KILWINNING REVISITED

Further light on the early town

Margaret H. B. Sanderson

Cross Brae, Kilwinning, looking eastwards towards the Bridge; early 20th century(Author’s collection; digital image, John M. Sanderson).

Ford, track and highway

The illustration [above] shows the Cross Brae, the eastwards extension of Kilwinning’s Main Street, in the early 20th century. It is likely that this route is the descendant of a track which in very early times led to a crossing over the River Garnock, initially a ford1. The immediate descent to and ascent from the ford, in whichever direction, formed a track which became known as the Path (or Peth) and the level ground on the east side of the river as the Pathfoot2

Well-used tracks tend to follow the contours of the land, as that through Kilwinning does, its gentle highs and lows3 and curves still preserving the outline of what became part of a medieval highway, variously known as ‘the common way of Kilwinning’, ‘the Highgate’, or ‘the King’s’ or ‘Queen’s street’. Investigation of the early history of this street and the lay community that grew up alongside it, distinct from the monastic community in whose shadow it grew, has been hampered by the traditional interpretation of the description of the locality by the cartographer Timothy Pont who visited it in the early 17th century. Pont’s description which survives only in a transcript by Sir James Balfour states that the River Garnock ‘glyds betwix the toun and abbey over passed by a fair stone bridge… the precinct

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[of the abbey ] environed with a fair stone wall, within which are goodly gardens and orchards’.

Most, although not all, later historians have interpreted this passage to mean that in Pont’s day there was no lay settlement on the west side of the river, only that on the east – Corshill4 –and that the dwellings on the line that became Main Street were of much later date. George Robertson, writing in 1820 merely remarked that the town on the hilltop in his day on the west side of the river ‘is partly very ancient and partly modern’5. John Shedden Dobie, who published an edition of Pont’s Cunninghame prepared by his father James Dobie of Crummock6, was more precise in his interpretation of Pont’s account, stating that there were ‘no titles existing to any of these houses [on Main Street] which date during the rule of the abbots’, the oldest of these dating from the early 18th century. He did not investigate whether there were titles existing to houses which had earlier occupied the site7. The Rev. William Lee Kerr in his classic History of the town expanded Dobie’s statement into a lengthy description8 ‘ … Kilwinning now stands not where it stood in monastic times, at least, by far the greater part does not do so… the town of Kilwinning occupied a site on the left bank of the River Garnock … the stately abbey with its towers and its dwelling places for abbots and monks and its mill and dovecote were the only structures on the right side of the river… there is an entire absence of any notice of residenters on the right bank [ i.e. west side] of the Garnock’.

Rather than spending time refuting the picture drawn by earlier writers a more positive approach is to explore the record evidence of the later 16th and early 17th centuries which gives a picture of the town between the last decades of the abbey’s life and the time of Timothy Pont’s visit. This may help us to visualise the town he saw.

Revisiting Kilwinning

In an earlier article9 I referred to a handful of 16th century documents to demonstrate that at that time there were houses and other secular premises on the line of what is now Main Street and its eastwards and westwards extensions, that is from Bridgend to Byres. These findings were endorsed by Anne Turner Simpson and Sylvia Stevenson in their publication Historic Kilwinning, the Archaeological Implications of Development10. They agreed that the records cited appeared to indicate ‘a well spread distribution of properties’ in the 16th century along the line of Main Street.

In revisiting Kilwinning it is hoped not only to enlarge the picture of houses and workplaces in the early town but to put some flesh-and-blood householders and tradespeople in them and to view their lives against the wider background of their day. A variety of records has been used which, although created for legal or official purposes, encapsulate the details of peoples’ lives.

Living in the shadow of the Abbey

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When the monastery was first established those who lived closest to it may have been its servants and dependants and others whose services it required, These would include lay people who did not necessarily live within the precinct. It is believed that the Benedictine Order, of which the Tironensians were a reformed branch, quite early tended to delegate the cultivation of their lands to tenants, which would encourage secular settlement11. In addition to the outlying farmland set to tenants in fermtouns of varying extent, those locations which encircled the monastery, whose names suggest cultivation and stock-rearing by direct labour at an earlier stage, were also transformed into multiple tenancies; Byres which had sheltered the cattle, Oxenward the pasture of the plough-oxen teams, Kilrig site of the kilns for drying the grain crop, the ash tree plantation of Ashinyards (elegantly renamed Ashgrove at a later date). The same transformation into tenancies took place on the demesme land, or mains, at the heart of the estate to the south of the abbey, at Overmains and Nethermains. Even the valuable Wood was gradually eaten into, creating the settlements of Innerwood and Outerwood, Woodgreen, Woodside and ultimately Woodend beyond the abbey walkmill at Groatholm12. So the working population drew nearer to the monastery.

A vital element in creating a settlement under the abbey walls would be the highway. All well-used routes attracted service-points, be it only smithies and alehouses and guides to lead travellers for payment to scattered destinations off the highway13. The ‘common way’ through Kilwinning was part of the major route leading north into Renfrewshire and on to Glasgow and south into Galloway. It was part of a pilgrim route which led to the popular shrine of St Ninian at Whithorn. The growing town must therefore have seen many and varied travellers; merchants with their trains of pack animals, humbler chapmen with their solitary horses, creilmen with their packs on their backs, regular footrunners and messengers-at-arms on official and legal business, important individuals, with their mounted retinues, who might receive overnight lodging in the abbey, and the distinctive pilgrims on foot. Clearly, the inhabitants did not lack contact with the outside world.

King James 1V, that seasoned pilgrim, lodged at the abbey in 1506 and 1507 on his way to Whithorn14. On the second occasion he was accompanied by Queen Margaret and her ladies as well as his servants, clerks, chaplains (with the ‘chapel graith’) and musicians. The royal couple travelled to St Ninian’s shrine to give thanks for the queen’s recovery from an illness after the birth of their son early that year. King James was an approachable person who had encounters with all kinds of people on his many journeys, from guides to storytellers, and gave generously to those who begged his charity on the way. In May 1506 Sir John Ramsay, who handled the royal travelling expenses, gave 9s to players on the schaum who entertained the king in his lodging in Kilwinning abbey, and 14s in alms to ‘a woman and child’ and ‘to a puir woman that wes failzeit’. The journey in the summer of 1507 must have been a gruelling one for the young queen, just recovering from an illness: it is not surprising to read of 14d given ‘ to the wyf quhair the ladys drank by the gait’ between Paisley and Kilwinning, an episode which must have lived long in the local memory. So too must the stir caused in the town of Kilwinning by the arrival of the colourful royal cavalcade at the Port of the abbey on 10 July where the king and queen would be met by Abbot William Bunch and the monks. The king offered 14s to the abbey’s collection of precious relics, as he had done earlier on the

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way at Glasgow cathedral and Paisley abbey: the beneficial effect to religious centres of welcoming pilgrims. A pair of shoes was bought in Kilwinning for one of the king’s French attendants. In the summer of 1563 the king’s granddaughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, must have passed through the town, past the then silent abbey, on her way from Southannan near Largs to Eglinton castle, during her progress through the south-west15.

The early town

Although by 1608 it could be called a township, to our eyes Kilwinning would have had a rural appearance for the houses often had associated premises connected with the business of cultivation and even the occasional animal shelter. They might also have been a little more spaced out than the cheek-by-jowl lines of buildings of modern towns: perhaps not unlike a crofting community. The homesteads were usually referred to as a ‘house and yard’, the yard being the growing area for crops and herbs, or even a small orchard. Pont noticed orchards and gardens within the transformed abbey precinct.

On the outskirts of the extremities of the precinct wall, east and west, householders might have an acre or two, enough to create a substantial holding. Neil Telfer in the area just beyond the Almswall owned 2 horses, 9 cattle, 11 sheep and had sown oats, bere and peas on his holding. He owned his own plough which turns up in the testament of his widow who died two years after him16. Luke Lyn had oats and bere stored in his barn17. Some householders who lived in the main township, on the north or south of the ‘common way’, leased ground elsewhere. Janet Wylie, a widow, and her son John Rankin, who had a house and yard on the south side of the street, also leased 6 roods of ground in Oxenward18. Neil Telfer, already mentioned, leased land at both Almswall and Blacklands. The town’s distinctive landmarks are named from time to time in title deeds; the kirkyard, the kirkstyle, the stablecroft, the abbey Port, the smiddieslap, the almswall, the miller’s cross. The position of houses and yards in relation to some of these landmarks makes clear that there was room for dwellings and other premises between them and the common street. In 1557 John Allanson was said to live in a house ‘between the kirkyard dyke on the south and the common way on the north’19. Hugh Stevenson, who was alive when Timothy Pont visited the locality (he died in 1622) lived ‘at the Kirkstyle of Kilwinning’, that is the entrance to the kirkyard20. Being a maltman he also had a kiln of his own. Alexander Brown’s house was in the Smiddieslap, that is the lane or opening leading to the smithy21.

Thomas Ezat was a prominent property-holder in the town. One of the yards which he occupied in 1568 lay ‘on the north part of the Green of the abbey, extending from the yett of the said abbey to the kings gait fornent [facing] the house of the late John Flegger [on the north of the common street]’22. In 1606 Ezat’s granddaughters inherited a house on the north of the street between the house of the late Andrew Flegger (son of John, above?) on the west and that belonging to Florimond Hamilton on the east23. Families like the Ezats who owned several properties would sublet them to other inhabitants.

Through the record of such transactions a picture of the township begins to build up. Apart from the image of the abbey in Bleau’s Atlas, the earliest visual image we have of the town is

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that in the fine plan book drawn up by John Ainslie the land surveyor for the earl of Eglinton at the end of the 18th century24.

Plan of the town of Kilwinning, from the Eglinton estate Plan Book, prepared by the land surveyor John Ainslie, 1789 (Reproduced by kind permission of the Earl of Eglinton and

Winton. Digital image, The National Records of Scotland: RHP 3/52, No 1)

Although the demarcation wall between the abbey complex and the town has gone other landmarks survive on the plan, including the kirkyard, the remaining abbey ruins, the abbey Green, the site of one of the western towers, the mill and its distinctive dam, the bridge and, above all, the line of the medieval street.

Keeping house and doing business

Although there are no official population records for the area from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries local officials often had occasion to draw up lists of people or to name individuals; lists of tenants in arrears of rent, or parishioners for the non-payment of teinds, the names of debtors and creditors in testaments and the names of the occupants of houses and premises in title deeds. The names of inhabitants of Kilwinning town found in the records examined for the purpose of this study can be found in the Appendix, with whatever biographical information has come to light.

Although Kilwinning was not a royal burgh, with a merchant guild and craft incorporations, and, unlike Paisley, was not created a burgh for the abbey, nevertheless it had its quota of

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tradespeople, both retail and manufacturing, from whom the townspeople bought everyday necessities and otherwise did business. They included the suppliers of food and drink, clothes and shelter, and services like the vital work of the smith who not only shod horses, the only form of transport and haulage, but made and repaired all sorts of iron goods, from door nails to ploughs. Travelling chapmen and creilmen from further afield brought a variety of everyday items and small imported luxuries to town and country. Margaret Chalmers who lived out at Woodend owed over £3 to a creilman , John Anderson from Caldwell, who no doubt also called on customers in Kilwinning town25.

Unlike today when we can purchase all kinds of prepared and ready-to-use products, edible, wearable and of practical use, customers in early-modern times usually acquired what they needed directly from those whose specialist skills contributed to the production of the goods; miller, maltman, alewife, baxter and flesher; wobster, litster, walker and tailor; smith, mason, wright and thatcher. At the same time merchants sold goods which those who could afford them added to their everyday purchases; the finer cloths imported from Europe, and the accessories to be worn with them; equipment for everyday use such as spoons and knives – there was at least one family of cutlers in Kilwiunning , the Lyns26 – and the spices, fruits and wine which enhanced everyday fare. Two Kilwinning merchants appeared during the present study, Isobel Campbell and Alexander Mongomerie, who were probably in a small way of business27. The Irvine merchants would have a wider selection of goods. They also operated as moneylenders; David Lyn, a Kilwinning maltman, borrowed £21 from the Irvine merchant John Cunningham28

The first stage in the production of bread was the milling process. All inhabitants on the abbey’s lands were obliged to have their grain crop ground at the landlord’s mills, whichever one was most convenient, the mill at the west end of the bridge, Sevenacres (S’nakers) mill or the Craigmill. The process meant valuable revenue to the landlord, fees for the miller and his assistants and an occupation for the miller and his family which often became hereditary. John Miller whose family had long operated the grain mill at the Bridgend (hence their occupational surname) feued the mill, including the Milneholm and a house on the mill hill, on 4 December 1566, becoming the owner-occupier of this important monopoly29. Three baxters names appeared during the present study. Alexander Smith had a house at the Kirkstyle, as well as holdings at Bridgend and Reidstone. He wadset some of his land to the cutler Hugh Lyn30. The first minister of Kilwinning, William Kirkpatrick, was in debt to the baxter John Roger in 1577. John Patrick’s bakehouse and oven was on the south side of the common street. He also had additional holdings in Byres and the Byreloan31.

The business of the maltmen was an important stage in turning the bere crop into ale, the common drink. There were at least 5 of them in the town. Neil Telfer had given a quantity of bere to two maltmen, Hugh Smith in Byres and John Boyman; he was still waiting for the delivery of the malt when he died. John Patrick (not the baxter just mentioned) was owed 10s for maltmaking by Katherine Gray, widow of John Park of Dubbs, in 159232. Maltmen might buy quantities of the bere crop from the growers in advance, as merchants bought the wool crop. When Hugh Stevenson the maltman at the Kirkstyle died in November 1622 he had been waiting for the delivery of bere which he had already purchased from growers not

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only around Kilwinning but also in Stevenston and as far afield as Caprington. David Lyn had 20 bolls of bere in his malt kiln when he died in 1611. Like Hugh Stevenson he had bought bere which had not yet been delivered, some from William Walker in Woodend and some from William Reid in Blair Ardoch, just beyond the Kilwinning/ Dalry parish boundary. His cash-flow problem may be the reason why he had borrowed money from 5 persons, including his own servant Janet Brown.

It was common for ale to be brewed at home for domestic use and many testamentary inventories contain the range of cauldrons and vats used for the purpose. Sometimes women might sell off surplus ale to add a little to the family income. Many became full time alewives and some of these kept a tavern or alehouse where the drink was sold to both passing customers and to those who used the alehouse as a popular meeting place. Euphemia Mulling, the widow of Neil Telfer at Almswall, owed £4 ‘for drink’ to two tavern-keepers, Janet Frew and Isobel Bar, in 1628. The latter may have been her own niece of that name mentioned in her will. The fact that Isobel and Janet Frew were jointly owed the £4 may suggest that they ran the alehouse together. It is possible that Janet Frew is the same person as Janet Frew the widow of Hugh Stevenson the maltman who died in 1622. Her husband’s allied trade and the fact that she had 4 children to bring up, who were all under age when Hugh died, may suggest that she took to tavern-keeping for a living. Katherine Gray at Dubbs owed Janet Asloss for ale in 1592. It is difficult to tell whether the cauldron (worth £30) and ‘certain brewing vesselis’ belonging to Margaret Stewart denoted domestic or commercial brewing, but the fact that she was a widow who needed to support herself and had a long list of debtors may suggest that she brewed for a living33.

Fleshers usually purchased animals and slaughtered them and dressed the meat as required. Alison Campbell, widow of the town’s first minister and subsequently twice remarried, owed the fleshers George Homill and Alan Roger the price of portions of beef.

All but the simplest garments, stitched at home or by seamstresses ( sewstaris ) were made by tailors, urban or rural, some of whom travelled around taking work, usually having a holding on which to grow food. Housewives spun flax, which could be grown in the yard, or the wool from even a few sheep, and gave the yarn to the weaver to be woven into the woollen or linen cloth. Quite large quantities of woven cloth, received from the weavers, are often to be found in household inventories. Alison Campbell had 40 ells each of linen and harden in the house worth £20. Margaret Stewart, widow of the cutler John Lyn, was in debt to two local weavers, John Garven and John Bar. Women also practised the weaver’;s craft; Katherine Gray at Dubbs owed 26s to ‘Marion Young, wobster, for weaving of linen and harden cloth’. Two tailors turned up in the records examined, James Steill, who did work for Alison Campbell, and Alexander Anderson. The latter owed money to James Garland in Kilwinning, possibly a merchant, and to David Lyn for malt. He had also stood surety for John Walker at the walkmill at Groatholm for honouring of the latter’s obligation to repay a loan of 100 merks from Florimond Hamilton.

The fulling process by which the woven cloth was scoured to cleanse it and milled to matt it into a firm texture was an important stage in its production. Another family with an

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occupational surname was that of the Walkers who operated the abbey walkmill at Groatholm over several generations. They diversified into grain milling in the early 17th century and married into the Miller family who worked the mill at the Bridgend34.

Family Life

For most householders in Kilwinning as elsewhere, a prime concern, apart from the provision of everyday needs from their modest resources, was how to provide for the family’s future; for a wife’s widowhood and the settlement of sons and daughters. For freeholders, the right to inherit the family property descended to the oldest son, then to the other sons in order of seniority, then to an only daughter, then daughters jointly. For tenants, who represented the bulk of the population in early-modern times, there was the customary right of kindness by which the right to possess the holding passed to the nearest of kin – descending through the family members in the same order as for freeholders.

Since at this period land could not be bequeathed, only moveable goods, parents sometimes got round this legal difficulty when providing for all the family by bequeathing their own customary right – their kindness – to a particular part of the holding to a particular child, or even to a wife for her lifetime. Neil Telfer who had holdings in both Almswall and Blacklands bequeathed his ‘right, title and kindness’ to his lease of Almswall to his wife Euphemia for her lifetime. Of course, such arrangements had to be made with the consent of other family members and the landlord.

After debts due by the testator had been deducted what was left was called the free gear. This was divided into three parts, the bairns’ pairt divided among the children, the wife’s third, and the deid’s pairt from which bequests might be made if there was a will. Legally, a wife needed her husband’s consent to bequeath anything other than clothes and personal belongings, but clearly, from the evidence of most wives’ wills, husbands readily cooperated in this matter.

Most husbands made their wives executors, empowering them to manage the often long drawn out business of getting in all debts due to the family. Women were usually made tutors, legal guardians, to the children who were under-age, but only until they remarried, which was extremely common. Close relatives or friends would be nominated ‘oversmen’ to see that the executory business and the terms of a will were faithfully carried out. Occasionally there is reference to the possibility of a posthumous child. David Lyn the maltman requested in his will that if his wife Janet Reid should be with child the free gear which he had bequeathed to his daughter Bessie should be divided between her and the child. He had earlier made arrangement for Bessie to marry the son of James Reid of Reidstone and his wife Margaret Cumming, who still owed Lyn £169 6s 8d of Bessie’s promised settlement. The smith John Logan whose wife had already died asked his friends John Mure and Gabriel Cunningham in Ashinyards ‘to have a care of his bairns’, among whom he distributed his goods equally35. Katherine Hill, wife of Robert Burns at the Bridgend, asked that her legal ‘third’ be divided among her three children, James the youngest to receive 20 merks more than the others36.

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Servants appear regularly in testaments. There was nothing socially privileged about having a servant or two in early households, when most families were involved in cultivation and stockrearing, in however small a way, and household tasks were completely manual and labour-intensive. The surnames of servants suggest they mostly belonged to local families and were often related to their employers, perhaps poor or illegitimate relatives. Their work often included both indoor and outdoor tasks. Evidently, fees, which were paid at the spring and autumn terms, were often in arrears: servants probably survived by the fact that they were fed and housed by their employers. Earnings were modest but usually included what was known as ‘bounteth’, a work apron or pair of shoes annually. Arrears of fees were due when their employer died to Janet Brown, servant of David Lyn, to whom she had loaned money (£10), to Isobel Bar, servant of Neil Mongomery at the Greenfoot (£20), and to Isobel Galston Hugh Stevenson’s servant (£24 13s 4d).

A head of a household often had as great a lack of cash as the servant community. People frequently borrowed money and the loan of work animals and equipment from friends and neighbours. In late spring when the amount of foodstuffs in the girnel and meal-ark was getting low they helped one another out with small quantities of grain or meal. It was sometimes possible to make a little money; Luke Lyn sold a foal for £10 to John Thom in Outermure but it had not been paid for when he died. If one loaned a large sum it was advisable to do so on the basis of a written bond or obligation to repay, which meant that if the debtor did not repay the loan by the agreed date interest would be charged on the sum due. Florimond Hamilton had used this safeguard when lending 58 merks to William Morris in Corshill37.

Not all 16th century testaments itemise personal possessions and household goods, but usually lump these together as household plenishings, giving them an estimated value. However, there are sufficient examples of listed household gear to give a general picture of the standard of living in the homes of ordinary people. There is, however, one important reservation to be borne in mind; not all household items and personal possessions will be included in such an inventory, because the best item in all major categories – furnishings, clothes and work tools – were reserved for the heir, called heirschip goods. Pieces of equipment and receptacles of all kinds were commonly called lums, pronounced ‘looms’ – eg. ‘worklumes’, hence we still use the word ‘heirloom’.

Only two of the Kilwinning testaments studied contain lists of household goods. Margaret Stewart, widow of John Lyn, the cutler, owned a cauldron and certain brewing vessels, one large and one small kist, one ‘chimney’ (firebasket), 4 beds, 2 iron pots, 2 pans and 8 pewter plates. John Logan the smith, besides the ‘smiddie graith’ including his anvil (stuthie, sometimes studdie), bellows and tongs, had a cauldron, a masking vat and gyl vat (for brewing) 2 basins, 8 pewter plates, a brass ‘chandler’ (candle holder), one iron and one brass pot, 6 pairs of sheets, 3 bed coverings and a cruik. In most homes the most valuable items were the cooking vessels and equipment around the fireplace, simple tableware of either pewter or wood (treen), the beds, storage furniture and basic seating, usually stools. Everything was for everyday use, there were few if any extras.

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The picture of everyday life from record sources, though illuminating, can give a somewhat static image. In fact, the inhabitants of Kilwinning, like all communities then and since, lived through times of change which had a considerable effect on their community, family and personal lives, material, spiritual and social.

The Abbey and the Community

The abbey building within the long precinct wall dominated the settlement beside the highway. The inhabitants’ contacts with the religious institution would be the sound of the abbey bell, their familiarity with the nave of the great abbey church which functioned as their parish church and those occasions when they entered the precinct to pay their rents or negotiate a transaction with their landlord’s representatives. At 4pm on 13 November 1557, ‘in the monastery’, John Park handed over the considerable sum of 100 merks for a feu charter of the lands of Dubbs and Dalgaw which he then occupied as a tenant38. The landlord’s courts were held by the bailie and chamberlain, or their deputies, either in the building referred to as the tollbooth or out-of-doors on a piece of ground designated for the purpose by King James 111 –‘between the burn of Corshill to the end of the bridge’39. The townsfolk would be aware of the arrival and departure of the abbey’s visitors and officials, and the regular hand-out to the poor at the almswall, and in season the sound of the threshers working within the precinct, possibly near the teind barn40. The inhabitants’ normal personal contact would be with the bailie’s and chamberlain’s officers who collected the rents and other dues, including the teinds, proceeded against those who failed to pay, and announced the meetings of the courts which all tenants were obliged to attend.

Changes were taking place, however, inside as well as outside the abbey’s walls. The number of monks, some of whom always bore local surnames, gradually fell; there were 19 in 1536 but only 8 subscribed a charter in 156041. The conventual life had become less communal; each monk was now paid his own portion from the rents and lived in his own chamber and yard at the Greenfoot, with his own servant.

The greatest internal change of all, however, was that which affected the way in which the head of the community was appointed. He ceased to be a professed monk, elected by the members of the community, but someone nominated to the pope by the crown or other influential patron William Bunch was the last Tironensian abbot of Kilwinning, probably from the local family of that surname and having made his profession in the monastery. In 1512, after he had retracted his promise to resign his office, he was assaulted in the abbey by the earls of Glencairn and Angus on behalf of the crown nominee, John Forman, precentor of Glasgow cathedral42. Thanks to the prior Alexander Scott and others the abbot was released from his attackers, but having survived his ordeal he is believed to have been killed at the battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513, with the king whom he had welcomed to the abbey 7 years earlier.

From then onwards there took place a succession of unedifying disputes and engineered appointments of career clerics to what was known as the commendatorship of the abbey43. The estates and revenues of the abbey continued to be vested in the commendator and convent and required the monks’ consent to any alienation of its resources, whether land or

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other assets. However, a commmendator in the interests of his powerful family tended to grant charters of land and leases of teinds to relatives and allies. In the face of heavy taxation by the crown, periods of dearth, the burden of collecting dues and the inflation which developed in the later 16th century, ways were found of raising money on ecclesiastical estates. In 1536 and 1540 the entire abbey revenues were leased, firstly, to William Cunningham, provost of Trinity Collegiate Church in Edinburgh, and, secondly, to Henry Sinclair, a canon of Glasgow cathedral44. In accepting the responsibility of dealing with the tenants Cunningham was obliged to respect their customary rights, ‘settand… to the nearest of kin and kindliest that hes the lands in assedatioun [lease] or rentale [a lease for life]’. He agreed to pay the fees of all the monastic servants – ‘cook, baxter, ledar [in charge of transport], porter [at the gate], gardner, child [attendant] of the hall, barbour, weschar of the claithis, child of the cellar, maltman, bellman…’, and not to interfere with the monks’ rights to their chanbers and yards ‘and utheris their possessionis’. Sinclair’s lease included the monastic manor of Monkcastle and the abbot’s lodging at the cross of Irvine. He was to see that the poor folk got their regular alms – ‘sanct Marie’s meat’ as it was called. The two leaseholders paid 2,100 and 1000 merks, respectively, a year for their 5-year leases.

From the 1540s onwards there developed considerable friction between the new-style head of the monastic community and the abbey bailie, the neighbouring earl of Eglinton. Obstruction to the bailie’s authority by the Hamilton commendators at one point led to Eglinton’s taking his case for recognition to the privy council45. The process of secularisation of the abbey’s property and increased lay initiative in the running of its affairs culminated in a programme of turning the land from leaseholding to feuferm, by granting feu charters which required a substantial down-payment and an annal feu- duty which at time of granting represented an increase on the old rent. In spite of a number of local lairds among the Kilwinning feuars, well over 60 per cent of the feu charters went to sitting tenants in the surrounding farmland, even including many small feuars in the Bridgend-Corshill areas whose holdings were little more than cultivation patches.

The feuing programme really took off in the 1550s with the appointment to the commendatorship of Gavin Hamilton, who had exchanged the deanery of Glasgow cathedral for the appointment. A member of the most powerful family in the south-west whose head, the earl of Arran (later duke of Chatelherault) was regent of Scotland for the young Queen Mary, the new commendator was a somewhat absentee landlord, involved in his family’s and national politics and serving as a judge in the court of session. As far as the effects of feuing went, the situation in the town of Kilwinning itself was somewhat different from that in the surrounding farmland, and may have caused the inhabitants some anxiety. In 1557 the abbey chamberlain and kinsman of the commendator, Robert Hamilton of Dalserf, received a feu charter containing a large number of houses and yards on both sides of the common street46. The chamberlain had become the householders’ new immediate landlord. They may have feared that his double role would strengthen his arm in the business of rent collection.

Over time, premises and dwellings along the common street changed hands. In 1578 Robert Hamilton’s son sold off some of the properties that had been granted to his father to

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the earl of Eglinton47. In 1580 James Cunningham, kinsman of the then commendator Alexander Cunningham, Glencairn’s son, received a charter of a number of houses and outlying yards48. Speculators from further afield took feus or long leases and created subtenants on those yards within the abbey precinct which, after the Reformation, no longer served their original purposes. These outsiders included individuals as diverse as a canon of Glasgow cathedral and a sailor from Irvine49. There was clearly a small but active property market at the heart of the town. Some local families did manage to feu property in the town and its environs; for example, William Miller took a feu of 5 roods of land which his mother Janet Bunch, who lived on the Highgate, leased at Kilrig, and Alexander Smith the baxter feued his house at the Kirkstyle and land at Bridgend and Reidstone50. With the forfeiture of the Hamiltons after their support of Queen Mary during the civil war that followed her deposition in 1567, and the death of Gavin Hamilton in a military engagement in 1571, the influence of the Cunningham family replaced that of the Hamiltons in the locality. The new commendator, Alexander Cunningham, transferred to his kinsmen and friends some of the properties formerly held by Hamiltons and their allies. Thomas Ezat, younger, came into possession of some of the houses and yards previously held by Hamilton of Dalserf : his daughters jointly inherited them in the early 17th century51. The yards of the monks were disposed of as they died off. Houses and workplaces were built and rebuilt with stone from the old precinct wall and elsewhere as the town developed.

The Reformation

In the midst of all this social and material change came changes in the immemorial pattern of the community’s religious life. The movement for serious religious change, both institutional and doctrinal, had long had considerable support in Ayrshire52. In the aftermath of George Wishart’s preaching in 1545 and again in 1558 and 1559 there were iconoclastic incidents in the west, which are said to have included attacks on the abbeys of Paisley and Kilwinning53. By the summer of 1558 the magistrates at Ayr were gradually introducing elements of Reformed worship in the burgh kirk. The earl of Glencairn and Lord Boyd were prominent leaders of the Lords of the Congregation after the failure of the reform party and the ecclesiastical establishment to come to terms. After English help gave military victory to the Congregation over the French-backed forces of the Queen-Regent Mary of Guise, parliament met in August 1560 to ratify the Reformation settlement by abolishing papal authority in Scotland, approving the Reformed Confession of Faith and making the saying or hearing of mass a capital offence54. The religious leaders then drew up a blueprint for the organisation of the reformed church: financing this enormous undertaking was to take much longer. Assisting the changes at parish level was the fact that so many clergy, of various ranks, with whatever level of personal commitment, conformed and took service in the Reformed church, the majority of them as readers, They included two of the Kilwinning monks, Alexander Henderson who became reader, first at Ardrossan and then at Kilmaurs, and William Kirkpatrick who became the first minister at Kilwinning55.

The amount of dislocation in everyday life caused by the settlement of August 1560 can be exaggerated. The Rev. Lee Kerr, who envisaged a ‘time of abandonment’, was of the opinion that ‘for the time the occupations of our forefathers would be gone. And the good

12

farmers… would scarcely know who was their laird and to whom they were to hand their tons of cheese and pounds of wax which hitherto they had paid as rent to the abbots’. In fact, the ratification of the religious settlement made no difference to the economics of life in the parish. If the inhabitants had been doubtful about who to pay their dues to they would soon have been informed. The abbey lands as a piece of property were not affected, Gavin Hamilton continued as commendator, the laird of Dalserf remained chamberlain, the harvest of 1560 would be gathered in as usual, the rents paid and the animals for winter meat slaughtered at Martinmas. Grain was carted to the abbey mills. There was no ‘Dissolution’ of the monasteries in Scotland. Secularisation of the monastic property had, as we saw, taken place gradually. It was not until 1587 that the Act of Annexation attached the church lands – the temporalities – to the crown. After the death of the Cunningham commendator the estates were granted by the king to William Melville, a lawyer, and in the early 17th century they passed to the earl of Eglinton, neatly dovetailing into his own neighbouring territories.

What happened to the abbey buildings has also to be accounted for in context. In 1561 the privy council sent the earls of Arran, Argyll and Glencairn to the west to dismantle and remove all evidence of the now proscribed forms of worship: altars, images and any windows which contained representations of the saints or popular forms of devotion, and probably the organs. This is what is almost certainly meant by the expression ‘cast down’ which is used of such activity. Nobody could have demolished the entire monastic church in the time at the earls’ disposal. Other parts of the complex were by this time in a state of disrepair. In December 1558, for instance, in the preamble to a feu charter it was stated that the money received for the charter was to be used for the ‘repair and restoration… of the houses, dormitory and refectory of the regulars [the monks] of the same, being ruined from the foundation to the top’. This description may exaggerate but as the monks were by this time living in their own accommodation at the Greenfoot the unused conventual buildings may well have been suffering from neglect56.

In any case, the church was still required because the nave had from early times served as the parish church of the community. In 1450 there was reference to ‘the monastical parish church of Kilwinning’, and in November 1537 a transaction concerning an executory took place ‘at the sedilia of the parish altar in the monastery church of Kilwinning’57. In 1450 George Montgomerie supplicated the papal court for the office of parish clerk, the curate’s sacramental assistant, ‘called a parochial clerkship or keepership of the church’. In May 1542 representatives of the parishioners approached the abbot and monks about the appointment of a new parish clerk, after the death of the previous holder the earl of Eglinton: the earl would have operated through a deputy whom he would pay from the emoluments of the office58. The nave of the abbey church which contained the parish altar was always seen as having a separate function from the monastic choir. During a bitter dispute between the earl of Eglinton as bailie and the post-Reformation Cunningham commendator over possession of the ‘abbey steeple’ it was argued for the earl that the steeple was ‘altogether boyldit [built] upoun the bodie of the paroche kirk of Kilwynning, far distant from the queir [choir] and cloister, swa [so] that nane may haif pretext or colour to acclame the samin onles

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it wer the parochin [parishioners], quhairof I am ane, and under the kingis majestie hes the reule and commandement of the remnant [ the rest].’ His predecessors, he argued, had used the building as a prison, ‘quhairin the common bell hingis, to be rung only at command of me or my deputis for convening the parochin and tenandis…’59. That the nave, the parish church, was kept in repair after 1560 is shown by the brief report by John Culper in January 1590, that he had supervised the ‘downtakine and reparvaling [rebuilding] to the abbey parochial church’, for which a tax had been levied from the parishioners60.

Any serious demolition that may have taken place is likely to have concerned the monastic choir which may have been allowed to fall into ruin until it became the site of the new church in the 18th century. The conventual mass and saying of the divine office ceased but in Scotland government allowed the remaining monks to retain their portions for their lifetimes and the use of their chambers and yards. In 1564 one of the former monks, Alan Steyne, granted to his ‘well beloved servant, James Tynklar’ the use of his yard for payment of 20s a year61. Tynklar, who lived on the Highgate, was given a formal lease of it by Gavin Hamilton 5 years later but in 1584 he passed it on to the Eglinton family62. Some of the monks lived on well into the late 16th century. The longest-surviving member of the convent was James Mitchell, the former subprior, who retained custody of the abbey registers and seal, subscribing a transaction on 17 April 159263.

The curate of Kilwinning, sir Eumonides Henderson, whose family lived at Potterton, had served the parishioners from at least 1512, when he is first recorded. He is mentioned as living on the Highgate in 1557. The greatest change in way of life and responsibility came to the former monk William Kirkpatrick who first appears as a monk in 1544. He belonged to an Ayr family of merchants and shipmasters64. His brother John, a prominent merchant and bailie of Ayr, attended the ‘Reformation’ parliament in 1560 and no doubt kept his brother in touch with events in Ayr as the face of a Reformed kirk gradually emerged. The first official mention of William as minister of Kilwinning is in 1567, in the Register of Ministers and their Stipends. However, he appears as a witness in the Kilwinning chamberlain’s teind accounts in 1563; ‘William Kirkpatrick minister of [blank]’, almost certainly Kilwinning65. The fact that he was appointed a minister, not simply a reader, suggests that he had a good knowledge of Protestant doctrine; the minister’s prime role was to be that of teacher. He married Alison Campbell, daughter of James Campbell of Stevenston, and on 11 August 1567 they received the grant of a pension from Gavin Hamilton, worth 20 bolls of victual, 12 stones of cheese and £20 in silver annually, which, with a stipend of £100, made them comfortably off. William was also entitled to his monk’s portion for life and he also feued a chamber and yard next to his own66. He and Alison brought up their three children in this makeshift manse. His charge was an exacting one for in 1574 it combined that of Kilwinning with the oversight of the parishes of Beith and Dunlop, with the assistance of a reader in each. He died in July 1577 having made a will 3 months earlier67. He made careful arrangements for his family, in particular requesting that his books be sold and the money used to support his son William at university. Alison remarried twice after his death and went on living in the town until her death in 1605. The only glimpse of the congregation during William Kirkpatrick’s ministry is in his bequest of 5

14

merks, to be distributed on the day of his burial ‘amangis the householders that dow not work’. Distribution was to be in the hands of the elders and deacons.

Regular poor relief from whatever the congregation was able to provide may have replaced the handing out of alms at the almswall and other forms of private charity. There might be many reasons for poverty, but the kirk session’s attempts to alleviate hardship from their modest resources was limited to widows, orphans, the infirm and those who suffered an unforeseen calamity, such as a fire or injury. One feels that the plight of John Frew in Kilwinning , ‘ a poor man [who] had no goods or gear, only debts owing to him’ might have been avoided if those on his list of debtors had paid him the £58 they owed him. Some of the outstanding payments were for work done. He left orphaned children whose maternal uncle became their guardian68.

The Long View

The authors of Historic Kilwinning made the point that the nature of the pre-16th century secular settlement is open to conjecture without further documentary and archaeological evidence. There can no longer be any reasonable doubt, however, that by the time Timothy Pont visited Kilwinning the township was home and workplace to a growing population whose activities are recorded in documentary sources, some of which we have looked at. It would appear that not all of these people were the first generation of their families on the site. Pont would be aware of the intensively cultivated Corshill area on the east side of the river, whose smallholders were a feature of it until comparatively modern times. If, as he wrote, he noted the long stone abbey precinct wall still standing and the ‘goodly gardens and orchards’ of the post-Reformation occupants within it, surely he could hardly have missed Hugh Stevenson’s house and malt kiln near the kirkyard gate, or John Allanson’s house next the kirkyard dyke. Those who remember the town in mid-20th century, its main street lined on both sides with family businesses, may think of these as the successors, not only of the Victorian town of which there are visual records, and the Georgian community of which its minister has left a verbal record69, but also of those householders and tradespeople of 500 years ago.

15

NOTES

NRS = National Records of Scotland

1 Besides a ford in the vicinity of the later bridge, the local place names of Longford and Ladyford suggest other crossings, the latter possibly in association with a chapel or altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary to which a fee for crossing might have been paid.

2 The definition of Path (Peth) in the Concise Scots Dictionary (CSD) runs, ‘a cleft, etc., running up and down the slope of a steep hill; a steep track or road leading down into a ravine and up the other side’.

3 The Howgate was presumably at a lower level than the Highgate at some time. ‘How’ (howe), a depression or low-lying piece of ground’ ; ‘Gait’, a way, road or path’ (CSD).

4 The name Corshill (this is the usual spelling in early documents), which is the same as Crosshill (‘Cors’, cross, CSD) ), may have been the site of an early preaching cross before there was any form of church building. The area was characterised by small holdings many of which became feus in the sixteenth century. It was occasionally referred to as ‘the toun of Corshill’ in the manner of any other settlement. (e.g. Acts of the Lords of Council and Session (NRS): CS 6/21 fo 23v, 9 July 1546).

5 George Robertson, Topographical Description of Ayrshire(1820).6 Timothy Pont, CunninghameTopographised, ed. John Shedden Dobie (1876).7 The Register of Sasines for the sheriffdom of Ayr and Bailiaries of Kyle, Carrick and

Cunninghame, 1599 – 1609 (NRS), RS 11/1-3.8 Rev. William Lee Kerr, History of Kilwinning (1900), 17-18.9 ‘Kilwinning at the time of the Reformation and its first minister William Kirkpatrick’

(AANHS Collections, vol. 10 (1972), 102-129.10 Anne Turner Simpson and Sylvia Stevenson, Historic Kilwinning, the Archaeological

Implications of Development (University of Glasgow, 1981).11 Simpson and Stevenson. op. cit.12 The abbey fulling mill (walkmill), whose grain mill successor on the site became

known as Dalgarven mill, was always referred to in early records as the walkmill at Groatholm.

13 The guide’s knowledge of the state of the roads would be as valuable as his sense of direction.

14 Details of the king’s journeys and the expenses incurred on the way are found in Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, vol.iii, pp. xxxv, 194, 201, 401; see also, Peter Yeoman, Pilgrimage in Medieval Scotland (Batsford and Historic Scotland (Historic Environment Scotland), 1999) 101 – 109.

15 For an account of the queen’s journey through Ayrshire, see, Sir James Fergusson, The White Hind and other discoveries (London, 1963), 41-53.

16 Glasgow Testaments (NRS): CC9/7/21, p.364 (Telfer); CC9/7/22, p.535 (Mulling).17 Ibid.,CC9/7/8, p.107.

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18 Register of the Great Seal of Scotland (RMS), vol.v, no.341.19 Register of abbreviates of feu charters of kirklands (NRS) : E 14/1, fo 202.20 Glasgow Testaments: CC9/7/19, pp. 464-465.21 Referred to in the testament of William Kirkpatrick, Edinburgh Testaments (NRS):

CC8/8/9, fo 265.22 Register of abbreviates of feu charters of kirklands: E 14/2, fo 12923 Register of Sasines: RH 11/3, fo 294.24 Register House Plans (NRS): RHP 3/52, No.125 Glasgow Testaments: CC9/7/4. pp.201-202.26 Register of Sasines: RH11/1, fos 70, 293 (Hugh Lyn, cutler, 1601).27 Referred to in the testament of Alison Campbell ( Edinburgh Testaments: CC8/8/45,

rec. 14 July 1609)28 Glasgow Testaments: CC9/7/8, pp.116-119.29 RMS, vol. v, no.77, vol. iii, no. 328. William Walker had feued the walkmill at

Groatholm three days earlier, and Robert Duncan the S’nakers mill the previous October (RMS vol.v, no.819; vol,iv, no.2633).

30 Register of Sasines: RS 11/I, fo 70; Eglinton Muniments: GD3/3/56.31 Register of abbreviates of feu charters of kirklands: E 14/1, fo 202.32 Edinburgh Testaments: CC8/8/25, fo 183.33 Glasgow Testaments: CC9/7/18, pp. 368-369.34 For an account of the Walker family, see my The People of Sixteenth-Century

Ayrshire (AANHS Collections, vol.14, no.8, 1987), 317-321.35 Glasgow Testaments:CC9/7/12, pp. 42-44.36 Ibid. :CC9/7/14, pp.644-646.37 Ibid.:CC9/7/12, pp.34-36.38 Yule Collection (NRS): GD 90/1/153.39 Pont’s Cunninghame, ed. J. Shedden Dobie (1876), 270; RMS, vol.ii, no. 2429.40 Eglinton Muniments (NRS) : GD 3/3/56, memorandum of payment to the ‘bernmen’

(the barnmen or threshers) working behind the almswall. The rental book in which this is written can, from internal evidence, be dated from before 1539.

41 M. Dilworth, ‘Monks and Ministers after 1560’ (RSCHS vol. xviii), 206.42 Diocesan Registers of Glasgow,Protocol Book of M. Cuthbert Simon (Grampian

Club,1875), vol.i, nos 621-625, 630-631.43 Ian B. Cowan, Ayrshire Abbeys, Crossraguel and Kilwinning (AANHS Collections,

vol. 4, no. 7, 1986), 289-292.44 Acts of the Lords of Council and Session: CS 6/8, fo 155; CS 6/23, fo 15.45 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (RPC), vol. iii, 144-145.46 Register of abbreviates of feu charters of kirklands: E 14/1, fo 202; Eglinton

Muniments: GD 3/3/57.47 Ibid., GD 3/1/1/90/2.48 RMS, vol. v, no. 341.49 Ibid.50 Ibid., vol. iv, no.2880; Eglinton Muniments: GD 3/3/56.51 Register of Sasines: RH 11/3, fo 294.

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52 M.H.B.Sanderson, Ayrshire and the Reformation, People and Change, 1490-1600 (East Linton, 1997) Chapters 4 and 5.

53 G. Pryde, ed. Ayr Burgh Accounts, 1534-1624 (Scottish History Society, 1937), 194-197

54 In spite of this strict penal law there were very few instances where capital punishment was carried out. See, M. H.B.Sanderson, ‘Catholic Recusancy in Sixteenth-Century Scotland’ (Innes Review, vol. xxi, 1970), 87-107).

55 ‘Kilwinning at the time of the Reformation….’. Alexander Henderson’s son, David, was minister of Kilmaurs, 1626 – 1637.

56 Ayrshire Collections, vol.i, 216.57 Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland (Scottish Record Society, 1967),

citing G. Chalmers, Caledonia, vol. vi, 548; Transcripts and photocopies (NRS) RH 1/2/623)

58 Scottish Supplications to Rome, vol. v, 1467- 77, ed. J. Kirk, R.J.Tanner and A.I.Dunlop (Scottish History Society, 1997), no. 381; Vatican Archives, Register of Supplications, 2454, fos 116-116v.

59 Eglinton Muniments: GD 3/2/5/20.60 Ibid., GD 3/8/1/19.61 Ibid., GD 3/1/1/95/1, 4.62 Ibid., GD 3/1/1/95/2, 3.63 Ibid., GD 3/2/12/11.64 ‘Kilwinning at the time of the Reformation….’, 116-118.65 Collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (NRS) :GD 103/2/22, p. 2

(Transcript)66 RPC, vol. iii, 409-410; Register of abbreviates of feu charters of kirklands: E 14/2, fo

54.67 Edinburgh Testaments: CC8/8/9, fo 265.68 Glasgow Testaments: CC 9/7/3, pp. 47-48.69 Rev. Thomas Pollock, report in The First Statistical Account of Scotland.

APPENDIX

GLOSSARY

Bairnis pairt - child’s share of a late parent’s moveable goods.

Baxter - baker

Bere - the common name for the four-rowed barley grown in Scotland.

Bond - a written legal promise to repay money or perform a service.

Chimney - grate, hearth or fire-basket.

Commendator (ship) - the unelected head of a monastic community; this office was often

18

held in conjunction with another appointment.

Convent - the monks or nuns of a monastic institution.

Cruik - hook.

Deidis pairt - in a testament, the third of the moveables from which bequests and legacies

might be made.

Ferm(e) - originally, land at a fixed rent; the rent itself; that part of the rent commonly paid

in victual (grain); a fermtoun was a settlement whose occupants paid rent.

Flesher - butcher.

Free gear - in a testament, moveable goods left after all debts by the testator had been

deducted.

Gait (Gate) - road, way, route.

Girnel - granary; store.

Graith - necessary equipment.

Harden – a coarse cloth woven from ‘hards’, the refuse of flax or hemp left after heckling.

Heirschip goods - the best items in all major categories of moveables, reserved for the heir.

Kindness (Kindly tenancy) - customary right by which the lease of a tenant’s holding passed

to the nearest of kin, the heir.

Litster - dyer.

Mains - land at the heart of a barony initially reserved for the lord’s use, cultivated

directly and not leased out; such land came to be set to tenants; in modern times,

commonly referred to as ‘the home farm’.

Path (Peth) - a steep track running down into a ravine (e.g. a river ford) and up the other

side.

Port – gateway or main entrance.

Sasine - infeftment; the act of taking up possession of property.

Sewistar - a woman who sewed for her lving; seamstress.

Slap - a gap, opening or lane (e.g. the smiddieslap leading to the smithy).

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Teinds - tenth part of all produce in a parish; originally intended to support the parochial

service but gradually annexed to religious institutions; eg. the teinds of 13

parish churches were annexed to Kilwinning abbey.

Temporalities - the landed possessions of an ecclesiastical institution, such as an abbey or

bishopric.

Tocher - a bride’s portion; dowry.

Tutor - a legal guardian for someone who is under age.

Wadset - to pledge land in return for a loan; the creditor (known as the wadsetter) had

proprietor’s rights in the land until the debt was paid.

Walker - fuller; the walkmill, the fulling mill.

Ward - pasture for cattle or plough animals, e.g. the oxenward.

Wobster - weaver.

Yett - outer gate, usually made of iron bars.

INHABITANTS OF KILWINNING TOWN c.1550s – 1620s.

In The People of Sixteenth Century Ayrshire (AANHS, 1987) the Appendix includes parish lists of householders who were sued by the commendator of Kilwinning abbey for failure to pay teinds for the years 1559-1560, in which the landward parts of Kilwinning parish were well represented, but not the town. The following list may go some way to remedy this deficiency. Full references for abbreviations used can be found in the Notes. All sums of money are in Scots currency. The merk was worth 13s 4d. At the end of the sixteenth century £1 Scots was the equivalent of about £12 sterling. A bonus when tracing women in Scottish records is the fact that they retained in common use and were referred to in legal documents by their pre-marital surnames.

ADAMSON, Janet, wife of Hugh Templeton, smith (q.v.)

ADAMSON, John, living in Kilwinning in 1557, when he witnessed in a court action. He had previously lived in Kilmarnock, where his father had been servant to the curate sir James Mason (Court of Session processes(NRS); CS 15/5, 24 May 1557).

ALLANSON, John – In 1557 he occupied a house next the Kirkyard dyke (E14/1, fo 202). He had died by 1606 when the house was among properties inherited by the daughters of Thomas Ezat, younger (q.v.) (RS11/3, fo 294v).

ANDERSON. Alexander, tailor - In 1611 he owed the price of malt to David Lyn, maltman (q.v.).(CC9/7/8, pp.116-119). In 1616 he owed £26 14s 8d to James Garland (q.v.).

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(CC9/7/12, pp.40-41). In the same year he stood surety for John Walker at Groatholm for repayment of a loan to Florimond Hamilton (q.v.) (CC9/7/12, pp.34-36).

BAR, Isobel, innkeeper – In 1625 Euphemia Mulling (q.v.), widow of Neil Telfer (q.v.), owed her and Janet Frew (q.v.) ‘for drink’; the two women may have run the inn together. Isobel may have been Euphemia’s niece of that name, mentioned in her will (CC9/7/22, p.535).

BAR, John, weaver - He was owed money by Margaret Stewart (q.v.), widow of John Lyn, for weaving

BAR, William – He appears in a rental of the 1570s, paying rent in the town (GD 3/3/56).

BARCLAY, Mr David, minister of Kilwinning (1606 – 1615) - David Lyn, maltman (q.v.) owed him teinds for the year 1608 (CC8/7/8, pp.116 – 119).

BOWIE, Alan and Margaret – Probably brother and sister. In 1583 they occupied houses and gardens on the south side of the common way, the year in which their premises were feued to James Hamilton of Ardoch (RMS vol. v, no.653).

BROWN, Alexander – In 1577 he occupied a house in the Smiddieslap, when the minister William Kirkpatrick (q.v.) owed him money (CC8/8/9, fo 265).

BROWN, Janet, servant of David Lyn. maltman (q.v.) who owed her her fee and to whom she had loaned money (CC9/7/8, pp.116-119).

BROWN, Jesse – He appears in a rental of the 1570s paying rent in the town (GD3/3/56).

BROWN, John, husband of Helen Miller (q.v.).

BUNCH, Margaret – In 1580 she occupied a house on the north side of the common way, which was feued to James Cunningham (RMS, vol.v, no. 341).

BURNS, Robert, at Bridgend, husband of Katherine Hill (q.v.).

CAMPBELL, Alison - Daughter of George Campbell of Stevenston. She married William Kirkparrick, former monk and first minister of Kilwinning (q.v.). Children, William (who may have died young), Martha and Marion. Alison married (2) Neil, brother of Montgomerie of Smeythstoun, and (3) Neil Montgomerie of Greenfoot. On 27 July 1581 she complained to the privy council that she should not be taxed on the pension which had been granted to her and her husband by the commendator, Gavin Hamilton (RPC, vol. iii, p.409). She died in 1605. Details of her housekeeping and connections in the town are found in her testament (CC8/8/45, rec.14 July 1609; See also article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

CAMPBELL, Isobel, merchant – Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed her money ‘for merchand wares’ (CC8/8/45, rec. 14 July 1609).

21

DRUMMOND, Joshua – In 1606 he witnessed the sasine of properties in the town to the daughters of Thomas Ezat, younger (q.v.).

EZAT, Thomas, elder – In 1568 he occupied a yard on the north of the Abbey Green and other properties in the town (E 14/2, fo 129),

EZAT, Thomas, younger, messenger-at-arms – Between 1568 and 1580 he feued a number of houses and yards on the south and west of the abbey, on the north of the Abbey Green and on the north and south of the common way (E 14/2, fo 129; RSS, vol. vii, no.2673). He had died by 1606.

EZAT, Margaret, Jean, Bessie and Katherine, daughters of Thomas Ezat, younger (q.v.) – In 1606 they succeeded to the properties previously feued by their father. As no spouses are named in the sasine, they were presumably unmarried at the time (RS 11/3, fo 294-294v).

FLETCHER (Flegger), Andrew – He had died by 1599. Before then he had occupied a house and yard on the north of the common way, to the west of that occupied by Thomas and Alan Wilson (q.v.) (RS 11/3. fos 294v – 295).

FLETCHER (Flegger) , John – He had died by 6 June 1568. Before that he had occupied a house opposite the Abbey Gate on the north of the common way, which was then feued to Thomas Ezat, younger (q.v.) (E 24/2, fo129). Andrew Fletcher, above, may have been his son. The property was one of those inherited by the Ezat sisters (q.v.).

FREW, Janet, innkeeper – In 1628, jointly with Isobel Bar (q.v.), she was owed money ‘for drink’ by Euphemia Mulling (q.v.) (CC9/7/22, p.535). She may have been the widow of Hugh Stevenson (q.v.).

FREW, John – He died in August 1602. He was described as ‘a poor man’ with no goods, only debts due to him – £58 in total by several persons. He left orphaned children ,unnamed, to the care of their maternal uncle (CC9/7/3, pp.47-48).

GARLAND, James – Wife, Janet Jack. Children, John, Hugh and Margaret. He rented a house from Finlay Brown. His household goods were valued at £40 (CC9/7/12, pp. 40-41)

GARVEN, John, weaver - He was owed money for weaving by Margaret Stewart (q.v.).

GARVEN, Patrick – Named in a rental of c.1570s as paying rent in the town (GD 3/3/56).

GILLELAND, Andrew – In 1611 he owed David Lyn, maltman (q.v.) a quantity of bere which the latter had purchased from him for malting (CC9/7/8, pp. 11 ).

GILLIES, Robert – Named in a rental of the 1570s as paying rent in the town (GD3/3/56).

GLASSFORD, Mr John, minister of Kilwinning - In 1615 he witnessed the testament of Florimond Hamilton (q.v.) (CC9/7/12, p.36), and in 1616 that of John Logan, smith (q.v.). (CC9/7/12, pp.42-44).

HAMILTON, Agnes, wife of John Miller, miller (q.v.).

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HAMILTON, Florimond (Florence) - Wife, Isobel Kerr. Children, Jean and John. In 1580 he occupied a house on the north of the common way, on the east of that occupied by Alan and Thomas Wilson (q.v.). His household goods were valued at £20. His house was one of the properties feued to James Cunningham in 1580 (RMS, vol.v, no.341). He made his will in May 1615 and died that month (CC9/7/12, pp.34-36).

HENDERSON, sir Eumonides, chaplain and parish priest of Kilwinning - First recorded in 1512 and lastly in 1558 as witness of a transaction. He lived in a house on the north side of the common way (E 14/1, fo 202), one of the properties feued in 1557 to Robert Hamilton of Dalserf, the abbey chamberlain (E 14/ 1, fo 202). His relatives , John Henderson and his wife, Agnes Roger, lived at Pottertoun. For a fuller account of his activities and service, see M.H.B.Sanderson, Scottish Curates and Parochial Chaplains, 1429 – 1560 (Scottish Record Society, 2016).

HILL, Katherine, wife of Robert Burns at the Bridgend – Children, Peter, James and Janet. Their household goods were valued at £19. A possible relative was Thomas Hill at Dalgarven. She died in February 1628 (CC9/7/14, pp.644-646).

HOMMILL, George, flesher – Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed him the price of beef in 1605 (CC8/8/45. rec. 14 July 1609).

JACK, Janet – wife of James Garland (q.v.).

JACK, John – In 1583 he occupied a house on the south side of the common way (RMS: vol.v, no.653; GD 3/1/3/1/2). John Park of Dubbs owed him £4 in 1591 ( CC8/8/24, fo 21v).

KERR, Isobel – wife of Florimond Hamilton (q.v.).

KIRKPATRICK, William, former monk and first minister of Kilwinning - He belonged to a family of merchants and shipmasters in Ayr, where his brother John was a merchant and bailie. He married Alison Campbell (q.v.).. Children, William (may have died young ), Martha and Marion. First referred to as a minister in 1563 (Collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (NRS): GD 103/3/22, p.2 – transcript). He and his family lived at the Greenfoot. For a fuller account of his life, see, ‘Kilwinning at the time of the Reformation and its first minister William Kirkpatrick’ (AANHS, vol. 10, 1972). He died in July 1577 (CC8/8/9, fo 265).

LOGAN, John, smith – Widower. Children, only one, John, named. His household goods and working tools, listed in his testament, were valued at £72 16s 8d. His will was witnessed by Mr John Glassford the minister of Kilwinning (q.v.). He died in February 1616 (CC9/7/`12, pp. 42 – 44).

LYN, David, maltman - Wife Janet Reid. Children, only one, Bessie, is named. She was contracted to marry the son of James Reid of Reidstone and his wife Margaret Cumming. In his will he mentions the possibility of a posthumous child. His household goods were valued at £33 6s 8d. He died in January 1611 (CC9/7/8, pp. 116 – 119).

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LYN, Luke, cutler - Widower. Children John and Janet. His testament refers to crops and stock on his holding. His household goods were valued at £6 (CC9/7/8, p.107).

MILLER, Helen – Husband John Brown. Children, John and Janet. Her household goods were valued at £10. She died in February 1608 (CC9/7/5, pp.259-60).

MILLER, Hugh – son of John Miller, miller(q.v.). He stood surety for his father for the payment of the latter’s share of the asythment for the wounding of Hugh Tran, burgess of Irvine (Register of Deeds (NRS): RD 1/21, fo 231).

MILLER, John, miller of the grain mill at the west end of the Bridge - Wife Agnes Hamilton (second wife ?). Children, Hugh (q.v.), Occupied a house on the Mill Hill and other mill lands, which he feued in 1566 (RMS, vol.v, no. 77). On 25 July 1583 he was one of those accused of wounding Hugh Tran, burgess of Irvine, for which he had to pay a share of the asythment (compensation) of 250 merks (Register of Deeds (NRS): RD 1/21, fo 231).

MILLER, William - son of John Miller and Janet Bunch. Wife, Margaret Peebles In 1559 he feued 5 roods of land occupied by his mother in Kilrig (RMS vol.iv, no. 2880). He may be the William Miller recorded as paying rent in the town in the 1570’s (GD 3/3/56).

MONTGOMERIE, Alexander,- In 1605 Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed him £10 3s for merchandise (CC8/8/45, rec. 14 July 1609).

MULLING, Euphemia – Lived at Almswall. Widow of Neil Telfer (q.v.). Children, stepson Neil Telfer. Her nieces, her sister’s daughters, Isobel and Bessie Bar. Nephew John Bar. The inventory in her testament includes stock and crops and ber late husband’s plough. Her household goods were valued at £10. She died in March 1628 (CC9/7/22, p.535).

MYLNE, Mr David, reader at Kilwinning, 1574 -? 75, minister at Dundonald, 1576 - 1617. Wife Janet Campbell. He died in June 1617 ( Fasti , iii, 35).

PARK, William - In a rental of the 1570s he is recorded as paying rent in the town (GD 3/3/56). In 1583 he occupied a house and yard next the Stablecroft, feued to Hamilton of Ardoch (RMS vol.v, no.653).

PATRICK, Hugh – Recorded in 1570s as paying rent in the town ( GD 3/3/56).

PATRICK, Janet – She was owed £3 by Luke Lyn, cutler ( CC9/7/8. P,107).

PATRICK, John , baxter – His oven (‘furnace’) and bakehouse was on the south side of the common way; feued to Hamilton of Ardoch in 1583 (RMS vol. v. no.653; GD 3/1/3/1/2). He also leased land in Byres and the Byreloan (RS 11/3, fo295v).

PATRICK, John, maltman – In 1570s recorded as paying rent in the town (GD 3/3/56). In 1592 he owed 5 bolls of bere to Katherine Gray, widow of John Park of Dubbs (CC8/8/25, fo 183). In 1605 Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed him 12s 6d for maltmaking (CC8/8/45, rec. 14 July 1609).

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PEEBLES, Margaret – wife of William Miller (q.v.).

PIRRIE, Helen – wife of Mr Alexander Wreitton, minister (q.v.).

RANKIN, John - With his widowed mother Janet Wylie (q.v.) he occupied a house and yard on the south side of the common way, and leased 6 roods of land at Oxenward which were feued to James Cunningham (RMS vol.v, no.341). Note: A John Rankin is recorded in a rental of the 1570s as paying rent in the town (GD 3/3/56).

ROGER, Alan, flesher – Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed him 11s for beef in 1605 (CC8/8/45, rec. 14 July 1609).

ROGER, John, baxter – The minister William Kirkpatrick owed him money for baking in 1577 (CC8/8/9, fo 265).

SMITH, Alexander, baxter – Lived at the Kirkstyle in the 1570s when he is recorded as paying rent in the town (GD 3/3/56). In 1599 he loaned money to John Lyn taking land at the Bridgend in security (RS 11/1.fo 70). In 1605 Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed him money for baking (CC8/8/45, rec. 14 July 1609). I619 he paid feu-duty on his house at the Kirkstyle and for land he held at Bridgend and Reidstone (GD 3/3/61).

SMITH, John, flesher – In 1628 Katherine Hill (q.v.), widow of Robert Burns at the Bridgend owed him 32s ( CC9/7/14, pp. 644-646).

SPEIR, Jasper and John – They occupied a house on the south side of the common way in 1583, feued to Hamilton of Ardoch (RMS vol. v, no.653).

STEILL, James, tailor – In 1605 Alison Campbell owed him £1 6s 8d ‘for work’ (CC 8/8/45, rec. 14 July 1609).

STEILL, William, cordiner – In 1605 Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed him £4 6s ‘for shoes’ (CC8/8/45, rec. 14 July 1609).

STEVENSON, Hugh, maltman – He occupied a house and kiln at the Kirkstyle on the south side of the common way. Wife Janet Frew (q.v.) possibly an innkeeper with Isobel Bar (q.v.). Children, John, Thomas, James and Bessie. His household goods were valued at £66 13s 4d. He died in November 1622 (CC9/7/19, pp. 464-465).

STEVENSON, John – In 1577 he leased the yard of the minister William Kirkpatrick (CC8/8/9, fo 265).

STEWART, Margaret, possibly an alewife – Widow of John Lyn, cutler,brother of David Lyn, maltman (q.v.). She and her husband had loaned David Lyn the maltman 32s and a quantity of bere (CC9/7/8, pp. 116-119). Her household goods were valued at £10 She died in March 1622 (CC9/7/21, p364).

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TELFER, Neil, in Almswall – He also leased land in Blacklands. Wife Euphemia Mulling, died 1628 (q.v.). Children, son Neil. Household goods valued at £13 6d 8d. Died in June 1622 (CC9/7/21, p.364).

TEMPLETON, Hugh, smith – Wife Janet Adamson. He lived in the town and also leased land at Corshill (RS 11/3, fo 295v). In 1604 Margaret Chalmers at Woodend owed him 40s (CC9/7/4, pp.201-202). In 1605 Alison Campbell (q.v.) owed him £5 9s 4 ‘for work’ (CC8/8/45, rec. 14 Jully 1609).

THOM, John – In 1570s, recorded among those paying rent in the town (GD 3/3/56).

TYNKLAR (Bennet), James – In 1557 he occupied a house on the south side of the common way (E 14/1, fo 202). In 1564 he was a servant of the former monk Alan Steyn who made over to him the use of his yard at the Greenfoot, In 1569 he had a formal lease of the yard from the commendator Gavin Hamilton, but in 1584 he passed it on to the earl of Eglinton (GD 3/1/1/95/1, 4, 2, 3).

WEIR, Isobel - Recorded as paying rent in the town in the 1570s (GD 3/3/56).

WHITE, Janet – In 1580 she occupied a house and yard on the south side of the common way, feued to James Cunningham (RMS vol.v, no.341).

WILSON, Alan and Thomas – In 1557 they occupied a house and yard adjacent to that of John Allanson (q.v.) next the Kirkyard dyke; feued to Hamilton of Dalserf (E 14/1, fo 202). In 1599 , by which time they had died, reference is mnade to a house opposite the Bellhouse yard on the south of the common way, opposite the house formerly occupied by the late Alan and Thomas Wilson (RH 11/3, fo 284v).

WREITTON, Mr Alexander. Minister 1578- 1605 - Wife, Helen Pirrie. Children, Mr Alexander (q.v.), John, Daniel, Joshua and Marion. A house in the Abbey Green (now demolished) is believed to have been his. It bore the inscription: ‘Sine te Domine cuncta nil, God is the builder, Prasit be He’. He died in February 1606 (CC8/8/42, fo 125). See also Fasti , vol. iii, p.116 ).

WREITTON, Mr Alexander, yr., schoolmaster of Kilwinning - Wife Giles Niven. Children, Alexander, Hugh and Margaret. He died in 1636. (Register od Deeds; RD 1/235, fo 6v; Fasti, vol.iii, p.116),

WRIGHT, John, in Almswall – He also held land in Nethermains. Died before 28 December 1606 (RS 11/3, fo 252).

WYLIE, Janet - Widow of [ -] Rankin. In 1580, with her son John Rankin (q.v.), she occupied a house and yard on the south side of the common way, and also leased 6 roods of Oxenward, feued to James Cunningham (RMS , vol.v, no.341).

YOUNG, Marion, weaver – In 1592 she was owed 26s by Katherine Gray at Dubbs for weaving (CC8/8/25, fo 183).

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