There are four rows of houses built in the form of a square, and three other rows built inside the square. The houses are all built with "Stinston" stone and there is a large reservoir of water, fed through piping from the Stevenston Burn, from a point adjacent to the Colliery Manager's Mansion in Station Road in the centre of the square, for supplying the Blast Furnaces with water for industrial purposes particularly. After the pig beds are cleared, the sand had to be heavily watered for re-moulding the pig beds. This reservoir is practically stagnant.

The Side Row of the square contains 16 2-apartment houses. Back Row 25 single apartments 3 blocks have 6 houses each, and one block of 8 houses, and at the top end of the row there is McCallum's model lodging house and dining room, where boarders are fed and lodged at 12/- per week, or a bed can be obtained for 6d per night. Shilling Row has 8 single apartments and the house measurements are 14 feet by 12 feet. This Row has no closets, washing houses or coalhouses. The rent is 6/6 month.

The Front Row contains 10 2-apartments and 8 single apartments. In this Row there is one washing house for 5 tenants with a closet in it for females and one dry closet for males, for every 6 tenants. The Monkey Row has 8 single apartments built back to back with the 8 singles in the Front Row. All the houses measure 10 feet by 8 feet with neither coalhouses, wash-houses, closets, or ashpits, and so human filth and refuse is thrown out on to the ground in front of the houses.

Middle Row has 12 single apartments and is the same type as the ones in the Back Row and the same insanitary conditions prevail. Furnace Row has 18 singles and 13 2-apartments. The whole aspect of Ardeer Square is a most melancholy one, there are no rhones on any of the houses and as none of the roadways are paved, the result can be readily imagined. At every gable-end there are large pools of water several inches deep, and ruts of mud at every row. The floors are all brick tiles with the usual sad results of broken floors and uneven surfaces which mock the efforts of the most industrious housewife to keep her place tidy.

These houses are all the property of Messrs. Merry and Cunninghame, Furnaces and Colliery owners, and are inhabited by miners of the company pits and furnace workers at the Ardeer Ironworks.