Upon the little path through the Green Mailling, worn by
the feet of many tenants of the Earl of Eglinton as they came to pay their
meal rents at "My Lord's Girnal House", was appropriately bestowed
the name of Girnal Street. Until the end of the eighteenth century it remained
a narrow and crooked way, broled by side-closes and ancient courts, with
step-down doorways and quaint old lozenged windows, several of which remain.
Before 1803 Maillie Aumrie's, with its bowwindow and
old-fashioned door-bearing the unfailing sign of good luck, a nailed
horseshoe, was the principal business house in the town. It was a haberdashery
depot and was the centre for securing the only paper that came into Saltcoats.
It became the business house of Christina Hodge, a thrifty and managing woman
- famous for making balls and pardies - whose predecessor, Lawrie King, kept
lodgers. What is now the establishment of Mr Peter Reilly was a twostorey
thatch standing almost opposite the school gate.
In a house not far from it there lived and traded Mrs
McDonald, who drove a curious old Irish cart and donkey through the streets
bearing its load of "cheena and delf". Danny Sutherland, who lived
in the same building, was famed for the possession of a boar, which he led
through the streets, the worthy attire in his tailcoat and wearing a big
Kilmarnock bonnet. The little "public" is one of the oldest
institutions of the Girnal Street and above it, on the face of a gable, the
date 1832 and certain initials indicate the antiquity of the Albert and Good
Templars' Hall. Here the Burns Club had its birth in 1824, under the genial
chairmanship of Thomas Miller and with a membership which included William
Good, Sandy McBride and Daniel Kerr. The breezy coterie met in McKillop's then
tenanted by Orr and none added more distinction to the proceedings than the
late John McKillop, who was "the bard of Warrenhill". The "Giggledales"
and "Rattlerhymers" of that time made the rafters merry with
"song and sentiment". Tom Miller was conspicuous in his literary
efforts. He could quote all the poets with singular ease his extensive library
in Raise Street still showing his range of reading. He was a veritable walking
encyclopedia. His sons could both sing and speak on occasions of festivity.
What was Malcolms Land in 1870 lay at the end of the Girnal
Street and adjoined to it was what became the home of the famous Kate
McTaggart. Until her death in 1876, Kate was a great figure in the town. In
1863 her house and yard were almost at the very corner. Separated from this by
an old thorn hedge stood the onetime dwelling of a noteworthy villager, Fergus
Kennedy. Close by was the yard of Widow Russell, which became the property of
James Neil, from whom the little recess round the corner into the adjacent
street received its title of "Neils' Loan". In 1863 that corner
looked no more modern than it had done a hundred years before. In 1780 the
then very lonely loan leading from the corner to the crofts beyond was known
under the name of the "Puddock Loan".
Kate McTaggart was the dispenser of attractive things for
the school children, when all the academy the town held lay almost in front of
her door. Even before Kate's time another had done similar service to a former
generation. This was Jean Poe, crotchety old madam who was the terror to the
youths of the district and who used to leave her perch behind the counter to
fly after them with a broomstick. Stealing round the corner into the adjoining
street the boys would hide in the little loan, where four cots zig zagged in
the formation of an inverted V. In later years it received the designation of
"Jimmie Whitley's Loan" from a well-known chimney sweep, whose name
was a common terror with which weary mothers and nurses tried to send wakerife
children to sleep. He was sometimes the only sicknurse who could be got to
tend to fever cases when others were afraid to venture. Jamie was knocked down
by a crowd and, thinking his last hour had come, murmured "Saltcoats 'ill
miss me". His lamentations over his dog "Venus" are vividly
remembered. Here was started, by Jamie Logan, the first pawnshop in Saltcoats.
For many a day a younger Logan fiddled through the streets with a boxlike
homemade violin, having a single string.
A great change was made on the Loan when it came to be
owned by Thomas Borland, a very notable figure of the district, who, as a
contractor, had his carts on the road late and early. He brought the building
line forward and the Loan, so full of memories of better days disappeared. He
took leading part in the agitation over the name of this street, which was
then called the Drakemyre. The correct name will be found in Ainslie's plan of
1789 as Chapel Street and in the earliest titles it is rightly so called,
since it was the street which opened out in front of the Chapel. The
proprietors solemnly met in the Town Hall, in March 1878, to decide what was
the proper name of the street. It was then proved that in 1813 the street was
still Chapel Street. It was urged that as Drakemyre was only a nickname and
that as no such name appeared in the Eglinton rental books, it should be taken
away and a new name adopted. Thomas Boraland was then the oldest resident in
the district. The name was changed to Vernon Street in compliment to the Earl
of Eglinton's Commissioner and the old term of Drakemyre thrown over. A dip
into older history might have led to a greater appreciation of the old and
despised name, so reminiscent of innumerable "Goosedubs" throughout
the country, which were a feature of the religious establishments of a far off
time.
Reilly's which lies to the northeast of what was John
Barclay's smiddy (approached through Baillie's close), dates from 1824. Fergus
Kennedy's house, once the pride of the old Drakemyre, disappeared under the
Co-operative Buildings and the water runner from the Raise yards that ran
across into the Green yards became indistinguishable. Many a time the little
runner, swollen by rains, would gurgle along in an alarming current. Latterly
it was enclosed under a grating, through which children peered with curiosity
or with dismay as their peeries or bools curled away from the "wee
loan" to be swallowed up in its depths. Latterly the runner was used for
cleansing the Drakemyre, a pure spring of water being drawn from a mysterious
source at the end of the street, the boys watching the operation with
astonishment and delight. One day, as the story runs, men working at this
magic fountain (now evidently "lost to view but not to memory dear")
started back in fright as they saw a terrible abyss, the last of an ancient
pit, the site of which was almost opposite the little thatched school wherein
the future Premier of an Australian Colony taught the "three R's" to
budding Saltcoats. Here was opened the first Ragged School under Ephraim
Barbour. The place is also reminiscent of the late Arthur Guthrie and Peter
Gorme, founders of the Literary Society. They were, said a writer in the local
press, "the leaders to whom all the elder members were content to sit
mute and listen". Other lights were John Ewing, the first Doctor Wallace,
Finlay Mitchell, gas manager, William Davie and "Verdant Paddy". The
"Rabbie Burns" public house of today was Peter Hill's stables and
Docherty's occupies the place of the little thatch of Joseph Milne, mason, who
invariably conducted operations from the house tops in his black tile, the
badge of the master tradesman. Close by lived old Robert Service, who gave out
the flowering for the lady workers of Saltcoats and whose son James is now one
of the merchant princes of Melbourne and Premier of Victoria. The veteran
agent was a most enthusiastic teetotaler, It was he who, at a great public
temperance conventicle, laid about the ministers with such zealous fury that
the Rev Mr Elles, who was present, said "Sir, I am almost tempted to
thrash you to within an inch of your life for your impudence". This
reminds us that the Temperance movement in 1837 was initiated by James Smith
and that the first Temperance demonstration of its kind in Scotland was held
in Saltcoats. James served his time as a tailor with the father of Mr Bryden
of Dockhead Street.
Other almost forgotten links with the life of old Drakemyre
are the house near the railway end occupied in 1878 by Mr Steve originally
built by Holmes, a Baptist and used for a time as a Baptist chapel; the
stables and hay-loft of Archie Robertson, the carrier, who, about 1851, was
going back and forward to Irvine with a van; the Drakemyre pumpwell, opposite
the old station of 1863; Donald McAlpine's coal-ree, which stood near the
thatch school in 1862; the little shop where, in 1858, gutta-percha shoes were
sold for the first time; the famous lodging of Peter McCulloch, sometimes
going under the satirical designation of the "Drakemyre Hotel"; next
it the house (dating, along with the lodging, from 1828) of the celebrated
Elder Brodie, one of the stoups of the Auld Kirk, a great and worthy figure of
the severe disciplinary methods of early church life, when nothing was more
usual than a visitation from those ecclesiastical constables, looking "as
grim as Hieland corbies", with the warning intimation, "Ten o'clock,
an' a'body i' their ain hoose". Curfew did not strike more terror than
the presence of an elder of the olden time in the Drakemyre "after
lock-up 'hours". East of Brooders was the house of Meredith Keenan,
carter. For many a day there stood opposite the "Banking Brae", a
wee tottering hoose "looking like as if it had survived a thoosan'
years". In the passage a little hole in the wa' did service as a bar and
there many a surreptitious stirrup cup had been bottled by travellers before
pursuing the long and lonely way northward. Immediately to the west of the
loaning and so close as to form part of it, were the old-fashioned houses,
threequarters of a century old, that became only a few years ago the handsome
building of the Town Clerk's office.
The Y M C A has been in existence since long before 1859.
The picturesque building which it occupies was at one time part of Mr
Borland's property and was opened by the Association in 1890. Mention of Rob
Miller's public house and grocery brings back the memory of Hughie "Benty"
immortalised by John McKillop in his humorous versification, "The
Folic" :-
"Next come the lads, a funny squad;
There was Pat Lancet, woman mad,
Tam Giggledale, a chield ne'er sad,
An' Hughie Benty
Douce Robin Weel-thegither-haud
An' Geordie Tenty".
Indeed the entire range of houses swept away when the
railway station was brought to the Drakemyre enclosed most of the real
character life of the town. Impossible is it to drag from the mists of local
tradition the exact significance of name the "Lion's Den" and "Drakemyre"
must remain inseparable. The corner house was Gilbert Gray's with little
sideways and entrances to the station. Peter Hill, the horse dealer, who lived
until 1849, had his habitation on the railway side. His tall figure, crowned
with a tall tile, his swallowtail coat and Knee-breeches, would have singled
him out in any community. He smoked a long pipe and flourished a long
four-in-hand whip. His jokes were clever and keenly relished. He was well
known to officers in search of good mounts and it was said that the laughter
created by Peter's repartee found an echo in far-off India. Near the
commencement of what is now along stretch of dead wall supporting the railway
loading bank was once a lane of seclusion and rural interest, since the
villager used it as a way to the higher lands, to Malcolms weavers' shop and
at a later time to a now obliterated kirk which stood on the other side of the
railway, the lane was approached through a gate which was never opened except
on Sabbath. It came to bear the name of the "Meikle Yell", from this
large wooden gate at the entrance.
What indescribable felling of humor and what playful quips
and jocularities, are aroused by the remembrance of the ancient two storey
house, the "Turf Inn", which sat at the foot of what was known as
the "Banking Brae" and the funniest thing concerning which is that
it was never an inn at all. At its gable the road went up to the Gasworks,
This road up the brae in older days was further westward. One day in winter
the road was frozen like glass; boys were tobogganing down the hill on an
upturned fourlegged stool, when a lady and gentleman appeared at the top and
looked ruefully at the dangerous descent. The boys made offer of their
primitive conveyance, but the gentleman re-turned a rude answer. Hardly had he
done so than, by an unexpected slip, he was precipitated to the foot amidst
roars of laughter. The lady was wiser. She gallantly accepted the odd
transport and buckling her skirts about her, she placed herself on the stool
and was launched safely at the foot amidst the hurrahs of the onlookers.
Alongside the Turf Inn was Lennart's Smiddy, a feature which have true auld'
warld'ness and character to the site. No old Saltcoatian will forget the house
of Rabbie Boll, satirically dubbed the "Port o' Ferry" Inn and dealt
with in forgotten rhyme:
"There stands a wee thatch hoose at yonder gate
Sing hey for its people, ever merry
The name of the landlord's Rabbie Boll
And naebody passes the Port o' Ferry
The last thatch vanished in 1904 and the old life of the
Drakemyre ended. Under its more fragrant title, it is rapidly assuming new
airs and new aspirations, since, with a Railway Station and a new Post Office
at its extremities, the current of traffic may be diverted and this Rue de
Vernon be turned into the premier thoroughfare of Saltland.
