'Antiquities of Scotland' Index

The Collegiate Church of Maybole, or Miniboil

THIS collegiate church was founded in the year 1441, by Sir Gilbert Kennedy, of Dinnure, ancestor to the Earl of Cassils, for a provost or rector, and several prebendaries; it was consecrated in honour of the blessed Virgin Mary. The founder, by his charter, dated at Edinburgh, the 18th of May, in the year before-mentioned, endowed it with all, and singular, his lands of Largenlen and Brocklack, within the county of Carrick.

In a manuscript description of Carrick, by the Reverend Mr. Abercrombic, minister of Miniboile, among Mr. McFarlan's collection, there is the following description of this place. "There was also a collegiate church at Mayboll, the fabric whereof is still extant and entyre, being now used as the burial place of the Earls of Cassillis, and other gentlemen, who contributed to the putting a roofe upon it when it was decayed. On the north side of which kirk is the buriall place of the Lord of Colaine; within are enclosures of new square stone, lately built; the college consisted of a rector and three prebends, whose stalls are all of them yet extant, save the rector's, which was where those low buildings and the garden are, on the east side of that which is now the parson's house, with the orchard and the wall-trees. The patrimony of this church, were the provosts and priests lands, in the parish of Kirk Michael, which fell into the Earl of Cassillis's hands, upon the dissolution of the college at the reformation, out of which he as yet payes yearly to the minister of Mayboll, the sum of 70 marks Scots. As for the church, its present patrimony is out of the tyth of the parish, which before the reformation, was all possessed and enjoyed by the nuns of North Berwick, and on the dissolution of the said nunnerie, became a prize to the Laird of Bergeney. The parish church stands at a little distance from the foresaid college, eastward; it does not appear when it was built, but the large isle that lies from the body of the church, south-ward, and makes the figure of the church a T, was built by Mr. James Bonar, minister thereat, in the reign of K. Charles the First. Within the said parish of Mayboll, there have been other chappels of old, as Kirkbride, on the coast side, whose walls and yard be yet extant; and within the lands of Achindrain, and elsewhere, there have been other chappels, whereof the rudera are yet to be seen.

THE towne of Mayboll stands on an ascending ground from east-to west, and lies open to the south; it hath one principal street declining towards the east; it is pretty well fenced from the north bv higher ridge of hills that lies above it, at a small distance northward it hath one principal street, with houses on both sides, built of free stone; and it is beautified with the situation of two castles one each end of this street; that to the east belongs to the Earl of Casillis, beyond which, eastward, stands a great new building, which be his granaries. On the west end is a castle which belonged to the Laird of Blarrquhan, which is now the Tolbuith, and is adorned with a pyramide, and a row of bullusters round it, raised upon the top of the stair-case, into which they have mounted a fyne clock.

THIS view was drawn 1789.