Kilmarnock Cross

Kilmarnock Cross is a cobbled open space between the pedestrianised King Street, Portland Street, Cheapside Street and Fore Street in the centre of Kilmarnock (East Ayrshire). At its centre is a statue of the poet Robert Burns (1759-96), together with John Wilson (1759 - 1821), who printed the first edition of his poems in Kilmarnock. This is the work of Sandy Stoddart (b.1959) and was installed in 1995, replacing a statue removed many years previously of Sir James Shaw (1764 - 1843), a local man who had become Lord Mayor of London.

Urban renewal in the 20th C. and the building of the Burns Mall Shopping Centre (1976) changed the area and several of the original streets which met here were lost or curtailed (for example Regent Street, Duke Street and Waterloo Street). To the north is the Classical domed former Royal Bank of Scotland building (1939).

The Cross was the site of the town's gallows, which brought the demise of many Covenanters. The Execution Stone at the entrance to the Burns Mall commemorates these events.


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