AUCHENCRUIVE.
With many a sweeping curve and abrupt elbow, the Ayr continues to pursue its course by rock and wood and level meadow and factory chimney to the sea; past Coilsholm and the “Dead Man’s Holm,” a name that may preserve the memory of some otherwise forgotten battle; past Stair village and Stair House, now neglected and forlorn, whence the noble and gifted family of Dalrymple have taken their title; past Dalmore and Enterkin, that early seat of the Cunninghames, and Annbank, where the scene of Burns’s “Fête Champêtre” is now obscured by colliery smoke; by Gadsgirth also, whose mansion, standing on a coign of the southern bank, was long the home of the old family of Chalmers; and on to where the river is joined by the Coyle, whose “winding vale,” were we to trace it up, would lead us to the bold cliffs and cascades of Sundrum, to Coylton and the “King’s Steps,” which, too, preserve traditions of “Coil, king of the Britons,” said to have been defeated on the neighbouring uplands by “Fergus, king of the Picts and Scots”; and so to the Crains of Kyle, where, among “the bonnie blooming heather,” one can look down upon the Doon.
Photo: Bara, Ayr.
THE TWA BRIGS OF AYR (p. [338]).
The same scenery—the alternation of pool and shallow, of wood and crag and meadow—continues along the great double curve which the main stream makes past the grounds of Auchencruive. Each wiel and holm has its own name and story; and the woods of Auchencruive, of Laiglan, and of Craigie are full of legends of William Wallace, who here sought shelter when hiding from his English foes, or meditating his attack on the “Barns of Ayr.” Auchencruive, so named from the natural trap dyke which here crosses the river, has a Wallace “Seat” and “Cave.” It is said to have been a possession of a branch of the family of the “Knight of Elderslie,” but passed from them and from their successors, the Cathcarts.
“Sundrum shall sink, and Auchencruive shall fa’,
And the name o’ Cathcart shall soon wear awa’.”