The following text and images are excerpted from the book Highways & Byways In Galloway & Carrick with Illustrations by Hugh Thomson. By Rev. C. H. Dick. Published by Macmillan and Co. Limited. London 1911.
CHAPTER XXVIII
MAYBOLE
Maybole—Its name—The Castle—The Collegiate Church—John Knox’s House—The Maybole martyrs—Crossraguel Abbey
A FORMER minister of Maybole, the Rev. Roderick Lawson, has written some pleasant notes on the town and its neighbourhood, and is excellent on the subject of its name. "Be the etymology what it may, the name itself in its modern form is one of which any town may well feel proud. What a fine, mouth-filling sound it has! There is no name of a town along the whole line of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway which is for a moment to be compared with it. Ayr, for instance, is plainly too short, and Kilmarnock too long. Troon and Beith are insignificant. Girvan and Greenock want sound, and Paisley wants strength. Kilwinning is too smooth, and Ardrossan too rough. Even Glasgow is no better than it should be. But Maybole is simply perfect." It is a great thing when a minister can be thoroughly enthusiastic about the name of his parish if about nothing else! The name probably means "the town by the marsh ". A bit of land, formerly a swamp, but now drained and cultivated, is still called The Bog.
I entered Maybole from the north and should advise anyone else to do otherwise. After surmounting the last of the undulations stretching between the river Doon and the town, I came upon some ugly factory buildings and heard the grinding and humming of machinery within. It might have been a fragment of the Kingston district of Glasgow! Maybole, I may explain in passing, has a large bootmaking industry and also makes agricultural implements. One may congratulate Maybole on the enterprise and wealth represented by its chimney-stalks and pass on to more attractive subjects.
The
old castle in High Street arrests one. Look at its narrow tower, its
crow-stepped gables, its mouldings, the quaint headings of the little windows,
the antique turrets, the oriel window overhanging the old front, and feel
grateful for its preservation It is believed to have been built about the middle
of the seventeenth century, and was formerly the town house of the Earls of
Cassillis, for if Maybole could not be the county town of Ayrshire, it was at
least the capital of Carrick. At one time there were twenty-eight
"gentlemen’s houses" here. No doubt, the Earl’s was the grandest;
but if some of the others even approached it in beauty, it would have been worth
while to thread one’s way through several miles of factories to see them. The
building which has served as the Tolbooth for nearly two centuries and a half is
known to have been originally the town house of the Lairds of Blairquhan; the
modern Town Buildings, however, have been built against it, and it is now
impossible to infer its aspect as a domestic structure.
The
Collegiate Church, founded in 1371 by Sir John Kennedy of Dunure in order
that daily services might be celebrated for the happy state of himself, his wife
Mary, and their children, is the oldest building of all. It was served by a
provost and three other priests. Most of the windows have been built up; but it
is still possible to admire their tracery and an elaborately-carved doorway.
After the Reformation the church fell into disrepair and became a mere place of
burial for the Cassillis and one or two other families. A tablet at the east end
of the church gives the names of members of the Cassillis family who were laid
here between 1701 and 1832. It is quite likely, however, that the whole
line of the former " Kings of Carrick" were buried here—David, the
first Earl, who fell at Flodden; Gilbert, the second Earl, who was killed at
Prestwick by Hugh Campbell of Loudoun; Gilbert, the third Earl, who died at
Dieppe, it was supposed of poison; Gilbert, the fourth Earl, who roasted Allan
Stewart; John, the fifth Earl, who caused the Laird of Bargany to be killed; and
John, "the grave and solemn Earl ", who represented the Church of
Scotland at the Westminster Assembly. A tombstone in another part of the
interior bears the following statement within inverted commas: " He cannot
return to us, but with God’s help we hope to go to Him "—surely a
remarkable instance of careless quotation!
The
way from High Street to the Auld College, as the church is called, lies down a
very steep lane known formerly as the Back Vennal, but now named John Knox
Street; and on the right-hand side there is the old residence of the Provost of
the College. It is labelled "John Knox’s House" because it was the
scene of a great disputation between the Reformer and the last Abbot of
Crossraguel on the question whether the bread and wine brought forth by
Melchizedek to Abraham. were a type of the Mass or not. The debate took place in
September, 1562, and lasted for. three days. The Abbot could not prove
the affirmative, nor Knox the negative; so the logomachy ended where it began.
The
story of the six Maybole men who lost their lives on account of their fidelity
to the Covenant differs from the normal types of martyrdom. The men were among
the twelve hundred prisoners who were taken at Bothwell Bridge in 1679 and
confined in Greyfriars Churchyard in Edinburgh. They were also among the two
hundred and fifty-seven who were shipped
A scrutiny of the names on the map makes it plain that, however many of the roads radiating from Maybole be left untravelled, the one leading to Kirkoswald must not; for this is the way to Crossraguel Abbey, the greatest of the old ecclesiastical institutions in Carrick and the best preserved of the monastic buildings of Scotland.1
As
I followed the road, it was interesting to recall what Stevenson had written
about 2 It is on the whole a dull one, and he did not say
much. Yet it is a little surprising that he considered
the phrase, " dilapidated castles and monasteries ", enough for
Baltersan3 Castle and 
Crossraguel
4 Abbey. There is, indeed, little to detain the fancy about the keep;
but in the case of one who wrote so much about the monastery of Our Lady of the
Snows we might have looked to hear something of the convent. It is true, Our
Lady of the Snows was the home
of a living piety and a hospitable lodging-place as well, while this is a
deserted ruin; but, as the local writer whom I have quoted already says,
"the sacristy and the chapter-house, the cloisters and the cellars, the
scriptorium and the gatehouse tower are all nearly intact, and one almost
expects as one wanders among the ruins to see a monk coming round the corner
with his bare feet and shaven crown ", a suggestion that might have come
from Stevenson himself. Moreover, the reader who turns to the two magnificent
quarto volumes of the Abbey Charters will find some very lively matter. He will
also learn the outstanding facts about the convent: that it was one of the few
Clugniac settlements in Scotland, that its founder was Duncan, the first Earl of
Carrick, that it had the Kings and Queens of Scotland, both of the Bruce and of
the Stewart line, for its benefactors—Robert the First may have been educated
here—that it held temporal sway over nearly the whole of Carrick, and that it
maintained its witness to the things of the spirit for three centuries and a
half until, when its life was thought to be gone, the eagles were gathered
together. The explanation of Stevenson’s silence—the sufficient explanation—
doubtless is that he did not happen to be in the mood for monasteries that
winter morning.
1 The Order to which Crossraguel Abbey belonged had its headquarters at Cluny in Burgundy, and French influence appears in the architecture, "noticeably in the apsidal termination of the choir, a distinctly Continental feature and one rare in Scotland, as distinguished from the square end more peculiar to this country ". The apse is polygonal. The recurring damages and repairs to which the abbey has been subjected make it impossible to assign it to any one period. An attempt to reconstruct its architectural history has been made by Mr. James A. Morris in Charters of the Abbey of Crosraguel. The abbey was fortified with strong towers.
2 Stevenson’s essay, A Winter’s Walk in Carrick and Galloway, is belied by its title. It was left a fragment unfortunately and contains nothing of the Galloway part of the tour. In a letter written in February, 1876, Stevenson says, "I went to Ayr, Maybole, Girvan, Ballantrae, Stranraer, Glenluce, and Wigton. I shall make an article of it some day soon, ‘A Winter’s Walk in Carrick and Galloway’. I had a good time."
3 Gaelic bail tarsuinn, village set obliquely.
4 Pron. Crossráygel, 1225—65 Cros- and Corsragmol. Circa 1560 Corsragvell. Prob. Gaelic crojs ratlhaig mhaoil, cross beside the bare or towerless fort.—Johnston.