Glenbuck

Glenbuck
Ayrshire
The Douglas Water by Glenbuck
Location
Grid reference:	NS753289
Location:	55°32’19"N, 3°58’39"W
Data
Postcode:	KA18
Local Government
Council:	East Ayrshire

Glenbuck is a small, remote village in Ayrshire, today all but abandoned. It nestles in the hills 3 miles east of Muirkirk. The village was was an industrial centre, busy with coal mining and iron smelting, but the Great Depression of the 1930s struck it cruelly, closed the mine and the life of the village vanished with it.

The site of the village was slightly to the west of Glenbuck Loch, on the River Ayr, very close to the border between Ayrshire and Lanarkshire.

Glenbuck Loch

Glenbuck Loch is not a natural lake but was was created 1802 by James Finlay for his Catrine Lace Mill, and the waters powered turbines there till 1967. The water also powered a dozen other water mills downstream.

The creation of the dam at the foot of the loch largely drained the valley downstream and thus allowed the road to be relocated into the valley floor along the route of the modern A70 and paved the way for the adjacent railway line around 1839: previously the land was a dense bog with the old coach road higher up on the opposite side of valley running below Wee Darnhunch then west across the fields along to Darnhunch Farm where gaps in the stone walls (dykes) shows the old Toll Route.

Railway enthusiasts considered the Loch - bisected by the 1830 line - to be an exceptional place to photograph trains with still water either side of the line and many photos, well known to steam buffs exist. The last local train through Glenbuck station and over this dam was in 1964.The first steam railway in Scotland, between Troon and Kilmarnock, had iron rails made in Glenbuck Iron works

Economy

Glenbuck was once a thriving coal mining community, but the last mine was closed in 1931. The village was unable to provide jobs for the unemployed miners and suffered decline as a result. There is an informative collection of memories of Glenbuck here.

The village was also an early centre for pig iron making and early coal blast furnaces were built and remained until recently. Used from 1795 to 1813, these furnaces belonged to the Glenbuck Iron Co. Local lore says the firm did early research (before the days of the Coalbrookdale industry) to make steel from coal with supposed advice from experts from Toledo. A deep study of local iron work was published by Donnachie and Butt, I L & J (1965) 'Three 18th century Scottish ironworks'.

Weaving was also common and 'Stair Row' in Glenbuck was the street where the weavers lived and worked. The last traditional weaver passing away in 1880.

Glenbuck House

A local mine owner Charles Howatson built (1879) a splendid high Victorian estate house known as Glenbuck House, and he forested all around the loch. He was in his middle years when he built and developed the estate with fine and still extant steadings. He passed in 1914 - in following decades his inheritors in order to avoid paying tax on the family home eventually removed the roof and the house soon dissolved as the softer red local Mauchline sandstone is highly friable when exposed to rain and this fine house was built and turned to dust in less than a century and utterly demolished by 1948 after a brief plan to turn it into flats by the council. The loch car park occupies its site.

Sport

No sports teams are maintained in the village today, few residents remaining. In its heyday though the men of the village played hard and supplied several professional fotballers. It was the birthplace in 1913 of Bill Shankly, who played football for Preston North End and for Scotland before going on to manage Liverpool FC.

Glenbuck Cherrypickers were a successful team, producing a steady stream of professional footballers (38 at least). The team folded in 1931.

The bridge on the Duneaton Water

State of the village today

Little of the original village exists. Opencast coal mining in the 1990s resulted in the demolition of just about all of the properties that remained (The School, Kirk, Mitchell's Coal Yard, Hillside market gardens, two blocks of council houses, various outlying farms Airdsgreen, Grashill. etc. Spireslack farmhouse remains but surrounded on all sides by open casting). Of the seven remaining houses still extant - four are still occupied including a taxi firm and artist.

A wind farm developer administers most of the properties but since taking control in 2010 has left West Glenbuck farmhouse empty which has led to further depopulation of the village. Lochside Cottage now in private ownership was the 'new' toll house and Wee Darnhunch was the old toll house for the earlier higher road which was manned by Robert Burns's maternal uncle - John Brown in the 1790s.

Glenbuck is mentioned by Robert Burns's poem The Brigs of Ayr.

About the village

West Glenbuck Farm land is where one of the best examples of a flanged Bronze Axe head in Scotland was found when ploughing - this item is held by the National Museum in Edinburgh.

The road through the village is still maintained by the council and the Shankly memorial is visited most weeks along with a new River Ayr Way, a walk which loosely follows the 44 mile length of the river to the coast. The innovative river walk begins at a totem pole, inscribed "Muirkirk", down near the loch. There is also a permanent bird hide on the loch to observe local waterfowl.

• 
  Glenbuck Lodge door ornament
• 
  Glenbuck area before opencast mining arrived in the late 1990s

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Glenbuck)

• Abandoned Communities ... Glenbuck and other coal mining villages in Ayrshire
• Ayrshire history
• Bech Baskets
• Pictures of Glenbuck and the area on Geograph.co.uk