Artist:
Billings; Engraver: Godfrey. An excerpt from the original description:
The town of Maybole is pleasantly situated on a gentle eminence, surrounded
by a screen of hills, which shelter it on the north and east, in form of an
amphitheater. It was erected by royal charter into a burgh of barony early in
the sixteenth century, in favor of the house of Cassillis. The collegiate church
of St. Mary's, now in ruins, was founded in 1441 by Kennedy of Dunure, ancestor
of this family, for a provost, a rector, and three prebendaries. It has shared
the fate of most other religious buildings of that period, and is now only used
as a sepulchre for the pious founder's posterity, the chief of whom is the noble
family above mentioned. Maybole is considered as possessing great salubrity of
climate, and noted for instances of longevity. In former times it was the winter
rendezvous of all the neighboring gentry,. whose somewhat stately domiciles are
still surviving chronicles of those primitive times. Of these family
mansions-once no less than twenty-eight in number-the most remarkable is the
Castle, here represented. It is one of the finest existing specimens of its
order, and affords a clear idea of the style and accommodation necessary for a
nobleman's establishment of that epoch. With this fortalice, the well known
story of " Johnny Faa," and the catastrophe which followed, are so
closely associated, that we shall be readily excused-especially by our
continental readers-if we annex the popular version, concerning which the reader
will find some curious particulars in the Waverley Anecdotes.
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