AYRSHIRE
HISTORY
ayrshirehistory.com
PRESERVING THE PAST . . . . FOR THE FUTURE

ABOUT US

Sorn    Mauchline    Catrine    Muirkirk    Glenbuck    Failford    Private Collections
Contact
NOTE: Should non commercial use be made of any material from these pages,
basic copyright/ decency rules apply. ie credit should be given both to the original
donor, AS WELL AS "ayrshirehistory.com"

This site may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion.
You are entitled to use this product for your own use,
but may not copy, reproduce, translate, display, or reduce
to any electronic medium or machine readable form,
nor sell or lease the product to others
without prior written permission of ayrshirehistory.com
© 1998
February 2006
I am amazed sometimes when my work becomes significant. This happened a couple of times recently. I was sitting in on an excellent talk about the life of Robert Burns, when the distinguished speaker proudly began to tell the audience about a government based web site having such a wonderful historic documentation of Mauchline from old times. I am sure you can imagine my consternation when a collection of ayrshirehistory.com images were displayed alongside the rest of the slideshow, while credit was openly given to an Edinburgh based concern. I questioned this in public, and was doubly assured it was material from the government based outfit. The error has since been cleared up, and was a genuine error.

Not a genuine error however was one character who even took it upon himself to copy both text and images from this web site, and mail the content credited to himself to a Canadian based web site, called electricscotland.com. This was reproduced by the webmaster there, but taken back off line when the source of the material was realised.

All that is asked is that the basic gentleman’s rule of use of material be honoured, and credit given to both this web site and the original donor of the image. That is why donor names are below most images on this site, and have been since day one. The Mauchline on line slideshow is a temporary exception, as the text for that is only half done. (Kenny Baird, February 2006)
April 2004
The main difference to the web pages as of mid April 2004, will be the new style front end, and menu system. It should in theory mean easier navigation of the site, as all or almost all pages are a mere click away from the front page. A lot of work is still to be done, and as time permits, it should eventually be done.

A reminder that if anyone is looking for specific files, some of the file names from the original work, were deliberately kept to 8 letters or less to suit old operating systems. Thus for example "page23.jpg" could have been "john_taylor_gibb_page_23". As long file names are common place, and have been for a number of years now, future files will have more descriptive titles. However there are no plans to change all the work already done. The time would be better spent adding new material. The site is still perfectly navigable. Some of the original files were made many years ago, and may look rather dated. The content will still be there, but in the early days, all the colours of the rainbow were used for text and links etc, simply because they could be. The old files are gradually being modernised, but the time factor creeps in again. (Kenny Baird April 2004)
November 2003
At last I have found the time to update the Website with an amazing on line slideshow of old Mauchline, over 300 new pages!! The images contained in the said show are mainly from the private collection of Willie Lyle. Willie has kept safe for over forty years, a collection of original glass negatives, which belonged to Mauchline minister, photographer and local historian, John Taylor Gibb. [1864 – 1948] The task to reproduce these images was by no means straight forward, and took many long hours in sometimes Baltic conditions. I therefore hope I can be forgiven if sometimes it seems there is little noticeable work being done to the site.

The original web site was designed around a screen size of 800 by 600, but in the case of the slideshow, I have used a screen size of 1024 by 768, to enable the maximum quality of the images to be portrayed. Some of the high res images on many of the over 1000 pages are also designed to fit nicely onto a screen of 1024 by 768. I know this makes it rather an awkward site, suiting both screen sizes, but it is unavoidable as technology advances.

Another long task is sorting out all the older images on the site which were used when the project was in its infancy. Initially most of the images were proudly displayed in an untouched, original faded and scarred state. In the last few years however most of the images have been cleaned, and touched up, and the effect is perhaps more realistic. With the collection of glass plates, the results have been described as awesome. The repairing of the original scans will take time, and therefore do not expect instant results. The web site is unfortunately a voluntary project, which takes up so much spare time. (Kenny Baird Nov 2003)

Recent Developments (February 2002)
There has been some dispute from time to time, that the credit for an image may not necessarily be to the original collector. All images on this site are credited to the doner of the material. Sometimes in separate collections, the same image will appear. Usually the credit is given either jointly, or to the owner of the image used, which would be the cleanest version. Remember that the original photographer in many cases does not even receive credit, and are generally unknown. The main concern is the fact that by having the image on this archive web site, the image has been preserved, in a non fading digital format.

A new idea has been brought into the site in February 2002. The private collections button takes you to just that.
Recent Developments (September 2001)

This site was officially taken off line on Tuesday 24th April 01 by the former host, South Ayrshire Council. We would like to express our thanks to South Ayrshire for providing the server space for the last three and a half years. 

Since Thursday June 15th, the site has been on line once more, thank you to the support of Ayrshire Electronic Community. Thank you to Councilor Smith for his help in arranging this. The technical side of this server seems to be extremely encouraging. The download speeds are far faster than the previous host.

This site is completely non-profit making and totally unviable as a commercial project, and therefore has to be supported by goodwill. 

 <ayrshirehistory.com> is now registered as the domain name. <ayrshirehistory.net> also takes you direct to the full address <www.e-ayrshire.co.uk/local/sornweb>. Thank you to sornmilk.com for their support in this department.

A lot of time has been spent in early 2001 making the layout a lot more uniform. Time has been spent repairing typing errors which crept in. This is what comes of working late into the wee sma' hours. Anyone who notices any other errors, inaccuracies, or would like to add information, please feel free to contact any of us. All contributions are welcome.
Credits
HTML work compiled by Kenny Baird

Some text and background information By Terry Harrison, Willie Lyle, Chris Lees, Jimmy Taylor
Additional groundwork by Kenny Baird, Sandy McFadyean, Paul Haining, David Shaw
Other assistance, research, contributions and advice from:

Chris Lees, John Faulds, Stuart Robertson, Willie McClure, George Shaw, Sanny Wyper, Jim McMahon, Lynette Stewart, Jean Cunningham, Rachel McIntyre (Sorn Castle), Carnegie Library, Karen McFadzean (Sorn Inn), Eric Roxburgh, Derek Barbour (Sorn), Billy Johnstone, Elizabeth Robb, Craig Barbour, Robin Tannock, Jim Nisbet, Geordie Cameron, Geordie Smith, Thelma McGradey (Sorn Village Hall), Billy Gibson, Lindsay Clark, Hugh Harrison, Archie and Marjorie Johnston, Jean McKay, Ian Read, David Somervell, Stevenson's Dairy Farm, William Wither, Heather Goudie, Margaret and Lena Scott, William Girvan, Mr Barkley (Former Headmaster), Bert Logan, Margaret Morton, Judy A. Ollikkala, Ian Mason, Lord Norreys, Billy Frew, Billy Henderson, Mrs Anne McIlvean, Grace Goudie, John Kerr, Euan Kerr, John Clark Maddison, Hugh Ferguson, Nally Murray, Jock Foster & Murray Pringle, Ronnie Anderson, Sandy McFadyean, Kenny Neil, Sorn Primary School, Terry Harrison, Jimmy Taylor, Jimmy Clebo, John Jackson, Jessie Telfer, Guy Howie, Mac Forbes, Hughy Hodge (Auchmillan Hill), Ballochmyle Golf Club, Robert Lawrence, Norma Girvan, Nancy Moffat & Mauchline Spiders, Bert McGregor, Paul Haining, Jim Scott, The Burns House Museum in Mauchline, Isa Brown, Bert Collington, George Hardy, Francis McDowal, Jim Taylor [Lochhill], Bob Ramsay, Ronnie Lawrence, William Lyle, Derek Barbour (Failford), Mary Imrie, Pat Aitken, Ian Lyell, Paul Norman (Ballochmyle Inn), James Cook, Bill Blake, Jim Turnbull, Eric Hamilton (Perth), Prof David Purdie (Edinburgh), Mary Black.

Anon =  Anonymous contributions, who did not want their name on the Internet.

A lack of proper equipment is never helpful when operating on a shoestring, far less working on a monster project such as this. I would therefore like to thank the following people for allowing ayrshirehistory.com the use of various pieces of equipment over the last few years.
David Shaw, Sandy McFadyean, Paul Haining, Gordon Cunningham, Carnegie Library, Ayrshire Electronic Community, Alan Hopkins. 

A special thanks to the Baird Institute in Cumnock for access to their archives.
The institute is part of the Library and Information service of East Ayrshire Council.

We are proud to now have both Terry Harrison and Jimmy Taylor on board, sharing and recording their wealth of local knowledge, as well as their large collections of local historical material. Terry and Jimmy have been involved in local history work for many many years.

In 2002 Willie Lyle of Mauchline has offered to share his very large collection of glass slides, and negatives relating to Mauchline.

Thank you to Councillor Smith for his work in getting this site back up and running at AEC after South Ayrshire Council pulled the plug on the site, for no known reason.

History

This site went on line properly in early 1998, although a skeleton of the current archive. The preparation work was started in 1997, before even going on line.

The material here is for educational and historical purposes, and is available as a free standing, free to air web site to anyone around the world with Internet access. Although the concept of making historical collections available on the world wide web is a relatively new ideal, the history of the Internet itself goes back many years. The www [Internet] is in a sense the world's largest encyclopaedia, and allows access in all corners of the globe. This technology is new and a mystery to many, but it is the best way of preserving our local history.

Many of the old postcards are great pieces of history, perhaps more so than many old personal photographs. The publishing firms had more experienced photographers, and in many cases, better (any) camera equipment than many homes had in earlier years. Sadly in recent years so much local history has been lost, which hopefully will never happen with what is left. So much material gets thrown out, perhaps unknowingly, by families of deceased. Much material has also been lost to collectors, which although still technically available, is as good as lost.  A collectable old postcard can trade for quite a sum of money, and could easily end up not only out of the area, but outside the country. 

Response
Response to this massive undertaking has been very good in the local area.
The e mail support, and response in the guest book has also been superb. 
Read the guest book up to 2001 as one html file from here. More soon. 
Operations
This web site was originally constructed to make access available to as many people as possible, including anyone still using old software such as Windows 3.1 and old versions of Netscape. File names were originally kept to 8 letters or less, although now many file names are longer, but always lower case. Some operating systems may be case sensitive. The desktop area was originally limited to 640 by 480, to cope with anyone who has an older & limited VGA monitor, but the common standard 600 by 800 and/ or 1024 by 768 is used throughout. Both settings should be able to cope with the whole site.

The A4 size and larger documents are also high res to allow ease of reading, although the file sizes per page are a little on the large side.

The original ideas behind the web site was to also make public the original hi res scans, but this has been unable to put into reality.

Browsers
The site was originally designed rather clumsily around Netscape 3 and 4, with the need to change the settings in the preferences to make the links look better. Now though there is no need, and the default settings of both Netscape and Internet Explorer happily cope with the site. Netsacape now is virtually dead, with Internet Explorer easily winning the battle of the browsers. 

Although some early browsers did not support frames, the main reason for having none is simply so that images can be seen full screen. This is a site of an archival nature. Frames reduce the size of the screen, and with a 14 inch monitor, you can not afford any screen size reduction.

Worth noting is that since Internet Explorer 6, a nasty default setting means that an A4 page wont fit to the width of the page and let you scroll down, but rather fits the height of the screen. If the PC operator is one of these folks who downloads all the extra toolbar clutter from the web, there is not much room to display a large image. A silly brown square tool comes out of the bottom corner sometimes if you are quick enough, which expands the image. This can be switched off in the options if required.

Downloading
File sizes are reasonably small, and ideal for downloading. Obviously the better the connection and modem the faster the download time will be. There are high-resolution images of most of the old photographs, which may slow some older machines down. Users with equipment unable to cope with some images of around 100k, should beware of the hi res images. There are also some publications on line, eg old Sorn Parish magazines. These files can be anything up to 700k, not a lot by today's standards for a PC, but it still slows things down on line if you still use dial up connections. Older machines using only 16meg of RAM used to struggle with the images even from a CD. This is virtually a thing of the past with most machines now using 256 or 512 meg and more as standard. 
Printing
Anyone who feels they wish to print out the images of course can do so using their web browser. Good results are obtained using LANDSCAPE settings on the page set up menu. There can be times when the web pages being printed out from the browser, have text missing and pages only partly printed using the standard portrait settings. If it is only the image which is required, better results can be obtained using a graphics package, such as Paint Shop Pro, or Photoshop, where the image will easily fit to page. Best results are obviously obtained using the high res images.