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Fenwick
FENWICK,(1) a parish in the district of
Cunningham, Ayrshire;
bounded on the north by Renfrewshire; on the east by Loudon; on
the south by Kilmarnock; and on the west by Stewarton. It is
about 9 miles long from east to west, and 6 miles broad, and
contains an area of 14,500 acres. Though high above the level of
the sea, it is not mountainous; and seen from the hills of
Craigie in Kyle, it appears a large plain; but it possesses, in
reality, a sloping surface, inclining easily from its boundary
with Renfrewshire to the south-west, and commanding, on many
spots, or from almost every farm and every house, extensive views
toward Kyle and Carrick, the frith of Clyde, and the Arran and
Argyleshire mountains. At a former period the district was almost
all a fen or bog; and, in 1642 — when it was disjoined from
Kilmarnock, and erected into a separate parish — was considered
as a moorland region. Except in the southern or lower division,
the soil in every part is still mossy; and nearly one-fourth of
the entire parish continues to be bog. All the surface of the
reclaimed sections, though thinly sheltered with plantation, has
a verdant and cultivated aspect, and is distributed chiefly into
meadow and natural pasture, with about 1,600 acres of tillage.
The live stock consists of nearly equal numbers of sheep and milk
cows, a considerable proportion of pigs, and about 160 horses.
The climate, though humid, is not unhealthy. Two small brooks,
each having tiny tributaries, rise in the northern limits of the
parish and flow south-westward through it to make confluence
after entering the parish of Kilmarnock. The brooks abound with
trouts, but possess no scenic beauties. A thin seam of coal and a
freestone quarry occur on the western limits. Limestone is
abundant, and exhibits numerous marine shells, and other
memorials of the ancient inhabitants of the ocean. The great road
from Glasgow to Kilmarnock traverses the parish in a direction
west of south, and sends off one branch-road southward to
Galston, and another westward to Stewarton — The village of
Fenwick stands on the Glasgow road, at the point where that to
Stewarton branches off, nearly 4 miles north by east from
Kilmarnock; and is a considerable agglomeration of small houses
occupied almost all by weavers as dwelling-houses and work-shops.
Here are the parish-church, and a capacious meeting-house of the
United Secession. Another village, called Rose-Fenwick, similar
in character to Fenwick, but smaller, stands half-a-mile south of
it on the Glasgow road. Population of the parish, in 1801, 1,280;
in 1831, 2,018. Houses
279. Assessed property, in 1815, £8,987. - Fenwick
is in the presbytery of Irving, and synod of Glasgow and Ayr.
Patron, the Earl of Glasgow. Stipend £149 8s. 1d. ; glebe £23.
Unappropriated teinds £132 17s. 5d. Schoolmaster's salary £25
13s. 3d., with from £15 to £18 school-fees, and about £3 other
emoluments. There are three schools not
parochial, attended by a maximum of 137 scholars.
Maximum attendance at the parish-school 68. - Fenwick, for some
time after its establishment as a separate parish, was called New
Kilmarnock; but it eventually acquired its present descriptive
name
which means the village of the fen. - This parish is
celebrated for having enjoyed the ministry of the devout though
eccentric Guthrie, not the least of Scotland's worthies, a firm
assertor of the cause of Presbyterianism under the persecuting
innovations of the Stuarts, and the author of writings which have
shed the light of heaven over the hearts and minds of
the inmates of many a cottage. - In this parish is the
venerable dwelling of the Howies of Lochgoin, that during the
persecution frequently afforded an asylum to those who for
conscience' sake were obliged to flee from their homes, — to such
men as Captain Paton and to many such worthy ministers as the
intrepid Richard Cameron, which rendered this house so obnoxious
that, during these trying periods, it was twelve times plundered,
and the inmates forced to take refuge in the barren muirs around.
Here are preserved many of the relics of those days of "fiery
trial," in the Bible and the sword used by Captain Paton, — the
flag of Fenwick parish, — the drum beat at the battle of
Drumclog, etc. If antiquity can add any lustre to birth, the
present generation of the Howies may lay claim to a remote
ancestry; being descended from the great Waldenses, three
brothers of whom, of the name of Howie — probably Howy, still
common in France — fled for safety and settled in Ayrshire, in
1178. One of these brothers took up his residence in Lochgoin,
and his posterity to this day inhabit the same spot, retaining
all the primitive and pastoral habits which distinguished the
Waldenses. The father of the present generation, John Howie,
compiler of the lives of the 'Scots Worthies,' will be remembered
by every Scotsman with a peculiar interest, in having furnished
his country with short though valuable sketches of the roost
remarkable transactions of those who suffered for the covenanted
work of reformation.
{1 This parish was originally named Inverugie, and occasionally
Lagley, until 16116, when the name — for what reason is not known
— was changed to St. Fergus. We may here observe that the Rev.
John Craigie, writer of the Old Statistical Account of St.
Fergus, and minister of the parish, in stating that the common
patois, or "dialect, called Broad Buchans, is spoken here," as it
still continues to be, although it is now losing much of its
provincial peculiarity, and that "it is thought to approach
nearer to the ancient Gothic than the language of any other
district in Scotland," — remarks, that as the Picts were the
ancient inhabitants of the East coast of Scotland, they imposed
names on the different places, expressive, (in their language,)
of their situation, or some particular property. It is not easy
to assign any good reason for attempting to derive the names of
places in this country from the celtic, as there is no evidence
that it was inhabited by Celts. The names of all the places in
this parish and the adjacent country plainly appear to be Gothic,
Saxon, or Danish."}
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