Alloway
Alloway maps (1 available)
Map of Ayrshire
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
Alloway books (2 available)
- 2 photos on Alloway appear in 1 Frith books - View photos of Alloway
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Alloway and Ayrshire
Alloway memories
Read and share memories of Alloway and Ayrshire inspired by Frith photos
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Ayrshire memories
The mid Fifties
I recall my pals and I going to Ayr harbour and picking up the herring and mackerel, which dropped off the baskets when the boats were unloaded, and selling them round the nieghbours' houses. Herring were 1 old penny and mackerel 2 old pennies. Today (2008) a herring costs £1 each! 240 times dearer.
We would make dens up Craigie Woods and sleep out. No dangers then. My wee sister aged 4 walked to High Street from Fotheringham Road and got a bus to to Heathfield School and back herself. Try that today!!
Cheers, Jimmy Manson, Ayr.
A memory of Ayr contributed by james manson
Fish & Chips
Having fish & chips from the Vesta Cafe on the New Road, they were the best.
Playing the puggy at Favali's in the New Road.
Playing down at the Newton Shore. Skating at Ayr Ice Rink.
Climbing the fence and getting into the dog track from Elmbank Street on Sunday morning to pick up anything of value the drunks had dropped the night before at the races, usually money. Working for Cowan the Butcher as a delivery boy and apprentice.
The Odeon club for kids on Saturday morning, to see Flash Gordon and the likes.
Newton Park Higher Grade School.
A memory of Ayr contributed by Donald Pettigrew
Holiday memories
Happily walking along Ayr beach with an ice cream from the Wellington Cafe, paddling in the sea with my parents! Eating wonderful fish and chips on a windy day. Getting breakfast rolls from one of the many bakers to take back to my aunt's. Going skating at the ice rink with my cousins.
A memory of Ayr contributed by liz webb
Happy days
To me there is nowhere like Skares was, and anyone who came from there will say the same. Everybody knew everybody else and they were always ready to help anyone that needed it. You could go out and leave your door open without worrying about anything being pinched. In the summer we used to all go on a picnic doon the blackwater when it was nice, and we'd go for walks roon the pluck. My mother sometimes took us up to the Covenanters monument up the Knockdunder hills. She used to take us picking rasberries to make jam in the summer, and when the brambles were ready she'd take us to pick them and scribes to make jelly. It was guid. ...read more here
A memory of Skares contributed by Rita Mitchell
Extracts From Alloway & Ayrshire books
Scotland’s most celebrated poet Robert Burns was born in this simple cottage on 25 January 1759. The cottage, a ‘but and ben’ or two-room clay cottage, was built by the poet’s father, a gardener from Kincardineshire. It later became an inn. Burns’s verses are famous the world over. He died at the early age of thirty-seven in Dumfries. In 1881 the cottage was purchased by the trustees of the Burns Monument and opened as a museum. The pleasant village of Alloway is now the centre of pilgrimage for lovers of Burns’s poetry.
An extract from from"Scotland".
Robert Burns was born here on 25 January 1759. The cottage was rebuilt by the poet’s father and later became an inn. In 1881 it was purchased by the trustees of the Burns Monument and opened as a museum.
An extract from from"Scotland Photographic Memories".
Robert Burns played in this churchyard as a boy, and the popular legends about hauntings and the ghostly atmosphere of the roofless ruin affected him deeply. He used the Kirk and the Auld Brig O’Doon near by as scenes for his celebrated ghost story ‘Tam O’ Shanter’, which first appeared in the Edinburgh Review in 1791. Burns’s father, who had repaired the kirk wall to keep the sheep at bay, is buried in the churchyard.
An extract from from"Scotland".
This roofless church is alleged to be haunted. Burns’s father is buried in the churchyard.
An extract from from"Scotland Photographic Memories".