Newmilns

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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N

ewmilns, a town in Loudoun parish, Ayrshire. Lying, 250 feet above sea-level, on the right bank of the river Irvine, which divides it from Greenholm suburb in Galston parish, it has beautiful environs (`Loudoun's bonny woods and braes'), serves as a seat of retail trade for a considerable extent of surrounding country, and Presents a tolerably well-built, pleasant appearance. Its station, the terminus of a branch of the Glasgow and South-Western railway, is 2 miles E by N of Galston and 7 ½ E by S of Kilmarnock. In the middle of the town is an old tower, whose early history is unknown, but which about 1681 was Captain Inglis' headquarters and the prison of seven Covenanters, captured near Kilmarnock, and presently set free by the daring of friends outside. Newmilns has a post office under Kilmarnock, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, branches of the Clydesdale and Royal Banks, 8 insurance agencies, 4 hotels, 2 gas companies, a police station, a town-hall, a temperance hall, a working-men's institute, and a fair on the Thursday in July of Glasgow fair week. Places of worship are Loudoun parish church (1845; 1200 sittings), a Free church, and a U.P. church (1833; 780 sittings); and the schools are two, public and Lady Flora's. The staple industry is muslin weaving. Newmilns was made a burgh of barony by a royal charter of 1490, and is governed by 3 bailies, a treasurer, a fiscal, and 9 councillors. Pop. (1841) 1988, (1861) 2810, (1871) 3028, (1881) 2860, of whom 1515 were females, and 741 were in Greenholm.—Ord. Sur., sh. 22, 1865.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer.