Old Photograph Irvine Scotland

Old photograph of Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland. The town was once a haunt of Robert Burns, after whom two streets in the town are named; Burns Street and Burns Crescent. He is known to have worked in a flax mill on the Glasgow Vennel. Despite being classed as a new town, Irvine has had a long history stretching back many centuries and was classed as a Royal Burgh. There are also conflicting rumours that Mary, Queen of Scots stayed briefly at Seagate Castle. To this day there is still a yearly festival, called Marymass, held in the town.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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This work is a chronological history of Ayrshire from prehistoric times to the 21st century, including maps of the region. Ayrshire has a rich and varied history and this book will enable the reader to discover the physical traces of all periods of that history. The region was inhabited from earliest times, and many duns, cairns and barrows remain, in some of which important Mesolithic and Iron Age artefacts have been found. In medieval times Ayrshire played a key role in the emergence and consolidation of a unified Scotland, and it was from one of Ayrshire's many powerful families that the Stewart line of kings emerged. From this period there remain many castles and tower-houses, some in ruins, some preserved, remodelled and extended over the years. Most of the great monastic foundations of Ayrshire suffered irreparable damage during the Reformation and at the hands of Cromwell's armies, but many important religious buildings still stand. In more recent times, great houses such as Culzean were rebuilt by the finest architects of their day, and there are a number of important sites dating from the Industrial Revolution. Ayrshire: A Historical Guide (Birlinn).