CASTLEHILL HOUSE AND  ESTATE 

 

The Ballantines of Ayr were said to be descended from the Bannatynes of Kames on the Island of Bute. (For a long time, the surnames of Bannatyne and Ballantyne/Ballantine were interchangeable.) During the 16th and early 17th centuries they possessed the lands of Castlehill, just east of the town of Ayr, but then they seem to have fallen on hard times, and Castlehill passed out of their hands. For most of the 1th and 18th centuries, the estate was in the possession of a branch of Ayr’s Ferguson family of merchants and lawyers, but they in turn faced ruin when the Ayr Bank of Douglas, Heron & Co. collapsed in 1772.

 

David Fergusson of Castlehill was provost of Ayr for much of the period between 1766 and 1791. His wife Elizabeth was the sister of John Ballantine, an Ayr banker who was a friend and patron of the poet Robert Burns and who was provost himself 1787-89. 1793-95 and 1796-98. John was instrumental in the building of Ayr’s New Bridge and the creation of Ayr Academy. By the time David Fergusson died in 1791, Castlehill had come back to the Ballantine family through his intermarriage with them. It was possessed first by John’s brother Patrick Ballantine, a merchant, who replaced the old mansion house there with a fine new one in 1804. When Patrick died in 1810, Castlehill and its mansion passed to John, who died in 1812.

 

The estate continued to be owned by the Ballantines and their relations until 1909, when it was purchased by William Wilson. Wilson was a muslin manufacturer from Paisley. He arrived in Ayr around 1900 and took up residence in Castlehill House as a tenant before buying the estate. He died in 1933, and a stained-glass window commemorating him can be seen in Alloway Church – he and other family members lie in the burial ground there. He was succeeded at Castlehill by a son, Glasgow stockbroker Leslie Hamilton Wilson (1884-1968). Another window in Alloway Church commemorates his son Leslie Cowans Wilson, killed in a plane crash at Prestwick Airport on Christmas Day 1954. In 1935 the estate passed into the possession of Castlehill Securities Ltd, but there continued to be a family presence in the mansion.

 

During the Second World War the house and estate were taken over by the Army. Plans to build a military barracks there in the mid 1950s were dropped, and the estate was eventually purchased by the local health board. They planned to build a new hospital on the site of the now-derelict 1804 mansion house, which was demolished in the mid-to-late 1960s, but after long delays another site was chosen for the hospital. In the early 1990s the estate was acquired by Kyle & Carrick District Council, and it is now a public park.

 

Castlehill Estate as you know it today is a small but popular park. The Estate has a countryside feel to it with extensive natural woodland areas. The coppice of mature Beech trees is a favourite feeding area for grey squirrels.

 

Visitors today will find a quite play area set within the estate with seating available to allow parents to relax while the children play. There is a network of paths through the estate for those of a more energetic nature and has proved popular for local dog walkers.

 

WINTER FUN AND GAMES ON AYR’S CASTLEHILL POND IN DAYS GONE BY

 

As winter begins to bite, most people will be hoping that conditions do not become too extreme. However, there are those who will have no complaints if the temperature plummets well below freezing – the aficionados of outdoor ice skating and curling.

 

The photographs provided by South Ayrshire Libraries include an old view of Castlehill Pond, Ayr, frozen up and thronged by the many who have come along to enjoy the ice. Up until the middle of the nineteenth century, skaters and curlers in the area had practiced their sports, when the weather permitted, at the mill dam on the River Ayr and at various spots which held floodwater. These included a natural hollow on the Castlehill Estate, just east of the town. In 1853a curling pond was created at Rozelle, and the 1896 Ordnance Survey map shows that by then, the pond at Castlehill had been enclosed by an embankment and divided in two by another embarkment to create separate skating and curling areas. Sluice gates on the ditch which ran through the pond enabled the filling or draining of these areas.

 

In the late 1890s the clubhouse beside the pond was owned by Ayr Skating Club, with the pond itself leased from the Castlehill Estate by Ailsa Curling Club. Ayr Skating Club disappears from the records around 1902, with the Castlehill Estate taking over ownership of the clubhouse. Ailsa Curling Club continued to lease the curling pond up until the 1914-18 Great War, but by the end of the war the club had apparently ceased to exist. There had been other clubs in the area, but by around 1930 only Ayr & Alloway Curling Club remained, playing at Rozelle. The opening of an indoor ice rink in Beresford Terrace in 1939 ended to outdoor curling in Ayr.

 

From 1929 until 1937, Ayr Model Yacht Sailing & Power Club leased Castlehill Pond. A history of the club can be seen here: http://www.ayrmodelboatclub.org/History.html

 

During the 1950s, as part of the major expansion of housing following the Second World War, many new streets were laid out in the Forehill area.  These included Glencairn Road, Cunningham Drive and Cunningham Crescent, surrounding Castlehill Pond. In March 1958, following an inspection of the old curling and skating pond, Ayr Town Council decided that it should be filled in and the ground levelled to create playing fields. When work started on new housing at Belmont in August of that year, earth cleared from there was used to fill in the pond, and the new playing area was named Glencairn Park.

 

BELMONT

 

Belmont was developed for local authority housing before the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, around Belmont Avenue, Chalmers Avenue and Morton Road. In the late 1950s, work commenced on a much larger council housing development at South Belmont, in an area enclosed by Peggieshill Road, Fenwickland Avenue, Burnbank Road and Dalmellington Road. The main services within the Belmont Area are Belmont Academy, which was originally built in 1960 on the former Belmont House which was the home of the Mathie-Morton family, Yeomanry House on Chalmers Road, St Paul’s R.C. Church with a number of shops dotted around the area. St Paul’s Church was built in 1967 and was designed by architect John Frederick Torry.

 

KINCAIDSTON

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The estate was built in the 1970s, most of the streets are named after flowers for example, Honeysuckle Park, Heather Park, whilst Kincaidston Drive is the only one which is not and is the main road which runs right around the scheme. The estate is home to a primary/nursery school and a community pavilion adjoined to the local bowling club, as well as several shops. Most recently a GP surgery and Lloyds Pharmacy at the Bankfield Medical Practice.

 

Prior to development Kincaidston was a farm on the outskirts of Ayr. During World War Two a Sopwith Camel crashed at the farm killing the pilot, Captain Victor George Anderson Bush, who had been based at no.1 School of Aerial Fighting at Turnberry.

 

Although the housing estate was built in share between Kyle and Carrick District Council and Digital Equipment Corporation for workers houses for a nearby factory development, the estate remains partly in council hands (now South Ayrshire Council) although many of the houses are now privately owned.

 

MARKET INN

 

The Market Inn is thought to have been associated with the cattle market which lay to the immediate South of the building. Established in Ayr in 1205, the cattle market moved to this area of Castlehill in 1891, following the expansion of the railway. The Market inn is depicted in the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey Map as a Hotel and is likely to have been built together with the cattle market to accommodate the influx of travellers associated with it.

 

 

WALLACE'S HEEL

 

Wallace’s Heel Well or Wallace’s Heel is located beside the River Ayr near the old Holmston lime kiln, Ayr. It is a petrosomatoglyph said to represent the imprint of a heel and is associated with the story of an escape from English soldiers made by the Scottish hero William Wallace.

 

The well or spring lies on the river bank below the fottpath and has been reached by steps since at least Victorian Times as witnessed by postcards from that era. A freshwater spring flows from a ‘heel shaped’ cavity in the bedrock. A drystone dyke forms the boundary with the footpath and this carries a plaque that reads Wallace’s Heel. In 2017 the ladle in no longer present, the well is partly obscured by plant growth and most of the garden flowers are absent. The well is flooded by river water when the river is in spate.

 

HOLMSTON HOUSE

The Kyle Combination (sometimes referred to as Kyle Union) was formed in around 1852 and compromised the 13 parishes of Auchinleck, Ayr, Coylton, New Cumnock, Old Cumnock, Dalmellington, Dalrymple, Mauchline, Muirkirk, Newton-upon-Ayr, Ochiltree,St Quivox and Sorn. Dalrymple, Newton-upon-Ayr and St Quivox later withdrew from the Combination. The total population of the member parishes in 1881 was 63,588.

 

The Kyle Combination poorhouse was erected in 1857-60 on Holmston Road in Ayr, with the first Governor and Matron being appointed in April 1860. The buildings were designed by William Lambie Moffat of Edinburgh and originally provided accommodation for 150 inmates.

 

The main building had the H-shaped layout typical of many Scottish poorhouse. The block at the front was a corridor plan building with a central portion which would have contained the original Master’s quarters, committee rooms and clerk’s office. The two wings of the front block contained male and female accommodation, probably with the aged at the front side and able-bodied or “dissolute” inmates at the rear. Children’s quarters were usually placed at the far end of each wing.

 

The poorhouse dining-hall and chapel were in the central block at the rear.

 

In 1903, the General Superintendent of Poorhouses expressed concern about overcrowding at Kyle, particularly in the sick wards. A nurse at Kyle had to attend to 37 patients suffering from serious acute diseases such as pneumonia, pleurisy, phthisis and cancer, together with chronic cases of paralysis and senile decay, the latter often being “wet cases”. National standards at the time proposed a maximum of 20 patients per nurse. Some wards provided as little as 438 cubic feet of space per patient, whereas national standards demanded a minimum of 800 cubic feet.

 

In 1901, a renovation and extension programme were carried out at the poorhouse. A large block at the rear of the poorhouse may date from around this period.

 

A Governor’s house was also later added on to Holmston Road at the south-west corner of the site. After 1930, the poorhouse became known as the Kyle Home Poor Law Institution.

 

The former Poorhouse buildings were used as offices by South Ayrshire Council for many years before being sold recently. Work has now commenced to turn it in to a nursing home.

 

AYR COUNTY HOSPITAL

The facility had its origins in an establishment known as the Ayr, Newton and Wallacetown Dispensary which opened in 1817 and was replaced by a hospital in Mill Street in 1844. It moved to purpose-built facilities in Holmston Road, designed by John Murdoch (1825-1907) in 1882. It joined the National Service in 1948. After services transferred to the new Ayr Hospital, Ayr County Hospital closed in 1991 and was subsequently demolished.

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[disclaimer : historical information sourced from internet]

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