected highway. Many a glass clinked merrily as the storm raged without and masses of spray drenched the low roofs of the curious jumble of dwellings which stretch from the Garnel Close to the now tottering angle nearest to the sea. The topmost house was built crosswise over what had been an outlet to the sea. Few to-day dream that behind what is known as "Betty McKinnon's Corner", there lies a lost link with the old administrative life of Saltcoats in the form of the "Rackle" of stones that composed the house of one of the town's oldest wrights, James Dickie, built over an institution perfectly forgotten, because hardly known to the world today the ancient vault or tollbooth of Saltcoats. The very name conjures back the memory of old days of serfdom when might was right and the conditions of vassalage were maintained with an iron hand. Perhaps this vault was intended for malefactors only, but its existence so near to the salt girnals has a creepy suggestiveness.

"Dungeon Vile", it must have been down in the very bowels of the rock and made more dismal by the continual howling of the sea, which - before the settlers built their sea-wall - assailed the gardens and crept close to the cottages. By l7l4 the Tollbooth beside the Girnal had fallen into disuse and the Laird of Auchenharvie gave to James Dickie the privilege of building over the Vault. His widow, the ancestress of one of our best known burghers, occupied the house for many a day.

Time and storm beat remorselessly upon it and it fell into ruins. For some years an old thatch - which a dweller of the Garnel Close says was built by Angus Shaw, a sailor - clung to its gable. The thatch has disappeared in successive alterations and later generations have lost sight of its historical forerunner - if they ever knew of it. They remember only "the house of the widow Dickie at the back of the Garnel Close ". Today nothing remains but the cairn of sea boulders and the most important and certainly the most interesting of the early institution of Saltcoats has passed out of ken as completely as if it had never been.

"Findlay Breaden's yard" stood near by and here in the first years of George Second, a sailor, named Robert Cunningham, built a house. It now stands upon the northern corner of the Garnel Close and Quay Street. Near the "town end" corner of Quay Street stood a celebrated Inn the Cross Keys, kept in the early days of last century by Andrew Gibson, who was the first to attempt the improvement of the old turnpike road at the foot of the hill which at high tide was swept by the sea. Andrew's philanthropic scheme of laying big boulders along that inaccessible route was not so much as to repel the force of the sea, but that his customers would have stepping stones to his door.

From the end of the street backwards a range of old houses bore the name of "Miss Miller's Land". They were part of the Mail Rooms of a far-off time. On one of these, in the last days of the first George's reign (now denoted "Lodgings"), was built a house by George Gillies, master of the sloop, "Betty", of Londonderry. It was afterwards owned by Sarah Porter, who become the spouse of Captain Campbell. An old resident tells how her father, Willie Porter, kept boats at the braes about half a century ago.

The quaint but neat looking house adjoined to it is sacred to the memory of the famous Betsy Miller, who was the daughter of William Miller, long shipowner and wood merchant in Saltcoats. Captain Miller owned the "Clitus", a large brig in the timber trade, which was made out of the material of an old man o' war. The Captain fell into difficulties; and with a heroism and commercial foresight that has positively no parallel in the annals of female enterprise, Betsy (her brother having been drowned) took command with the full assurance of paying off the mortgage of seven hundred pounds.

She became thus, perhaps, the only woman the world has ever known who was a registered owner and master of a sailing ship. During her twenty-two years of seamanship, her name was familiar "from sea to sea and land to land". She was honourably mentioned in parliament by the Earl of Eglinton when the Merchant Shipping act of 1834 was under discussion.

Scotland's oldest postman sailed as a boy under her royal command and testifies that "she was a hardy yin a reg'lar brick".A story is told of how a stranger having come aboard at night, sought to convey his gratitude of the captain in the morning. Stretching his legs on the deck at sunrise, great was his wonder when a women's head, crowned with a "mutch" of spotless white, looked out of the cabin hatch. Sometimes, there were two women in charge; her sister Hannah acting as auxiliary captain. Betsy died in Quay Street forty-five years ago in the house that had been one of the Mail Rooms" of history.

A large part of the eastern side of this old highway was known as Boyd's Yard and that introduces the interesting personality of a leader amongst the townfolks. Willie and his son were noteworthy figures in the staple trade. The house of the Boyds lay at the head of what is still a queer little street (known as Harbour Street) rising from the main thoroughfare to take the wayfarer on his way to the sea and the old turnpike road to Glasgow. At the foot long lay a ruinous house, which became the Harbour Bar; and behind lies an ancient courtyard, public access to which the people say cannot be denied by a prescriptive right that goes back beyond the days of the old railway to the harbour. A dwelling-house, near the corner of Harbour Street and Quay Street, which belonged, in the early years of the reign of George First, to William Galt, a skipper, was, along with an adjacent brewhouse and stable, converted into a flesher's stall and yard and became part of the Star Inn, a hostelry which has passed out of recognition, although the building still obtrudes itself on the thoroughfare.

The curious today, may look in vain for the place, at the back of the "Star", where John Barclay made candles. Of course the townspeople made their own tinder and carefully preserved their steel and flint. That was in the early days of last century. "The year after the first Reform Act" brought in. As an ancient ciceronean tells us, the flaming "Lucifer", with its name so suggestive of the Evil One. To light her cruisie filled with whale oil the guidwife had to draw the Lucifer through an emery cloth. Many a horse lantern, shedding the welcome rays of Johnnie Barclay's candles, lit the wayfarer over the ill bottomed streets, the moving lights twinkling like stars in the crofts above the town, or relieving the inky darkness of the Puddock Loan.

Variety of quaint form is lent to old Quay Street by the two houses at the sea end, with the outside stairs and box like balconies so reminiscent of the fishing towns. A veteran of the ancient port assures us, from authentic domestic information, that the outer one was built in the days of the American War by one Robert Paterson, a merchant. It was long occupied by Gilbert Walker, who was prominent in the fish merchandise of Saltcoats and was the first to bring the savoury codfish from Ballantrae. That is a very long time since, yet the vision of the worthy Gilbert as, wearing his night-cap in the vogue of an unconsciously picturesque past, he stood on his old box like look-out, with his eyes intently fixed on the waters, comes back as an agreeable glimpse of days that are gone.

For many a day, and until only a few years ago indeed, Quay Street did honour to the burgh;s baronial charter as the scene of the annual Fair, founded on a long and respectable antiquity. Booths occupied both sides of the street. At the sea end were the coopers and tinsmiths. The concourse of visitors from the Arran shore along with the townspeople, human and live stock in inextricable confusion, pigs, hens and goats; showmen and somersaulters, tricksters and thimble-riggers; sailors in an ecstasy of wild exhilaration; penny trumpets, glittering tricksters and tin cans made a glorious din and hubbub which nothing since has been able to equal. The sailors radiant in fluttering ribbons, sewn by admiring "Nancy Lees" - floated along the cobbled cause ways. There was a devouring consumption of curds and cream and "mashlum scones"; and the Fair, which lasted for the better part of a week, left upon native and visitor an impression that took long to fade. The Fair of today is mild compared with the frantic whirl of enjoyments that can never again be so exquisitely realised.

A historic House : The Venerable Saracen's and the Stage Coach

While the King's highway was still a highway, there lived on the brow of Coathill on its eastern side Willie Boyd, mariner, whose possession bore the forgotten name of "Boyd's Yard". The traveller between the highway and the sea road, the then only royal - and of course rocky - road to Irvine, went round Boyd's house end. That path became "the way from the harbour" and a later civilisation has raised it to the dignity of "Harbour Street"; whilst the comforts of man have, from a very early time, been offered at the "Coatruffie Inn" at the foot. At the top is a quaint little square, out of which leads a cobbled slip to the sea. bearing the name of the Erskines, who have been associated with the neighbourhood for nearly a couple of centuries. Something less than two hundred years ago, Willie Boyd conferred a bit of his yard upon John Erskine and Marion Baillie for the lifetime of that worthy couple and - with an accommodating liberality reminiscent of the Arabian Nights - for 3000 years thereafter. What a vision of sempiternal domestic peace was here foreshadowed. Alas! for the spell-breaking power of progress. The Arcadian dream of the simple villagers has long since been dissipated. The slip of roadway and the cobbled court became the hub of village activity. Today the pathway that went by "Willie's" door, with its curving ascent terminating in the last but one of the old thatched houses of Saltcoats, still looks like an old thoroughfare in Spalatro or Bruges.

Beside the "Harbour Bar" is the house that belonged to Peter Mc Fee, one of the old harbourmasters of Saltcoats and near it the house of Hugh Baillie, who was harbourmaster in the days of William the Fourth. "Paddy's Castle", the house next the thatch, earned its title when, in the early days of the Irish settlement, emigrants from the Green Isle found it a welcome home. Willie Boyd's biggin' , at the top left-hand corner of the street, has long since vanished, but a house still stands in its place. The view from Willie's door in those days represented only a small triangular patch of ground resting on the rocks. From a very early time there had cast its shadow on the spot an ancient Hallhouse. Upon this historic building of old Saltcoats there became engrafted another, which has long eclipsed in fame the glory of its predecessor, the Saracen's Head Inn.

The Saracen's that was is now no more and a new Saracen's rests on the site. In the very far back days, Robert Montgomery of Broadhirst owned a large part of the ground on the verge of the sea. After him came Sir Thomas Wallace, the bearer of a proud name, who gave place to the Reids of Adamton. It was from one of last- named family that the site of the celebrated inn was acquired by Robert Campbell. Through this worthy townsman the social condition of Saltcoats became, to a large extent, remodelled. When it lay in its state of isolated serenity neither post-chaise nor coach joined it to the outer world. The proprietor of the Inn brought the mail coach and the poetic silence of the one-time village became broken. Under his genial sway the Inn assumed such a dignified tone and respectability as would have disarmed the petulance of Baillie Nicol Jarvie, because it did "cairry the comforts o' the Saut Market" and would have made Robert Burns say, as he said of another lodging "were I at ease in my mind the body is here well cared for". It has often been a matter of speculation as to whether Ayrshire's Bard ever passed beneath its venerable rooftree. Why could he not, for the sake of a fond posterity, have touched with the golden wand of immortality this most charming of changehouses.

If, as is said, he delivered in person the manuscript of "The Caft" to Dr Steven of the Old Church at Saltcoats, is it so very unlikely that he would have failed to "weet" his harmonious "whistle" at a house of call he was obliged to pass going and returning. The old house might have been standing yet but for a calamitous fire one Sunday morning, in March, 1894, during the raging of which the rag-tag of the town made sad havoc with the stores, some being caught making off with the bottles and other attempting to drain the rivers of liquid as it flowed from the casks. Although the house has earned its best fame from a modern novelist and the ecstasy of his French heroine, it has a more direct title to public veneration through the work of its landlords. Robert Campbell, the first landlord, was a man of gentle bearing, possessing, as is recorded, superior conversation-al powers, in short, a model Bonifiace, impressed with all the urbanity of a host of the period.. His son, who succeeded him, Alexander Campbell, has been described as the most prominent local figure of his day and a man of great zeal for the welfare of Saltcoats. He held many public offices and was wise counsellor to the affluent and friend to the poor. He was Postmaster and until the introduction of railways, conducted the coach business Saltcoats and Glasgow and Saltcoats and Kilmarnock, a public service which must alone give him a conspicuous niche in records of Ayrshire's carrying traffic. "Many a time", says and old residenter, "have I seen the 'Fair Trader', a weel equipped fower-horse coach, sweep round the gable on its long journey. See" and he points to the shore corner of the house-end, "there's where they cut a bit off to let the coach through". Here came the old-fashioned caravan which conveyed people from Paisley to Saltcoats for be it observed, the "Buddies were always fond of the "Wee coast toon". It was also, after the Burns Tavern and some other places in the town, a post office, letters being shuffled out and in of the outshot wing of the Hotel which rested upon part of the Hallhouse.

The most picturesque memories of the Saracen's are associated with the Stage Coach, which, with its redcoated men in white hats entered the town with old-time magnificence and pomp. Rob Muir drove the Glasgow Coach and John Tyre the Kilmarnock Coach, the most outstanding feature in all the ancient pageantry of that time being Davie Morrison, the guard, whose broad rubicund face, made broader still by a hat of enormous brim, lightened the long journey and whose sunny pleasantries beguiled the most melancholy traveller. "These were times to mak' the heart loup", says a narrator of these early glories, "and mind ye I hae seen them halving the bank notes before they gied awa' in case anything should come ower the coach on the road; aye and sometimes it did, wi' a' the best precautions in the world". It was said that a pair of rusty horse pistols would sometimes be carried, they were neither ornamental nor useful amongst the inexpert medley of its occupants - ministers, merchants, mariners, weavers' agents and commercial adventurers.

The old Stair up to the Coach Office and the Stamp Office of olden days is now the way to a hall, the scene of Masonic functions. Here the passengers tendered their "three half Croons" for the journey to the city. The hayloft extending far to the rear and the "French" courtyard which so caught the fancy of William Black, the novelist, can still be realised; and a side wall going seawards contains the boarded-up windows and built-up doorways off the one time luggage rooms associated with the mail coach traffic. The coaching times brought all character into the whirling vortex of daily life at the Saracen's, from those of the "pint o'yale and a owre wi't" order to the revellers in the progressive joys of "het toddy and a lang rest", while there was a select circle familiar with the private "benroom" who dipped the rosy tips of well coloured noses into unmeasured tumblers of "cauld barley bree wi' a guid strong bead in't" The projecting houses, which was used as the Post Office and up the little flight of stairs to which climbed the feet of anxious pilgrims to the land of letters, has been preserved with just reverence. Until quite recently the corner of the gable held a century old lamp the last probably of the ancient "lanthorns" of Scotland. Even this link has disappeared. "Auld's Vennel", at the angle of the Saracen's yard, which is also a thing of past, gave access to the oldest of the burgh's market places. Saltcoats had its first regular grain market established in 1840 and for many years the annual dinner at the Saracen's was a function of importance. By and by vehicles dropped off coming and farmers no longer barter at its ancient doorway. Today there is neither an echo of the clatter of horses nor the sound of stage coach trumpet. The little square holds itself aloof from the world in its retreat behind the thoroughfare through which the town's life now glides and even at noonday lives in a spirit of dreamy quiet.

"The House the Smugglers Built, and the Day of "Derring Do". Red Coats in Saltcoats."

Pretty and picturesque is the view up the street that was once "the Hill", with the rickety old roadway corkscrewing to the top and the church spire rising over the houses, its slender outline giving impressive dignity to the setting. At the foot of the little declivity, at the point where the mail coach swung round from the Saracen's sits an old artistic looking house bulging on the roadway. This, according to a venerable chronicle of the district, is "the house the smugglers built". The man who built it in 1710 and who first lived in it, we are told, was a mariner named Robert Lusk, who became coal grieve to the Auchenharvie Coal Work. It sat there alone while the Saracen's had still to come, when the street of the hill was a bridlepath and the brae seawards took a precipitous dip to the water edge. In those days and for a century later, many a gallon of the precious Geneva was run ashore and brought up from "the Ferryboat Gut" to be buried in its vaults. In the reign of the second George, a Kilbride ship, the "Prosperity", put into Saltcoats for salt, with some more valuable exchanges. The master delayed sailing on pretence of damages and the vessel lay a month in the dock without suspicion. Towards the end of its time, a mob, in sympathy with the smugglers, attacked and robbed the vessel, severely beating the officer in charge, whose life was for a time despaired of. Such an occurrence was nothing uncommon in the early days in Saltcoats, where smuggling was cultivated with the zeal born of seafaring adventure and fortune making, the most opulent being then engaged in the traffic. The struggle with the Preventive men was fierce. More than once the streets, debouching on the quayside, rang to the clatter of soldiery, the rattle of firearms and the hoarse shouts of men in conflict. A stirring memory of a stirring time is that of the loud infantry in their picturesque habiliments high mitred hats, red coats, long gaiters and powdered wigs with ribboned tails, marching to defend the officers of the Goverment

Such a scene was presented in the winter of 1730, when a party of fifty soldiers poured into the town, all the little community in the frenzy of combat and ready to defend to the last their illicit possessions others were brought in from Irvine and Beith. The smugglers were not easily vanquished and a great cargo was placed on board the "Moses" of Saltcoats, bound for Drontheim, the master which was George Auld, a mariner of daring. When the revenue officers came to inspect what should have been tobacco, three-quarters of the store was only peat and stones. In the summer of 1733, a revenue officer, named Hamilton, had charge of some brandy, when the smugglers deforced and beat John Boggs in charge, and landed tobacco, which was taken to the smugglers' private store house; and so large was the haul that it took a whole week, with double-horsed conveyances, to carry it to its destination. Speaking of "the house the smugglers built", a veteran of better days says, "I saw the vaults myself and was down in the depths of them, almost to the knees in water and I saw remains of the barrels used by the smugglers". The house, so romantically reminiscent of rifled ships and liquid spoil, came into the possession of Hannibal Lusk and, at the end of that eventful century, to Captain Kirkwood. Ultimately, by the singular irony of fate, it fell to the officers of Excise. So that which had been so long the centre of adventure and "derring do" passed out of the old world into the prosaic present.

Romantic "Elensport"and a Vanished Railway..

Immediately adjacent to the home of such interesting memories Seaview House sits proudly today, restoring the lost ties with an older gentility, a modern mansion, built on the most attractive part of that picturesque slope, with a gate leading almost directly to the sea. Here under its windows we have the "Elensport" of long ago, full of romantic interest and suggestiveness, a spot in which to trace under the glamour of night, with the sea beating its mournful refrain at the feet, the battered ridge upon which the town's older aristocracy rested. The old loft of the Saracen's - bridging what was once the line of railway that sped to the harbour - focuses today a prospect upon which to muse. Under the shadow of the old sea wall the spirit of the past breathes. At almost any hour one sees a group of urchins, representative of the squalor of Quay Street, in all the excitement of marbles, oblivious alike of the vanished glory of the surroundings or the pathos of its dilapidation. The inner wall, next Seaview Road, was at first the only sea wall, built by the Road Trustees in 1811, for protection from the sea which washed the backs of the houses and garden walls and sometimes covered the road and street.

Few would imagine to day that along that boulder strewn sea front there had stretched a long beach of carpety green. This was the line of the railway constructed by Robert Reid Cuninghame of Auchenharvie and intended to form a connection between his coal work and the harbour along the rocks and shore. Previously the coals were brought to the end of the town by canal, from which they were taken in carts to the harbour. In 1716 there were only some 60 or 70 houses in the town and no road behind Harbour Street and the Inn. The railway brought the transformation. In the year of the battle of Trafalgar, a toll was placed outside the town, at a spot known as M'Lachlan's Lane, for the purpose of intercepting the Auchenharvie coal. Six years later, in 1811, Auchenharvie tried to free himself of these impositions. The tax was upon carts. He would make a railway line and use waggons, to be drawn by horses. The first part, as far as the Saracen's, was finished in 1812. This served for nineteen years, until 1831, when it was extended to the very extremity of the quay. The railway fell into disuse in 1852, after the starting of the Ardeer Ironwarks. More than once the wall was broken down by the sea and the railway partly torn away. Great was the patience of the courageous towns-folks. Trees were torn down from the seabank to form wooden sleepers, over which the waggons trundled merrily, tons of material being carried over this platform and the sea washing underneath The railway, in the light of advancement, seems to have been of primitive construction. Over the "wee fish rails", which rested on stone sleepers, rolled two-ton waggons - hardly bigger than hutches carrying along that eastern front coals for shipment to Ireland. The railway had its laborious but also pleasant side, the cool breezes from the sea on a summer day fanning the exertions of horse and men. "It was grand", says an old worker, "when we came back with our empties, tired and wearied after the labour of the day, to hear the horses' feet clattering along the path. Then we set them adrift to graze on the long grass of the embankment, while we regaled ourselves at the little Inn that sat near the terminus". This Inn was called "The Sun" and the broad face of the genial solar, which appeared on its front, was often as welcome as the sunshine it implied. Of late years a beautiful promenade has arisen between the old turnpike road and the sea. The prospect at this point has an infinitude of charms, the old homes of, Mountfads, the Kirkwoods, the Baillies and other ancient stacks, rising towards the brow of Kyleshill, their gardens divided by old walls, patched with sea boulder and clay; at the foot the Free Church, which, seen from the sea, looms up like the centre figure of a Turner canvas, with its bulk of sad grey and its spire serving as a landmark. The Brae upon which the Free Church rests has ceased to bear the It is no longer "Findlay's Brae". In the days long gone by, a wright's premises stood on the spot. perched on the same hill was the family home of the Dows, to which belonged to famous minister of the old Parish Church at Saltcoats. At the time of the Disruption, the celebrated Dr Landborough headed the congregation which found an "ark" on "Findlay's brae". He left, as has been written, the Church in which he took so much pride, the Manse where his children had learned to prattle and to pray. The house of the Dows was generously given to the newly formed body by Dr Dow, for, as he said, "the sake of the good old kirk and the good old man, my father, who was long its minister". An Edinburgh man, the famous David Cousin, designed the church, which was opened in 1844. Its first cost was £700, but it was greatly improved 1869, when, under the architectural guidance of Mr Baldie, of Glasgow, a new and handsome spire rose 100 feet in air, giving renewed dignity to its fine Gothic outline. The reopening was conducted by the famous ministerial baronet, Sir Henry Wellwood Moncrieff and the celebration was marked by a waving flag and the ringing of bells. The Dows, whose house became merged in the church, have an interest in themselves. Dr Dow married a daughter of the first British settler on the Mississippi. While at New Orleans he made the acquaintance of a Frenchman. Monsieur Comyns, "teacher of Mathematics", who turned out to be the French King in exile. It was this same Robert Dow who dressed the wounds of the Earl of Eglinton when he was shot on Ardrossan sands by Mungo Campbell, At the corner of Bradshaw Street, on 2nd August, 1858, in a building across the way from the church, there was opened under its auspices the school which since blossomed into the town's proud Academy. The founders were the Rev John Davidson; Miss M'Leish, sister of Dr Landsborough and John Brisbane of Lylestone, Mr Grierson being its first master. Mr E S Wilson, who still holds his place of honour at the head of the Public School of Saltcoats, succeeded Mr Grierson in 1869 In the days long gone by, John Cunningham, of Windyhall, had his house and garden resting on the slope of the hill leading down to the King's highway. Upon this ground, at a very early time, came to be erected a brewhouse and stable. A lane passed it, taking the villager to Hugh Paterson's smithy, near the cross roads, at the foot of the slope. Close at hand was the residence of Thomas Morial, a connection of the Eglinton coal grieve. That lane was afterwards called "Braidshaw Roading" and at its head, on the corner of the hill path leading to the house of the smugglers, was a lonely alehouse. One may well understand the popularity of the alehouse at a period when it conferred on its customers many a private distillation that had "never paid a halfpenny to the King's exchequer, or passed under the inquisitive attentions o' a bottle-nosed gauger". The Windyhall Tavern, which, for many a day, bore the quite unnecessary legend, "YE OLDE INN", and was the resort of the characters of the town, presented its thatched gable and queer wee windows to the street until almost recently, when a modern place of refreshment rose upon the site. The Tavern had its commencement so far back as 1733. Of the droll characters who formed its habitues seventy or more years ago there remain many amusing reminiscences and there once rang in the mouths of young folks in the village, now grown grey, a quaint rhyme touching the members of a drouthy band |-

"Crowley and Showley, Billy & Co,
And little John Templeton, all in a row".

"Showley" Lee was the leader of the bibulous partnership and made many a stouching detour to the Inn from his shoemaking bench in Gibb's Close in the Green Street. The original proprietor of the hostelry long, long ago was Sandy Gorden, who combined the professions of publican and precentor, being, as was waggishly said, as handy wi' the cork screw as the tuning fork. The way to Hugh Paterson's smiddy" has not entirely lost its ancient character, although the time has passed when the "roading" humped in the middle, was inclined to send an unsteady frequenter of the tavern rolling down into the old-fashioned windows of the thatched house that toppled down into the wee braes. More than half way down, in 1717, was the house of the smith; "a mighty man" indeed was this leader of the hammermen, of whom the only trace today is a half-obliterated stone in Ardrossan Churchyard. Upon part of the open space, at the foot of the roading came to be built the King's Arms (Sam Mitchell's in the olden time), a hostelry which did good service to the traveller in the days when it was the landmark of the cross roads. Through an old-fashioned entry one can still search for the building that was a schoolhouse of an older Saltcoats, built into the very walls of the ancient brewhouse. It had two floors, a school above, a stable below. The teacher was Mr Wakelin, whose scholars went forth to do honour to Saltcoats in various parts of the world. He was a grand reader and taught the art of elocution with success. Bob Hunter, who joined the dramatic profession and who wedded a lady of the stage, was one of his pupils.

In a hall near the King's Arms, the first Catholic services were held under Father Thomas and then Father Hallinan. It was in this hall that two of the Chartist leaders were entertained on their visit to the town in the early thirties. The hall was long the meeting place of the St John's Masonic Lodge, now of Ardrossan. The name of the Auld's clings to the once irregular cluster near the crossways at the foot of old Bradshaw, which was built out of recognition only a few years since. Skipper Sandy Auld lived near the site of the Saracen's in 1709. The old brewhouse, which lay back from the Quay Street corner, with a space in front, fell to one John Ducon, whose spouse, Jean Allison, conferred the property in 1754 on her grandson, Robert Auld, the father of Alexander Auld, commander of the "Stewart" of Glasgow. The commander's mother, one of the Fairries of Saltcoats, bequeathed the ground to two sisters Fairrie in the last days of the century and it came to Robert Weir of Kirkhall in the early years of the next. Mrs Young of Kirkhall possessed the site in 1831, but by that time almost every trace of the venerable brewhouse buildings had vanished. The residence of Captain Hamilton Auld of Bradshaw reminds us of the interesting associations gathered around that name in the old roading. Towards the rear of the spot now occupied by the offices of Mr Kirkland, Solicitor, few will realise that here was the queer old wright's shop where the swish of Willie Auld's plane was heard from morn till night turning out the boxes for the Magnesia Work. Many a day John Cornelius backed his cart into the old-fashioned recess to load it with these models of boxmaking art. The two step up shop near by recalls the quaint old clockmaking house of John Gibson,

Founded in the days of George Third. Matthew Auld's weaving shop lies beneath the writer's office. Something of the ancient character of the "Braidshaws Roading" remains in the still open "close" at the corner of Laird Auld's, up which was a perfect little colony of the early villagers. There lived John Scott, the Kilbride postman, the only bearer of letters for that distant shore. The square is now untenanted and derelict, no longer echoing to the merry laughter of the urchins coming from Wakelin's school, no longer serving its old purpose as a place "for weans to play in". A touch of real old history dignifies the dwelling at the foot, its old crowstep accentuating its age, for it is the house which once belonged to William Thomson, shipmaster and afterwards to that most interesting of local celebrities - Thomas Bradshaw. Here we have a link with old times indeed, because Thomas Bradshaw gave his name to the roading which, despite the attentions of the improvers, flings back the fragrance of days that are gone.

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