PUN BRAE

[Meg]

Doesn't sound like a corruption of Gaelic, maybe Pictish?

Dont think there were many Picts in Ayrshire Morag - mainly Celts - oh and Romans - maybe something from then?

Meg

[morag]

Actually, Meg, I think it has similarities to Welsh which is quite different from Scots / Irish Gaelic and which brings up old questions for me, Strathclyde, King Arthur....

[little plum]

Morag, the Welsh link reminds me of a story my mate told me. His ex father inlaw, who lived near the mill dam, was digging up hedges in his garden and uncovered a stone axe head. When examined by the experts he was told the stone came from Wales. ?

[Penny Tray]

Little Plum,

I'm still interested in you "PUNN WRAE" sign. Word searching PUNN, I see (in Hughie's family page of all places) a family KELLY that would appear to have been resident circa 1861 at 156 BURNSIDE PUNN, STEVENSTON. Where would this be?

[little plum]

P.T. no easy answer to that one. I know of a Burnbank but no Burnside. Hughie might enlighten us.

[morag]

more confusion...
(NS 2660 4204) Bronze Age Cist found AD 1895 (NAT)
OS 25" map (1969)

A cist, measuring 3ft 8ins by 1ft 8ins deep was found on 3rd July 1895 when foundations were being dug at Pun Brae. It contained a food vessel and a stone 'club' which are now in the North Ayrshire Museum, Saltcoats along with two other 'clubs' which were apparently found near the cist.
J Smith 1895; A Morrison 1971; D D A Simpson 1965

The find-spot was pointed out by Mr T Banks (Torwood High Road, Stevenston), schoolmaster and local historian. The Pun is now an extinct name, and the area completely altered.
Visited by OS (JLD) 14 September 1956

Although the given provenance of this cist is almost certainly correct, it should be noted that Smith's original location appears to be based on assumption from the name 'Pun Brae', and that he did not have direct knowledge of this find. The Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB 1856) does not record the name 'Pun Brae', but does list 'Pan Brae' as being a street in the harbour area of Saltcoats (NS 247 410), some 1 1/2 kms from the credited provenance.
Visited by OS (JRL) 7 October 1982

[bobbydarg]

Very interesting.

[Penny Tray]

Morag,

Pan Brae, Saltcoats, sounds more and more realistic. We have to remember too, as we've learned with several posts recently, that Saltcoats Harbour was at one time in the Parish of Stevenston and records from those times leave us with the impression that an event that occurred in Saltcoats as we now know it actually happened in Steventson.

However, what then is the relevance or interpretation of the sign seen by Little Plum at the Champion Shell Inn - "PUNN WRAE".

And if I picked the address up correctly from Hughie's family site where was Burnside PUNN. If there was a No. 156 you have to imagine it was a long street. Is there a burn runs alongside New Street?

[morag]

The mill dam burn ran under the High Rd / Glencairn St.,from the Kerelaw burn, not sure where the name changed then under the cross area and behind the houses across from the higher grade,if I remember correctly. I'm not sure where it went from there or where it resurfaced.

[down south]

Surely at that date, and with a find well-documented enough for there to be a photograph of the scene, there wouldn't really be any possibility of its being described as being in Stevenston if it had actually been in Saltcoats. After all, Little Plum was able to identify the Pun Brae in Stevenston readily enough. It would certainly have been reported in the Herald at the time; I thought at first I'd even seen the report in the Herald Files " 100 years ago " , but that turns out to have been another find, in April 1908, by some people digging in their gardens at "Mount Pleasant, Townhead "; this one was 1895.

Both these discoveries are mentioned in an article I kept from the Herald around 1971 ( which came accompanied by the picture in question ) about Bronze Age burials found in Stevenston; it was written by the Alex Morrison mentioned above, who was a lecturer in archaeology at Glasgow and a Stevenston man himself. Apparently there were quite a few: as well as the two just mentioned, there were some finds at Ardeer which I think I've seen posted about elsewhere on 3T, and one at Auchenharvie in the 1960s.The cist from this last one is the one that's in the North Ayrshire Museum.

Not all the finds were preserved; only some urn fragments survived from the Townhead one , and it supposedly wasn't remembered for sure exactly where it was. But he was fairly definite about the Pun Brae one; he described the location as being " in the vicinity of present-day Schoolwell Street and Alexander Place " , which will no doubt mean something to the Stivonians (? ) among you.

Who, it seems, go back a good long way !

Susan

[bobbydarg]

With the help of the University of Glasgow i have come up with these meanings of the " Punn Wrae "

'Wrae' is an old Scots word for nook, or corner
"punn" could be a form of the word for "pound" (enclosure for animals).
Sounds good to me.

[John Donnelly]

I remember years ago, my father telling me that there used to be an area at the foot of the Townhead brae where the cattle from the surrounding area would be assembled on a daily basis, (the pun ?), and would be collectively herded down the Coo Rodden, (New St.), to the shore where they would graze all day and be brought back in the evening. A photograph of this collection point was posted a couple of weeks ago and I can't find it now.
This was the origin of the name Coo Rodden, (cow road) for New St.

JD.