Guidebooks Ayrshire Scotland

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Discover Ayrshire. Ayrshire is one of the most important counties in Scotland, with a long and proud history. In the most comprehensive book ever published on the subject, the author covers the many and varied parts of the county in considerable depth. The range is impressive and includes battles, momentous events, distinguished buildings, industry and commerce, natural history and folk tales. Then there is the astonishing number of illustrious people that Ayrshire has produced. The list includes Sir William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Robert Burns, James Boswell, Johnnie Walker, John Loudon McAdam, Keir Hardie, Sir Alexander Fleming, Jackie Paterson and Bill Shankly. Ayrshire: Discovering a County.

Lost Ayrshire. The lost architectural heritage of Ayrshire. Over the centuries countless buildings have been erected and demolished, and this informative and beautifully illustrated book looks at a wide selection of these, from castles that have been destroyed or replaced by modern mansions to country houses that have succumbed due to dry rot or lack of funds for their upkeep. Dane Love also visits various townscapes and uncovers the former everyday architecture of the burghs and villages, including churches, banks, tollbooths, public halls, schools, shops and houses. Ayrshire was once rich in mining and other industries that have now gone. This book contains illustrations of the county's lost coalmines and the associated miners' rows, as well as former cotton mills, power stations, shipyards, factories and other places of work. As well as lost buildings from the distant past, Dane Love includes some more recent examples of what has been destroyed. In some cases these losses are welcome, but in many, they are regrettable - such buildings should have been preserved and found new uses. Lost Ayrshire shows just how much of the area's heritage has lamentably vanished over the years. Lost Ayrshire.

People and Places in South Ayrshire History. Sir James Fergusson used to maintain that for anyone lucky enough to live in the Girvan valley the only joy of travel must be the pleasure of coming home. That deep affection, made so plain in the first chapter, written in 1938, was no doubt magnified by five years' absence during the war, and later by his twenty years as Keeper of the Records of Scotland, when he necessarily spent four days and nights of most weeks in Edinburgh. This anthology, mainly culled from Lowland Lairds, The White Hind and The Man Behind Macbeth, brings together those essays which deal more or less directly with the Girvan valley, the parts of it, at any rate, which demanded an historian's attention or awoke his curiosity. It is in no sense a full story of the valley: the principal estates lying on or near the river, like their people, make their appearance simply as the narratives dictate, Trochrague, Penkill, Killochan, Bargany, Dalquharran, Kilkerran, Kirkbride, Blairquhan. 'Fugitive pieces' include an Ayrshire wine-merchant's letter book, which, like the study of the plague in Ayr, deserves its tenuous place in a book about the valley if only because, to all who lived nearby, wine shipped into the port of Ayr was of as critical interest as the pestilence, at a time when whisky was seldom drunk outside the Highlands and smugglers supplied brandy at overwhelmingly competitive prices. Sir James Fergusson of Kilkerran 8th Bart, LLD FRSE, 1904-1973, was Keeper of the Records of Scotland 1949-69, Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire, a member of the Royal Commission on Historic Manuscripts, a trustee of the Scottish National Galleries, Chairman of the Burns Monument Trust, and others. By the Water of Girvan: People and Places in South Ayrshire History.

Robert Burns The Patriot Bard. This new biography of Scotland's national poet explodes the Burns myth, replacing the ram-stam lad of popular cliche with the real, living Burns. He is revealed as a Scottish patriot of the heart, an idealist who wished for Freedom and Liberty for his beloved Scotland, but also a man who was pragmatically a British patriot who risked his life for democratic reform. In Robert Burns: The Patriot Bard, the greatest of Scotland's poets is placed within the true context of his times. He was a son of the Enlightenment, whose inspiration came from both Scottish and English poets, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of Independence and the French Revolution of 1789. Burns is painted in his native colours as a highly complex, hyper-intelligent writer in both prose and poetry, not the semi-confused contradictory simpleton of previous biographies. The fascinating legend of Burns as ladies' man is placed where it should be, as less important than the message of the bard. The real Robert Burns was irascible, stubborn-minded, independent, controversial and opinionated. His voice was always in the language of the people and his idealist vision of a better world lifted him from being exclusively a patriotic Scottish and British poet to a poet of humanity the world o'er. Drawing from Burns' existing canon of poetry and letters, plus some newly attributed works suppressed for over two centuries, this life story is a roller-coaster narrative that charts the success and untimely death of the greatest songwriter of all time, the real Robert Burns. Robert Burns: The Patriot Bard.

The Ayrshire Collection. A collection of 110 colour photographs of Ayrshire, ranging from Largs in the north of the county to Ballantrae in the south. All of Ayrshire's most prominent places are covered, along with beautiful landscapes and stunning coastal views. Among the towns featured are Ayr, Kilmarnock, Irvine, Kilwinning, Ardrossan, Troon, Largs, Girvan and Maybole. The notable landmarks include Kelburn castle, the Pencil, the Wallace Monument, Auchinleck House, Stair bridge, Wallace's cave, Dean Castle, the Dick Institute, Irvine harbour, Prestwick airport, Royal Troon golf course, the Auld Brig, Wellington Square, Burns Statue Square, Burns Cottage, Brig O' Doon, Electric Brae, Crossraguel Abbey, Culzean Castle, Turnberry Lighthouse, Girvan harbour and Sawney Bean's cave. Many of Ayrshire's most beautiful natural features are also captured: the Firth of Clyde, the Three Sisters, Eaglesham Moor, Loudoun Hill, Loch Doon, the Stinchar Falls, and Shalloch on Minnoch. There are also special studies of Ayr racecourse on Gold Cup day and Ailsa Craig. The Ayrshire Collection.

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