Irvine’s Lost Villages

Dane Love

Around Irvine are the sites of a few lost villages. These were erected to house miners employed in the coal mines that existed in the district. Once the mines were closed the houses were subsequently removed. Some of these villages are hardly ever mentioned now, but there are a few folk who recall growing up in them.

Bartonholm was located along Sandy Road from Irvine, the site now occupied by Irvine’s recycling centre. It was established in 1820 by Samson & Co., who had acquired the Shewalton and Bartonholm coalworks. According to the 1821 Census, there were three rows of housing. By 1895 the village had grown to have five rows of houses.

Life in these villages was hard, but there was a great sense of community, and if anyone was in need, the neighbours rallied to help. The village had its own store where provisions could be purchased. This was to be found in Number 1 and 2 of the Double Row, in what had been the old smithy.

Bartonholm folk, though domiciled in Irvine parish, seem to have had an affinity with Kilwinning. Indeed, the Kilwinning war memorial lists eleven men from Bartonholm on its roll of honour.

In 1914, when James Brown MP visited the village, he noted that ‘the rooms are very small, and the houses are of a poor type. They are built of stone, but many of them are very damp. Most of them are dingy and depressing.’

Despite poor conditions in the houses, the villagers enjoyed a social life. Many supported their local football team – Bartonholm United, who managed to win five trophies. Born in the village was Ronald Orr, who was capped for Scotland on four occasions.

Bartonholm Pit closed in 1928, after which the village declined. The houses were abandoned, and by 1939 none was occupied. Most of the residents were rehoused in The Dirrans in Kilwinning, or at Girdle Toll in Irvine.

Another lost village is Annicklodge. On one occasion an American discovered his ancestor lived at Annicklodge and on searching the internet found the grand country house of Annick Lodge. He wondered what had happened to the family fortune, only to discover later that the Annicklodge his ancestor had grown up at was a simple miners’ row! Annicklodge mines were owned by the Glengarnock Iron and Steel Company, and it was they who built a single terrace of 26 homes, known as the Long Row.

The Annick Lodge Oil Company Ltd acquired the oil works, pits, and workers’ houses in the village. A new row was added, and Ayr County Council ran the village school.

Another abandoned village was Doura, north-east of Irvine. Mining had taken place there for centuries, and there were some early colliers’ homes. These were little more than thatched cottages. Later, more recognisable miners’ rows were built.

In The Annals of the Parish, John Galt described the coal coming from ‘Douray’ to Irvine, ready for sale. ‘The coal-carts from the Douray moor were often reested [refused to move] in the middle of the causey, and on more than one occasion some of them laired altogether in the middens, and others of them broke down.’

The residents of Doura suffered a cholera epidemic. In February 1832 a woman from Glasgow passed through, spreading disease. A total of thirty villagers were to die.

A school was erected at Doura by the Earl of Eglinton before 1840. It had a ‘large school-room and a house for the teacher, with a play-ground and garden attached to it’. This was taken over by Kilwinning School Board in 1872.

Most of Doura was demolished by the 1930s. Little remained, apart from half a dozen cottages.
With the sinking of Sourlie Pit, Number 26, accommodation for the workers was needed. Sourlie village was erected along Lochlibo road, north-east of Irvine. The first buildings were erected around 1815.

Later, a new row was built alongside the road, south of the old houses. These were probably built in two stages, the first eight homes having gardens. The rear garden, rather than being a place of relaxation, faced directly over the pithead buildings.

The lack of church provision in Sourlie and elsewhere was of concern, not only to the church, but also to the council. In 1829 it subscribed three guineas towards a fund to employ an assistant minister to provide services at Sourlie. This was to counter, ‘the extreme ignorance as to religion that prevailed among a very numerous class of parishioners.’

The houses at Sourlie were cleared away by the Second World War. Most of the residents were rehoused at Girdle Toll, established in 1934 by Ayr County Council.

Another lost village in the area was Fergushill, although in recent years modern bungalows have returned to the area. The Thatched Row was the oldest, but it was joined by miners’ rows in 1835. According to the New Statistical Account of 1842, ‘a village containing upwards of 200 people has sprung up within the last few years’.

From the early 1800s the Fergushill collieries were owned by Archibald Finnie & Son. Finnie expanded the coal mines soon after he had acquired them, and it is known that he added the rows at nearby Benslie in 1841.

An inspection in 1913 found Fergushill houses had ‘no coalhouses, no washing houses, except wooden erections, which make the place hideous.… The front is unpaved, with open syvor, and a muddier frontage it would be impossible to find.’

In the centre of the largish square formed by the rows was a building which served as Fergushill Co-operative Society’s store. With their delivery vans they were able to sell further afield.

Almost all signs of these villages have gone, but many people in the Irvine and Kilwinning areas have ancestors who were brought up there before being rehoused in council or other housing association houses.

You can read more about these villages, as well as fifty lost villages in Ayrshire’s Lost Villages by Dane Love, published by Carn Publishing. Please visit
www.carnpublishing.com/lostvillages