Between the bay and the northern stretch of pastoral upland
forming the High and Laigh Raise Parks, was the Village Green, a long
quadrangle upon which the landward part of the ancient village rested. It has
been already shown that the Kings highway from the shore went by the rocks.
There was no road through the village proper, except across the wild stretch
of beach that has become Dockhead Street, or by a confined lane at its eastern
extremity pursuing the long and tortuous line of a rude water course from the
higher lands known as the Flush. The way or approach more than a recess from
the cross roads, it might almost have been termed a cul-de-sac. The march
boundary between the lands of Cunninghame and the Earl of Eglinton formed a
sinuous line of dyke across the central parks of the village, in which were
involved the territory of one James How, a merchant, regarding which something
very important in the history of the town emerged. Westward from the spot
where James and his guid wife Grisel had their home lay the village smithy, in
what one may term the very heart of old Saltland. In the Earls of Eglinton and
the stable for the horses employed in bringing the salt and carrying away to
the Earl's storehouses at Irvine, the meal brought as rent by the tenants.
Prior to 1700 few dwellings had their place in the vicinity of the Girnal
House. Up the irregular line of the burn which flowed into the Green there ran
the long and straggled vennel, used by those who dwelt in the centre of the
village to enable them to reach Kyleshill. This was the line of the Flush, the
way, in short, to the Flush Rigs. At its foot lay James How's house. On the
banks of the now vanished stream, in the heart of the village, were several
cothouses, in which dwelt one Alexander Kennier and they were reached by an
entrance so narrow that it would not permit two people to pass abreast.
Further towards the centre of the green expense was the house of Robert Morial,
the coal grieve to the Earl of Eglinton. To the northwest of How's house lay
the croft of Alexander Ritchie.
Thus roughly may the surroundings of the site be pictured
in 1714. Before another half-century passed, great were the changes that came
into this little colony at the foot of the Flush rigs.
"In a green lane that from the village street
Diverges, stands the schoolhouse, long and low
The Frame and blackened with the hues of time
From ancient records in the possession of Mr William
Service, the Session Clerk, we learn that the old Parish School was in the
Seventeenth Century controlled by the kirk authorities at Stanley and now came
the Parish Church to Saltcoats and with it the rustic school. One can readily
imagine the scholars under the shadow of the old church on the brae, weary of
pot-hooks and Latin classics, playing hide-and-seek amongst the gravestones,
their only play-ground. Then came their removal, as their numbers grew larger,
to the Green, Rob Morial, the coal grieve, giving up his house to make room
for them and the gardens on the Earl of Eglinton's land for a capacious
playground. The exact date when this transference took place cannot be
definitely determined. In 1751 the School was at the Old kirk. Within the next
twenty years or so it was down at the Green. It had many masters, whose names
are "Written in gold" on a tablet in the old kirk wall. In 1803
William M'Pherson had the school at a salary of 350 merks. He resigned 1814.
Edward Fibb, from whom the School Close obtained its name, died on 27 March
1831. Under his regime the school had been enlarged (in 1822) and later
(September 1825) exchanged for part of that on which the Town House now
stands. In January1832, the inhabitants, realising that the once open space of
the village green had become unhealthy by the over building upon it,
petitioned for a new school and plans were actually considered in the summer
of 1837. After a single year the school was found once more to be panting for
outlet. In 1850 the heritors appointed Dr Charles Marshall, of St Martin's, in
Perthshire and six years later a supplementary addition to the schoolhouse
left it still more impoverished of playground and by and by the teacher's
dwelling house had to be taken in to accommodate scholars until it elbowed
itself itself out of space. Then came the new legislature of 1872 and the best
days of the school were over. Over its portals there was carved a Latin
legend, the translation of which - "Learning advances innate power and
suffers not the manners of the rude" - seems to have had more influence
upon its pupils than the admonitory texts of a later day. It was a sound
school, well disciplined and well taught. A devastating fire placed in peril
the Doctor's very valuable classical library, the existence of which bore
testimony to his liberal reading resource. He could write as well as teach and
nothing could have been more biting than his answer to the authorities in the
school's last days, "The categorical statement of requirements cannot be
predicated of the dismal cooperage in which both departments of the school
have been immured". The "dismal cooperage" lingered on until
two years ago, when it disappeared to make way for the new County Police
Buildings, which have been not unfittingly described as Saltcoats' little
Scotland Yard. The venerable Girnal House stood second in the street to which
it gave a name, long after its purpose ad come to an end and the meal rents
became commuted to money sterling. It was fitted with stalls for the reception
of the meal and for storing the salt to be given in exchange. The house still
standing, with the broken outline of an old stairway facing the straggled
vacuity into which so much of the municipal stonework has recently been
imposed, represents the ancient and historic reception house of the rents of
the Earls of Eglinton.
It was alienated from the Earl's possession only in 1841.
An old stable stood at the rear. This, with its curious clay floor and still
more curious stalls, was the place wherein the Earl's draw horses were housed.
It was adjoined tot he gable of the Girnal House and had become ruinous in the
Eighteenth Century. It is believed to have been covered by the printing house
of Archibald Wallace, which rests upon ground given by the Earl of Eglinton to
William Stevenson, cooper in Saltcoats, in 1764 and formed part of the
possession of Dr Robert Wallace, the successor of Dr Alexander Hamilton, whose
house was 4 Dockhead Street. The front part of Herdman's rests upon part of
the possession of a famous man of Saltcoats in his day, Patrick Mc Alla, whose
tenement went as far as the "Shopends".
Immediately northward from the Girnal House was the
dwelling of Miss Lusk, dating from 1824 and raised at a time when the
surroundings were still unfreed from their early rural character, a surviving
feature of which is the ancient pear tree of her garden, still standing in
rustic loneliness on the spot where once so much homely comfort was enclosed
and which still grows its fruit in abundance. Upon "the northwest quenzy"
of Hugh Paterson's smith, with its adjoining house and kiln, there came to be
erected the bakehouse of John Brown, of "sailor biscuit" fame.
George Jameson followed Brown in 1823 and the old smithy has long since become
enveloped in the bakehouses and granaries of Herdman's. Where the corner shop
of Countess Street stands today there was an open close up which a cart could
go to the bakehouse. Beyond that lay another most important landmark of old
Saltcoats, the almost forgotten hostelry known as the "Black Bull",
the nearest approach to the site of which, today, is a confectioner's shop. It
was a pretentious little hostelry, truly reminiscent of Saltcoats' better days
and offering those quaint and restful charms which few of the inns of today
can do. It was sometimes called the "Eden Inn", not on account of
the attractions alluded to, which might have justified the designation, but
because the Eden Lodge of Free Gardeners met there.
Within the square, behind the Dockhead thoroughfare, lay
the "offices and closes" belonging to the family of Auchenharvie,
purchased by the Earl of Eglingon in 1795 to enable him to make straight the
ancient paths and highways which that territory adjoined. But long before that
year he had been maturing a scheme destined to be of the upmost importance to
the welfare of the town. This was the making of a way northward to
Knockcrievock and Dalry. And therby hangs an interesting tale. When James How,
"up the Flush", built his house in 1714, he was taken bound to leave
out nine feet of space for the roadway between him and his opposite
neighbours. Little did James How dream that his possession and that road space
were to become the centre of the town's most important buildings and the site
in front of his door the most thronged of the coming town. Many years passed
and it became necessary about 1777 to continue the road northward by breaking
through a part of How's territory. The old shipmaster was dead and the Earl,
through his factor, had to bargain with the widow. A part of her ground was
taken in exchange for a part further back and the the old stopgap at the foot
of the Flush broken through to continue the direct line of the street from the
Quay. Grisel, like most women, was not enamored of her bargain, declaring that
she had got "jimp measure". The territory of the Hows came to Robert
Stevenson of Coalhill. Today the house and ground that were Grisel How's lie
buried beneath the spacious expanse of the Town Hall, which also sweeps out of
sight the scene of the town's early collegiate life, for there also are
covered the onetime public school, the master's schoolhouse which lay to the
west of the cooperage, his offices and garden.
The ground to the left of the plot of the How's with the
house built in 1715 by John Paton, weaver, "up the Flush", became
the possession of Captain Thomson and long afterwards and for nearly sixty
years, a part was occupied by Miss Fleckman a well-known "lady body"
of her time, whose fine presence and black ringlets give back a pleasant
impression of the elegant manners of those old days. Still more memorable in
its suggestion of the simple appearance of the early village, is the fact that
the house she occupied so long was the historic Quay head House of Saltcoats,
bearing a title full of interesting and picturesque significance.
The roadway in front of How's patch then bore the fine old
Scotch appellation of the "Brochan" (sometimes rendered
"Broughton"). When it first began assume the appearance of a
thoroughfare it was called "the Way or Street". Then, with due
respect to the Earl's good intention to bread through the fields, it was
called "Eglinton" Street; after it was opened, "New" or
"Raise" street and finally, by the most remarkable of variations in
nomenclature, "Countess" Street, under which name it remains. Early
in last century the surroundings of the plot had become partially covered with
ruins, for here had lived the oldest villagers and many of the cots had served
their day. The public spirit of the town was beginning to manifest itself and
now took the form of a subscription for a Town House and Steeple, the primary
object being to secure a public clock. This movement developed into " the
Town House Society", on 3 October 1823, at a public meeting, presided
over by Edward Gibb, schoolmaster, at the Green and a constitution was drawn
up. The original subscription sheet, beginning in 1823 and ending in 1831,
contained 202 names. When sufficient funds had been obtained the Society
acquired the ground at "number one Raise Street" for 999 years, from
Martinmas 1823 and the Town House was built in 1826, from designs submitted by
Peter King. The Eglinton Trustees gave the stones from Ardrossan Quarry free
of servitude. The bell was hung for the first time in 1829. The society did
not pay the bellringer, but he was to "take his chance of the goodwill of
the inhabitants of the town for his trouble". When the foundation stone
of the Town House and Steeple was laid on the 15 September, 1825, by Alexander
Hamilton, of Grange, with Masonic honours, all the local lodges walked in
procession from Stevenston, where they assembled. Upwards of 300 Masons
walked. The Grand Master's speech on that occasion was an oration that an aged
townsman says "rang like Juluis Caesar's".
