Maybole is a town and former burgh of barony and police burgh in South Ayrshire, Scotland. It had an estimated population of
4,580 in 2022.[1] It is situated 9 miles (14 km) south of Ayr and 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Glasgow by the Glasgow and South Western Railway. The town is bypassed by the A77.
Maybole has Middle Ages roots, receiving a charter from Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick in 1193. In 1516 it was made a burgh of regality, although for generations it remained under the suzerainty of the Clan Kennedy, afterwards Earls of Cassillis and (later) Marquesses of Ailsa, the most powerful family in Ayrshire. The Marquess of Ailsa lived at Cassillis House, just outside Maybole until its sale in 2007.[2] In the late seventeenth century, a census recorded Maybole was home to 28 "lords and landowners with estates in Carrick and beyond."[3]
In former times, Maybole was the capital of the district of Carrick, Scotland, and for long its characteristic feature was the family mansions of the barons of Carrick. Maybole Castle, a former seat of the Earls of Cassillis, dates to 1560 and still remains, although aspects of the castle are viewed as "of concern".[4] The public buildings include the town-hall, the Ashgrove and the Lumsden fresh-air fortnightly homes, and the Maybole combination poorhouse.[5]
Maybole is a short distance from the birthplace of Robert Burns, the Scots national poet. Burns's mother was a Maybole resident, Agnes Brown.[6]
In the nineteenth century, Maybole became a centre of boot and shoe manufacturing.
Margaret McMurray (??-1760), one of the last native speakers of a Lowland dialect of Scottish Gaelic, is recorded to have lived at Cultezron (not to be confused with nearby Culzean), a farm on the outskirts of Maybole.
The ancestral seat of the Marquesses of Ailsa is Culzean Castle, now run by The National Trust for Scotland and located 4 miles (6 kilometres) west from Maybole. This dates from 1777; it stands on a basaltic cliff, beneath which are the Coves of Culzean, once the retreat of outlaws and a resort of the fairies.
2 miles (3 kilometres) to the south-west are the ruins of Crossraguel (from Crois Riaghail meaning 'Cross of St Regulus' ) Abbey, founded about 1240.
Our Lady and St Cuthbert Catholic Church in Maybole was opened in 1878 and it was largely funded by Catholic convert Margaret Radclyffe Livingstone Eyre (born Kennedy).[8] A Scottish Episcopal congregation was established in 1847 to serve the English and Irish weavers in the area, and the present St. Oswald's Church was completed in 1883.
In the early 20th century, Maybole added a Baptist church. This was admitted to the Baptist Union in 1901 and appointed its first full minister in 1919, a year after the Great War finished.[9]
Kirkoswald, where Robert Burns spent his seventeenth year, learning land-surveying, lies a little farther west. In the parish churchyard lie the real people who inspired two of Burns's fictitious characters Douglas Graham (Tam o' Shanter) and John Davidson.
Farther south are the ruins of Turnberry Castle, where Robert the Bruce is said to have been born. A few miles to the north of Culzean are the ruins of Dunure Castle, an ancient stronghold of the Kennedys.
Housing on the site of the old St Cuthbert's shoe factoryThe head of the old Maybole Cross in the gardens of Maybole Castle. The cross bears the coats of arms of the Kennedy family of Cassillis and has a rare Moon dial on one face.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Maybole". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 931.
