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The Town of
Maybole is a burgh of barony, and the reputed capital of Carrick. It
stands near the southern extremity of the parish of Maybole, on the road
from Glasgow to Portpartrick, 9 miles south by west of Ayr, 12
north-north-east of Girvan, 22 south-south-west of Kilmarnock, and 81
south-west of Edinburgh. It stands chiefly on the declivity and partly
along the skirts of a very broad based, and flattened hill, With an
exposure toward east, the summit of the hill intervening between it the
frith of the Clyde; and it commands a pleasant and, some what extensive
view over one-half of the compass into the interior of Carrick. An old
rhyme using one of several obsolete variations of the town's ancient
names says,-
" Minnibole's
a dirty hole, It sits aboon a mire"
This
representation, in the sense usually attached to the town being situated
on miry ground, is now, and probably always was, incorrect. A broad belt
of deep green meadow, nearly as level as a bowling-green, stretches
along, the base of the hill, and seems anciently to have been a marsh;
but it could not have been a marsh of a miry kind or otherwise than
green and meadowy, nor does it, even at present form the site of more
than a very, small and entirely modern part of the town. The whole
ancient site is declivitous, abounding with copious springs of pure
water, and not improbably was clothed in its natural state with heath.
Two sets of names, both very various in their orthography, but
represented by the forms Maiboil and Minnybole, were anciently given to
the town; they have greatly perplexed etymologists, and seem to have
bewildered the usually astute George Chalmers; but they may, Professor
Gray thinks, be referred to Gaelic roots, which make them mean 'the
Heath-ground upon the marsh,' and 'the Heath-ground upon the meadow.' A
town built upon a heathy declination, and closely skirted by a meadow,
or even a grassy marsh, may thus, without sitting aboon, mire be both
Minnibole and Maybole. 'The lower streets of the town, called Kirklands,
Newyards, and Ballony, are not within the limits of the burgh, and
consist almost wholly of weavers houses and workshops, tidier and better
than similar buildings in many other towns. The main street runs nearly
north and south, and with the exception of a brief thoroughfare going
off westward at right angles from its middle occupies the highest ground
within the burgh. A considerable space, deeply sloping between it and
the low-lying suburbs, is disposed to a small extent in the ancient
cemetery and the relics of the collegiate church; to a greater extent in
four or five incompact and irregularly arranged streets; and to a yet
greater extent in fields and gardens which give all the intersecting
thoroughfares a straggling or detached appearance, and impart to the
whole town a rural, airy, and healthful aspect.
The only parts of
the town which draw the attention of a stranger, are the Main street,
and what is called the Kirk-wynd. These are narrow, and of varying
width, quite destitute of every modern attraction, and sinless of all
the ordinary graces of a fine town; yet they possess many features of
antique stateliness, decayed and venerable magnificence, and even fading
dashes of metropolitan greatness; which strongly damaged the
aristocratical parts of Edinburgh during the feudal age. As the capital
of Carrick, the place anciently wielded more influence over its province
than the modern metropolis of the kingdom does over Scotland, and
contained the winter residences of a large proportion of the Carrick
barons. As the seat, also, of the courts of justice of Carrick bailiery,
the place where all cases of importance in a roistering and litigating
age were tried, it derived not a little outward respectability from the
numbers and wealth of the legal practitioners who made it their home. In
connexion, too, with its collegiate church and its near vicinity to
Crossraguel abbey, it borrowed great consequence, from the presence of
influential ecclesiatstics who in dark age possessed more resources of
power and opulence than most of the nobility. No fewer than 28 baronial
mansions, stately, turreted, and strong, were said to have stood within
its limits. Two, of several of these, which still remain figure in
association with such interesting history that they must be especially
noticed.
The chief is the
ancient residence of the Ailsa or Cassilis family, the principal branch
of the Kennedys. The building stands near the middle of the town, bears
the name of the Castle par excellence, high, well-built, imposing
pile, one of the strongest and finest of its class. It was the place of
confinement for life of the Countess of Cassilis a daughter of the first
Earl of Haddington, who eloped with the Gipsy leader, Johnnie Faa. See
CASSILIS. The Earls of Cassilis, directly and through the medium of
collateral branches of their family, wielded such power over the
province that they were called both popularly and by: historiographers,
'Kings of Carrick;" and they used the castle of Maybole as the
metropolitan palace of their kingdom. Gilbert, the fourth Earl, who
lived in the unsettled period succeeding the commencement of the
Reformation pushed his power into Galloway, and seized the large
possessions of the abbey of Glenluce. He, for some time, saw his uncle
abbot of Crossraguel; but, the office passing to Allan Stewart, who
enjoyed the protection of the Laird of Bargany, he rapaciously desired
to lay hands on all its revenues and temporal rights. His brother,
Thomas Kennedy, having at his instigation enticed Stewart to become his
guest, the Earl conveyed the ensnared abbot to Dunure castle, the
original residence of the Cassilis family, and there, by subjecting to
terrible torments, forced him to resign by legal instruments the
possessions of the abbacy. A feud arose from this event, or was
aggravated by it, between the Earls of Cassilis and the Lairds of
Bargany and at last issued in very tragical events. In December, 1601,
the Earl of Cassilus rode out from Maybole castle at the head of 200
armed followers to waylay the Laird of Bargany on a ride from Ayr to his
house on Girvan-water; and on the farm of West Enoch, about half a mile
north of the town, he forced on the Laird an utterly unequal conflict,
and speedily brought him and several faithful adherents gorily to the
ground. The Laird, mortally wounded, was carried from the scene of the
onset to Maybole, that he might there, if he should evince any symptom
of recovery, be despatched by the Earl as" Judge Ordinar' of the
country' 'and thence he was removed to Ayr, where he died in a few
hours. |
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Flagrant though
the deed was, it not only through maneuvering and state influence highly
characteristic of the period-passed with impunity, but was formally
noted by an act of council as good service to the King. The Laird
of Auchendrane, son-in-law of the slain baron, was one of the few
adherents who bravely but vainly attempted to parry the onslaught, and
he received some severe wounds in the encounter. Thirsting for revenge,
and learning that, Sir Thomas Kennedy of Colzean intended to make a
journey to Edinburgh, he so secretly instigated a party to waylay and
kill him, that no witness existed of his connexion with them except a
poor student of the name of Dalrymple, who had been the bearer of the
intelligence which suggested and guided the crime. Dairymple now became
the object of his fears; and, after having been confined at Auchendrane,
and in the island of Arran, and expatriated for five or six years a
soldier, he returned home, and was doomed to destruction. Mure, the
Laird, having got a vassal, called James Bannatyne, to entice him to his
house situated at Chapel Donan, a lonely place on the coast murdered him
there at midnight, and buried his body in the sand. The corpse,
speedily unearthed by the tide, was carried out by the assassin to the
sea after a time when a strong wind blew from the shore but was very
soon brought back by the waves, and lodged on the very scene of the
murder. Mure, and his son who aided him in the horrid transactions, fell
under general suspicion, and now endeavored to destroy Bannatyne, the
witness and accomplice of their guilt; but the unhappy peasant making
full confession to the civil authorities, they were brought up from an
imprisonment into which the King; roused by general indignation, had
already thrown them, and were placed at the bar, pronounced guilty, and
summarily and ignominiously put to death. These dismal transactions form
the groundwork of Sir Walter Scott's dramatic sketch, called
‘Auchendrane, or the Ayrshire Tragedy.’
The house now
occupied as the Red Lion inn, was anciently the mansion of the provost,
and is notable as the scene of a set debate between John Knox, the
reformer, and Quentin Kennedy, uncle of the fourth Earl of Cassilis, and
abbot of Crossraguel. An account of the transaction; written by Knox
himself was republished in 1812 by Sir Alexander Boswell, from a
copy—the only one extant - in his library at Auchinleck. The debate
was occasioned by a challenge, on the part of the abbot given in the
church of Kirkoswald; it was conducted in dingy, pannelled apartment, in
the presence of 80 persons, equally selected by the antagonists, and
included several nobles and influential gentlemen it lasted for three
days, and was eventually broken off through the want of suitable
accommodation for the persons and retinues of the select auditors; and
it did good service in practically prostration the abbot, and in
arousing public attention to the corruptions of Romanism. The members of
a Knox club, instituted in the town to commemorate the event, and
consisting of all classes of Protestants, used to hold a festival to
demonstrate their warm sense of the religious and civil liberties which
have accrued from the overthrow of the Romish domination.
The noticeable
civil building, additional to the two mentioned, are the ancient
town-residences of the lairds of Blairquhan, now used as the tolbooth, -
the ancient residence of the Lairds of Kilhenzie, now the White Horse
inn, -- the ancient residence of the Kennedys of Knockdow, now called
the Black house,--the house occupied by Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean,
now the property of Sir Thos. M. Cunningham, -- the ancient residence of
the Kennedys of Ballimore, situated in the Kirk-wynd,-the ancient
residence of the abbots of Crossraguel, called the Garden of Eden,--and
the Town-hall, a cumbrous old pile with a low, heavy, spiral tower,
situated at the Cross. Though the town has not one modern public civil
building, it abounds in commodious and comfortable dwelling-houses,
greatly superior, for every domiciliary use, to even the best of its
remaining baronial mansions.
The parish-church
is a plain edifice and might even claim to be neat were it not
disfigured by a small unsightly steeple. The church at the west end of
the town is a very creditable edifice. The United Presbyterian church
draws attention by having had a deep slice cut away from one of its
corners, occasioned by a bigoted attempt to prevent its erection.
Maybole, after passing through a season of great depopulation and
decline consequent on the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions has
risen into considerable importance as a busy outpost of the cotton
manufacturers of Glasgow, and a ready receptacle of the immigrant
weavers of Ireland.
Having no
manufacture whatever of its own, beyond the usual produce of
handicraftsmen for local use; and figures chiefly as a seat of
population, where the Irish weavers and the agents of Scottish employers
conveniently meet. Incomers from Ireland have been so numerous as almost
to counterbalance the aboriginal inhabitants, and give law to the place.
Excepting a few coarse woollens and blankets all the fabrics woven are
pullicates, imitation thibets, and mull and jaconet muslins. Maybole,
jointly with the villages of Crosshill and Kirkmichael, had, in 1828,
1700 hand-looms, and, in 1838, 1360. The condition of the weavers is
similar to that in other towns where weaving is the chief occupation,
and if darkened by some peculiar local features is perhaps at least
equally lightened by others.
A weekly market is
held on Thursday; and annual fairs are held on the third Thursday of
January, April, July, and October. The town has offices of the Royal
Bank of Scotland, and of the Union Bank. It has likewise six insurance
agencies, a water company, a gas light company, and a mechanics
institution, and is the meeting place of the Carrick farmers society. It
has long had daily coach communication with Ayr, but it will derive
greatly increased benefit from its branch railway to the Ayr and
Dalmellington railway. It was erected into a burgh of barony in 1516,
and is governed by 2 bailies, 15 councillors and a treasurer. Its public
revenue averages about £65 a year. A bailie court is held on every
Thursday, and a justice of peace court sits on the first Wednesday of
every month. Population in 184l, 3,43l in 1851, 3,862. Houses, 394. |