ayrshirehistory.com - Changes & Updates to Ayrshire History site

Updates and news from ayrshirehistory.com

July 2008: After a long period of zero updates to this site, mainly due to time and enthusiasm, a minor update has been added. The BBC are filming some footage of Mauchline in connection with the 2009 250th anniversary of Burns. Local man Hughy Love can often be heard singing the Burns in the pubs. Added a few of his songs. The inspiration for this addition came from the interest from the folks at the beeb. They were especially interested in local folks still keeping up with tradition.

March 2007: Added a new image of the box which is in The Burns House Museum, Mauchline, which houses the Ballochmyle Silver Quoit. This was at the request of the Mauchlineware Collectors Club. The photo we had up on line was before the box had been restored. Also added photos of a trophy presented to Mauchline Quoiting club by Marcus Bain JP, in 1895. The offer to display this in Mauchline's Burns House Museum was remarkably turned down by the council.

February 2007: Added a form to contact ayrshirehistory.com after the amount of spam was increasing. Click the contact button to send a message. The old address was a little ropey for some considerable time, mail bouncing etc, but is now 100% again.

The new host set up in January 2007 has proved to be a great success. The site can be updated at any time. This was the main problem with the former host. Incredibly the site was limited to one update per month, with NO FTP facilities!!

The work on the links within the site is complete, and took quite a while to perform all the checks. Many old files had links with upper case in the names, eg castle.JPG. or Castle.jpg. This is fine in windows servers, but in a linux server, all files and links require to be lower case. Many files have also been changed to .html, instead of .htm. Although this was quite a task with such a large web site, the results are completely hidden from the public view. All the web pages will be exactly the same, from the outside. From our point of view, it meant a chance to repair so many minor "rough edges" which have crept in over the years. What this means in plain English is that anyone who has been on the site in the last month or so and noticed some photos do not appear, or links broken etc, should see an improvement. Anyone finding a broken link, use the form on the contact page to let us know. Thank you.

January 2007: A lot of links have been found not working recently. The reason for this is that the new server has a Linux operating system, meaning it requires links and filenames in lower case. Our original pages did not always have lower case names etc. This is being worked on. If anyone notices a broken link or image not showing, e mail kenny at the address in the contact page.

Added a page with some interesting fossils which were found in the Sorn strech of the River Ayr. Currently seeking more info on these ancient relics of a very different time.

The .com version of this site has a new server and is being run on both .org and .com again for the time being. A change of server at last means we have the ability to update the site at random, if and when necessary. The previous hosts could not set up FTP facilities, and only allowed one update per month!!! This may encourage me to become more industrious, and produce some new pages/ material. A big thanks to Tony Hudson for his work in setting up the new server address, and refining some of the rough edges to the operation.

Removed the so called free forum. It filled up with spam, and that was that. May have some kind of an alternative shortly.

March 2006: IMPORTANT: The .com and .net versions of this archive may be limited to one update a month now, so apologies if any errors/ promised updates remain uncorrected for some time. The most up to date version of this site will be found at http://www.ayrshirehistory.org courtesy of Gordon Cunningham and e-smiddy. Therefore the search facility, which is still not perfect, is searching the alternative site of ayrshirehistory.org.

Added a page for unexplained and mysterious photographs

Added a high res image of Gilmilnscroft Old Avenue/ known simply as The Avenue these days to the Damhead page. (Damhead sits at the foot of The Avenue almost) Calum's image was much clearer than the one on line for years.

Repaired a few spelling errors on the story about old Sorn, by Chris Lees, and The Village on the Green story.

Started repairing two of the oldest books (oldest files anyway, produced in 1998) which were rather rough and ready, to use a local phrase. There are pages from The Poetical Works Of A.B.Todd (1906), and a Guide to Mauchline, Catrine & Sorn, from around 1906. Not finished at the time of writing.

Added 3 new photos, and a membership card to Sorn Castle Golf Club page, from the collection of Eric Hamilton.

Added an image of Damhead, Sorn, to the appropriate page. 3rd image on page, from Lynette.

Added a couple of new images from the collection of Eric Hamilton, to the Catrine - Mill Square page.

Added a new image of Sorn from the river, in the Sorn - Greyhound Inn page.

Added two images to the pages Catrine - Holm Farm Road, and Catrine New Mill. Same images, but covering both areas.

Cleaned up Mills of the River Ayr article.

Added some images of Barskimming Bridge and area to the slideshow of Mauchline. Also put the Barskimming Bridge, and Barskimming Mill images together. Previous some were around page 267. All can be found starting at page 291. Also added text on the Barskimming Bridge and Barskimming Mill pages.

Finally found the last sentence of the Mauchline Flood page, and added it. There is another longer article from the newspaper which may be reproduced in due course.

Early March, found some obvious/ careless typing errors, which have been repaired.

Feb 2006 - A very productive month.

Since the silver quoit trophy was brought back to Mauchline, we know what it looks like, (those of us who had never seen it), and a few photos have been found of men proudly displaying their prize. Added to Mauchline Quoiting page. This page was put on line before completion, and had some obvious spelling errors. Unfortunately there was a delay in this particular page being updated. Should be repaired early March.

Added a page with a few images from the John Taylor Gibb collection of Tarbolton, linked through the Burns in Mauchline & District pages.

Added a page on the Alexander family of Ballochmyle. This was written by the late Sir Claude Alexander in 2002 for the booklet given out at the unveiling of Mauchline's Jean Armour statue. (Produced by Mauchline Burns Club) Also added a new image of workers outside the "modern" day Ballochmyle House.

Added image of the plaque above Mauchline Parish Church doorway.

Found image of Rev Davis 1925 - 1928, minister in Sorn Church.

Added some images of the Ulster coastline taken from Mauchline Hill Top in February 06, as well as a google earth view of what we are seeing. There is also an image of Jura, and Mauchline Church in a frosty morning in Jan 06.

Added some images of Dugald Stewart's Hoose in Catrine, where Burns dinner'd wi' a lord, and removed some old text which was ref to Catrine House mansion, which was in connection with images on another page!!.

Made a new page for more recent views of Stewart Place, Catrine including an aerial shot before the current houses were built.

Added a DISCUSSION FORUM to enable chat and discussion about our Local History and memories. Took off in Jan 2007 due to spam fillingit up.

Added a search page to search the entire web site using the google search engine.

Added a few photos of Mossgiel in the on line slide show, including the oldest one available from 1858.

Still working through the Mauchline slideshow, and making the pages suitable for both 600 by 800 and 1024 by 768 screens. The pages are also being numbered in the page title. Reason for this is that Internet Explorer for some odd reason does not save files in their original form and file name, but changes it to the page title. They are also being titled in relation to content to assist search engines.

Remember that since vs 6 of Internet Explorer was introduced, by default the jpegs/ photos fit the screen by height. Clicking the funny brown square tool that sometimes comes out on the bottom right of the image increases the size of the photos on screen to full width. This automated annoyance can be disabled using tools menu/ internet options/ advanced/ multimedia/ enable automatic image resizing.

Keep in mind no offence is taken if anyone points out a typo/ spelling mistake in any of these pages. A couple of obvious bloopers were found recently.

Jan 2006 - Added yet another new guestbook, as the current freegb.net effort was hardly ever on line. Let's hope for better luck this time...

A couple of contributions came in via e mail recently. A lovely group photo outside the Failford Cafe on the Failford Village page, and some interesting images all the way from Australia of Sorn Estate, the latter not on line yet.

The local government here in East Ayrshire have decided to grant another year of web support. So we have now until June 2007, and then this web site may be taken off.

It is a sobering thought that in 9 years on line an archive such as this has not even been granted a permanent server.......

Nov 2005 - Added a few extra photos of Burns National Memorial opening day, and laying of foundation stone, 1896.

Added the Baird Family History pages.

Reality strikes again, and we are preparing again for the site to be removed from the local authorities server. No reason has ever been given, and therefore come June, Ayrshirehistory.com may well cease to exist despite the obvious local historic content. The amount of money per year to host a 500meg site would be too much.

June 2005 - A contribution from George Black, son of Policeman PC John Black included George in the forces, John Black on duty, and a Catrine football team.

April 2005 - Because of the amount of e mails received about old Muirkirk recently, contact details for our Muirkirk correspondent Jimmy Taylor are now added to the Muirkirk home page. . Also in recent weeks there has been trouble with spam entries in the guestbook. This includes adverts for on line gambling, as well as a few strange entries like the guestbook being used for communications of some sort. They are deleted easily, but apologies if there are entries there for a few days sometimes.

March 2005 - A minor update, adjusting title colours and updating a couple of broken links. Not so much time spent on the archive this last few months due to other commitments. A change in the server arrangement is due any time now, so bear in mind any updates may be easier found at www.ayrshirehistory.org. It is unknown whether these pages will be put off line yet again by political changes. Some work has been done for local motorcycle club, The Hillbillies. Their web pages can be seen by clicking here.

July 2004 - Set up a mirror of ayrshirehistory.com, after a possible threat of political interference to the site. The site is now mirrored at www.ayrshirehistory.org, and web space provided by Gordon Cunningham.

July 2004 - Working on a collection of still images from old cine reels of Sorn, for the next update. None are yet on line, but there are plenty new images of the village in the 60s and 70s, some 40 years ago!

June 2004 - Added a new guestbook, because of the frequent so called private entries, which were inaccessible. Often this was explained on the guestbook, but still private messages were left on a public board, so a new guestbook was found.The complete entries of the old guestbook can be found on an archive page within this site, accessed from the page "about". The rest of the later entries will appear shortly as time permits the editing.

June 2004 - Added a page for photographs of Mauchline from the air.

June 2004 - Began to change the Mauchline on line slideshow, so that it is equally as viewable on a 600 by 800 screen, as a 1024 by 768 pixel screen. Ongoing.

June 2004 - Added a few pages about Loch Brown, a water expanse in Mauchline Parish, drained at the time of the building of the railways in the 1840s. Included an article from the Kilmarnock Standard as well as current day views.

June 2004 - Added a page for old maps of Mauchline district.

June 2004 - Added a page of modern day images of Mauchline, showing evidence of the past.

May 2004 - Added a page with quoiting images in Mauchline, and a list of winners of the Ballochmyle silver quoit. The trophy has recently been found after it's location was unknown for many years.

April 2004 - Included within these pages old home pages of Catrine and Mauchline for reference and possible preference.

April 2004 - Made a lot of changes to the links and double files behind the scenes that won't really be noticed by browsing. This also included the removal of a few hundred orphan files, which was mainly tacky old background gifs and jpegs used in past years.

April 2004 - Added Statistical accounts for both Mauchline and Sorn from 1845 Statistical Account of Scotland.

April 2004 - Added Sorn aerial photos to the already extensive aerial views page..

April 2004 - Added Sorn by year page, which will give a chronological order of events important to village history.

April 2004 - Added Sorn village hall images.

April 2004 - Added Sorn Bridges page, which gives details of the road bridges around the village.

April 2004 - Added a whole new front end to the main pages, with better looking results, despite using basic ideas. The menu system should make the pages easier to navigate, and most of the links should be available from the home pages, although the indexes for example 'other' and the likes, are left included.

April 2004 - James Taylor our Muirkirk expert added extensive new Muirkirk pages. Muirkirk Traders, 6 new pages (accessed from traders page), Muirkirk Main Street , (accessed from Main Street page), Kames Colliery,3 new pages, (accessed from "mining page"). Auldhouseburn page has also been added to.

March 2004 - Added a few more images to the Mauchline on line slideshow. They have tended to be given numbers like 295_4 or 235_c, ie added into the existing numbers, rather than a complete new number. This is because they are of a similar subject to an existing image, and lets them fall into sequence.

March 2004 - Finally deleted the annoying transition even on all 331 pages of the Mauchline on line slideshow. There should be no more pages on this site with the fade in transition.

March 2004 - Tidied up the book Ayrshire Directory by Lamburn, 1887, which was in a similar state of affairs as the book below.

March 2004 - Tidied up the book History of Ayrshire and it's families by Paterson 1852. Some of the files were full of coloured text, and made in 1998.

March 2004 - Added numbers to the Mauchline on line slideshow for reference.

March 2004 - Added some images of Netherplace outdoor curling rink to the Mauchline outdoor curling pages

March 2004 - Added a page about Mauchline Pit / Dykefield Colliery

March 2004 - Added a page about John Taylor Gibb, whose personal private collection of glass negatives and slides can be seen on this web site.

March 2004 - Added a page for the old water pumps around Mauchline

March 2004 - Added a Mauchline page for the jubilee of King George 5th in 1935 and coronation of King George 6th. This had been added 2 weeks previous, but a computer crash lost a weeks work. There is much to be said for daily back ups, rather than weekly. (Some folks do not back up at all!!)

March 2004 - Removed the "fade in" transition which was rather overdone especially in the Mauchline pages. The on line slideshow should be the only pages with a transition. The main object of this archive was always to aim for ease of navigation and plain pages with no flashing lights and heavy java content.

March 2004 - Added 3 pdf files in connection with the churches in Catrine, compiled by John McIlvean. A 43 page history, Catrine other churches, and Ministers and office bearers.

March 2004 - Repaired Helen Steven's SORN PARISH, It's History & Associations both in the html format, and added a pdf file of the whole book. Layout was a little rough, being amongst the first of the material on this web site in 1997.

Feb 2004 - Added "Barskimming Mill" foundation stone ceremony, as pdf file.

Feb 2004 - Added "Ministers of the Parish" to the Mauchline church pages.

Feb 2004 - Added a page Mauchline Facts & Figures which is designed to give a chronological account of changes in the village.

Feb 2004 - Investigating a bug in the downloading of pdf files.

Feb 2004 - Included the Mauchline book, Mauchline It's History & Associations by Helen Stevens, 1897 as a pdf file.

Feb 2004 - Tidied up the Mauchline book, An Octogenarian's Reminiscences by WF Blair, and turned into a pdf file. Missing parts are now included.

January / Feb 2004 - Tidied up the Mauchline Town And District book, by John Taylor Gibb. This book contains many of the images seen on this web site. The original negatives of the images are still in existence today, baring a few exceptions which seem to be either lost or perhaps were broken throughout the years. This was one of the first books to be copied in it's entirety back in 1998, and the files were a little untidy. Much more of this extensive web site is in need of tidying and updating, but like everything else it takes time. The images in the book on line used to link to a higher res image, but in many cases they link to the original negative which as can be seen, is of much better quality than the scan from the book.

January 2004 - Added links to all the Mauchline slideshow files to jump back to the slideshow index.
Also repaired the bug preventing access to the first image.