The tiles rescued from the demolished Co-op building in Maybole were on public display in the Carrick Centre recently and over 200 visitors went along to see them. The tiles have been preserved mainly thanks to local contractor John Jamieson and he was keen that as many people as possible got the chance to see them.

It was initially thought that this might be almost impossible to save the tiles due to the dangerous condition of the building and the location of the tiles under a collapsed roof.  See article about the demolition project.

 At the exhibition a leaflet compiled by Dr Lindsay Lennie, an  expert in Historic Shop Conservations, was handed out. This provided background information on the tiles and James Duncan. She had also made a number of suggestions about methods for their possible removal. The main issue that she raised was that the tiles were fixed onto a solid masonry wall and were not onto a timber frame, therefore they could not be removed as large sections. Mr Jamieson, at his own expense, bought equipment which allowed the removal of most of the tiles.

At the exhibition, Mark Fletcher, chair of Maybole Community Council, thanked everyone for attending and went on to thank the Carrick centre for the use of the premises, Dr Lindsay Lennie for the information supplied to make up the leaflets and David Kiltie for supplying the video visual so people could see the effort it took to save the tiles.

 He continued, “I would like to offer a very large and special thank you to John Jamieson and his team for their sterling efforts in saving the tiles. “It's always a shame when communities lose iconic buildings because of neglect but it would have been a crime if we had lost the Duncan tiles.”

He then presented  Mr Jamieson was presented with a copy of the visual display and a cut glass vase that had etched on it the very iconic symbol from the top of the old building on one side and etched in words on the other side it read ‘The townsfolk of Maybole would like to thank Jamieson Contractors for all their hard work in saving the Duncan tiles’ .