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Kilmaurs Parish
KILMAURS, a parish in the district of
Cunningham,
Ayrshire, stretching north-eastward from Irvine
water, which divides it from Dundonald in Kyle, in a
belt or stripe between the parish of Kilmarnock on
the east, and that of Dreghorn on the west. Its
greatest length is 6 miles; its greatest breadth 2¾
miles; and its area about 5,000 acres. The streamlet
Gamer is its boundary on the west. Carmel water
—here very generally called Kilmaurs water —cuts it
lengthways into two nearly equal parts; but makes a
debouch to the west, and runs upwards of a mile in
that direction, receiving the Garrier in its way,
before falling into the Irvine. This stream is of
much value for its water-power in driving machinery;
yet during a drought or a frost, it becomes almost
dry. The Irvine runs on the boundary for nearly 2
miles, contains some salmon, trout, and eel, and
offers valuable advantages in its water-power. The
surface of the parish is a plain, undulated at
various intervals, and in various forms, with knolls
and rising grounds. Its little heights are generally
tufted with plantation, and give it a pleasant and
beautified appearance; and, in many instances, they
command delightful prospects of the garden-like
ex¬panse of Kyle and Cunningham, —the gorgeous
sea-view of the Clyde, —and the fine, and, at
intervals, magnificent perspective of far-away hills
and mountains on the horizon. About twenty or thirty
years before the date of the Old Statistical
Account, the parish was naked and unenclosed,
utterly destitute of
roads, and dotted over with mean, paltry,
inconvenient, filthified houses. But so early as the
publication of that Account, or several years before
the
close of last century, all was completely subdivided
by ditches and thorn-hedges; and new, regular, and
convenient houses, pleasantly situated, and looking
snugly out upon a smiling landscape, everywhere
gladdened the eye, and suggested ideas of activity,
neatness, and wealth. Prime attention —as in most
other parts of Cunningham —is here given to the
dairy.
Coal abounds, and is extensively worked. Craighouse
is delightfully situated on the Irvine. Carmelbank
stands a mile north-east of the former, on the
left bank of the Carmel. Near it is one of those
tumuli called Motes, which are believed to have been
seats of courts-of-justice. Busby-castle, unroofed
and ruinous, stands of a mile north-eastward, on
the right bank of the Carmel. The parish is
traversed by the Kilmarnock and Irvine turnpike, by
turnpikes which diverge from the town of Kilmaurs,
and by some other roads. Population, in 1801,
1,288; in 1831, 2,130. Houses 319. Assessed
property, in 1815, £11,617. —Kilmaurs is in the
presbytery of Irvine, and synod of Glasgow and Ayr.
Patroness, Lady M. Montgomery. Stipend £261 1s.
3d.; glebe £10. Unappropriated teinds £699 6s.
10d. The parish-church is said to have been built
in 1404, and was repaired and reseated in 1804.
Sittings 550. At Gatehead colliery, where there is
a population of 167, a home missionary, a licentiate
of the Church of Scotland, attends to the religious
interests of the parishioners, and preaches in a
school-room on the border with Dundonald parish. A
United Secession congregation in the town was
established in 1738. Their present place of worship
was built in 1789. Sittings 450. The minister has
a manse and garden The parochial school is
attended by a maximum of 85 scholars; and three non-
parochial schools by a maximum of 140. Parochial
schoolmaster's salary £25 13s., with £33 fees, and
£13 other emoluments. The master of one of the
other schools —which is situated at Crosshouse —has,
besides his fees, £6 from the heritors, and a house
and school-house by subscription. —The saint from
whom the parish has its name is variously stated to
have been the Virgin Mary, or Marie, and a Scottish
saint called Maure, who is said to have died in the
year 899. The name of the original kirk-hamlet was
Cunningham; and this, too, became, from it, the
name of the family who held the manor. By the
forfeitures of the heir of the Morvilles, the
Cunninghams became tenants in capite under Robert I.
About the year 1450, they acquired the dignity of
Lords Kilmaurs; and in 1488 they rose to be Earls
of Glencairn. Their cemetery occupies a place near
the church, was erected in 1600 by Earl James, and
contains a beautiful but defaced piece of monumental
ancient sculpture, to the memory of the 9th Earl,
the Lord-high-chancellor of Scotland. The name
Kilmaurs superseded the ancient one in the 13th
century. The church was given, during the reign
of William, by Robert, the son of Wernebald, the
progenitor of the Glencairn family, to the monks of
Kelso; and was held by them till the Reformation,
and served by a vicar. In 1633, when Charles I.
erected the bishopric of Edinburgh, he granted to
the
dean of St. Giles the church of Kihnaurs, with all
its tithes and revenues. In 1403 Sir William
Cunningham founded at Kilmaurs, and endowed with
lands, revenues, and a mill in the vicinity, a
collegiate
church for a provost, six prebendaries, and two
singing boys. After the Reformation the Earl of
Glencairn took possession of the property. A chapel,
with
an appropriate endowment for its chaplain, anciently
stood at Busby.
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