Excursions from Ayr

on Aug 14, 2021

In the summer of 1906, a well-to-do family took a house in Ayr, the town of “honest men and bonnie lasses”. There was at least one of the family with an interest in photography and this article highlights the results of the various activities and excursions undertaken that were contained in an old photograph album. None of the photographs is captioned and so what follows is a best attempt to describe the routes and the scenes. Many of the excursions were by sea, in the Ayr excursion steamer, Juno, built in 1898 by Messrs John Brown & Co., at Clydebank. The “big, beamy, beautiful Juno” was larger and more heavily built than most of the contemporary Clyde railway steamers and was ideal for excursions from the lower Firth. While few of the photographs show steamships, they do provide an interesting perspective of the scenes viewed from on board. Consequently, photographs from the...

Girvan to Ailsa Craig

on Sep 5, 2015

Visiting Ailsa Craig, the remarkable volcanic plug that rises from the seabed in the lower reaches of the Firth of Clyde, has been tradition dating back to the earliest times. With the advent of the steamboat, a trip around the island was an early feat to demonstrate the reliability of the vessels. Duchess of Hamilton rounding Ailsa Craig around 1905 Throughout the 1800s, passengers were landed briefly on the island from special sailings of steamers when the weather was amenable, but the main communication was with Girvan on the Ayrshire coast. Sailing coasters and fishing smacks brought not only tourists, but also transported the quarrymen to the quarries set up by the Marquis of Ailsa to supply curling stones to the world. Sailing smacks and yachts from Girvan landing visitors at Ailsa Craig Towards the end of the century, William Girvan, who was involved in transporting the granite...