Stewarton Area Local and Social History
Limekilns are a common feature of in the and limestone was quarried in a number of places, such as at Stacklawhill. Limekilns seem to have come into regular use about the 18th century and were located at Stacklawhill, Haysmuir, Bonshaw, High Chapeltoun, Bloomridge (Blinridge in 1828), Gillmill, Sandylands (now Bank End) and Crossgates. Large limestone blocks were used for building but the smaller pieces were burnt, using coal dug in the parish to produce lime which was a useful commodity in various ways: it could be spread on the fields to reduce acidity, for lime-mortar in buildings or for lime-washing on farm buildings. It was regarded as cleansing agent. A number of small whinstone, sand and sandstone quarries were also present in the area and brick clay was excavated near Kirkmuir.
Aiton in 1811 comments on the growing of carrots by William Cunningham of Lainshaw as an 'excellent article of food for the human species'. This was one of the first estates to grow them in quantity.
In 1820 only six people were qualified to vote as freeholders in Stewarton Parish, being proprietors of Robertland (Hunter Blair), Kirkhill (Col. J.S.Barns), Kennox (McAlester), Lainshaw (Cunninghame), Lochridge (Stewart) and Corsehill (Montgomery Cunninghame).
The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) is a neo-classical building in Royal Exchange Square in the Glasgow city centre, which was built in 1778 as the townhouse of William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, a wealthy tobacco lord. The building has undergone a series of different uses; It was used by the Royal Bank of Scotland; it then became the Royal Exchange. Reconstruction for this use resulted in many additions to the building, namely the Corinthian pillars to the Queen Street facade, the cupola above and the large hall to the rear of the old house.
Shoes were only used for Sunday best and for many of the younger folk going bare foot was the order of the day. The family at High Chapeltoun were one of the last to do this on a day to day basis.
The Royal Mail re-organised its postal districts in the 1930s and at that point many hamlets and localities ceased to exist officially, such as Chapeltoun, Lambroughton and other areas in Stewarton district.
James Boswell of Auchinleck House, the famous biographer and friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson was married to his cousin Margaret Montgomerie in Lainshaw Castle. He had gone to Ireland with Margaret, with the intention of courting another wealthy cousin, however he fell in love with the penniless Margaret and married her instead. The room they were married in was one floor above the room in which the Earl of Eglinton was laid after he was murdered by Cunninghame at the old brig or ford on the Annick Water near the entrance to the castle on the Stewarton road. David Montgomery of Lainshaw married a daughter of Lord Auchinleck.
John Kerr of Stewarton built the first practical beehive in the World in 1819, octagonal in shape with a bee-space and a queen separator introduced by 1849. The shape was thought to be closest to the natural tree-trunk shape which bees were thought to favour. L. L. Langstroth is often credited with these developments, however an examination of the records shows that John Kerr, a cabinet maker, was the first to use these features in a working hive. Beeboles and straw skeps were used previous to these developments and here the bees had to be killed to obtain the honey. Running from Anderson's Plantation across the hill and back down to the old driveway near to the walled garden is a wall or dyke replacing a tree lined hedge shown in 1858. The wall or dyke is very unusual in that it is made from roughly equal sized rounded whinstones and it is held together by cement. A great deal of expense and effort would have been needed to build this long section of dyke, which seems to have been in place by 1911.
The estate wall running from near Freezeland to near the Law Mount was built by unemployed labourers in the early 19th. Century.
Rudolf Hess's Messerschmitt Bf 110 was spotted by locals as he flew on his mission from Nazi Germany to meet with the Duke of Hamilton in 1941. He crashed in Eaglesham on Floors Farm.
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