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Alloway

Alloway photos (12 available)

Old photo of Alloway

Alloway maps (1 available)

Old map of Scotland

Alloway books (5 available)

Alloway memories

Be the first to add a memory of Alloway.

You can also read memories of nearby places in Ayrshire below.

Ayrshire memories

Fish & Chips

Having fish & chips from the Vesta Cafe on the New Road, they were the best.
Playing the puggy at Favali's in the New Road.
Playing down at the Newton Shore.  Skating at Ayr Ice Rink.
Climbing the fence and getting into the dog track from Elmbank Street on Sunday morning to pick up anything of value the drunks had dropped the night before at the races, usually money. Working for Cowan the Butcher as a delivery boy and apprentice.
The Odeon club for kids on Saturday morning, to see Flash Gordon and the likes.
Newton Park Higher Grade School.
A memory of Ayr contributed by Donald Pettigrew

Holiday memories

Happily walking along Ayr beach with an ice cream from the Wellington Cafe, paddling in the sea with my parents! Eating wonderful fish and chips on a windy day. Getting breakfast rolls from one of the many bakers to take back to my aunt's. Going skating at the ice rink with my cousins.
A memory of Ayr contributed by liz webb

Happy days

To me there is nowhere like Skares was, and anyone who came from there will say the same.  Everybody knew everybody else and they were always ready to help anyone that needed it.  You could go out and leave your door open without worrying about anything being pinched.  In the summer we used to all go on a picnic doon the blackwater when it was nice, and we'd go for walks roon the pluck. My mother sometimes took us up to the Covenanters monument up the Knockdunder hills. She used to take us picking rasberries to make jam in the summer, and when the brambles were ready she'd take us to pick them and scribes to make jelly.  It was guid. ...read more here
A memory of contributed by Rita Mitchell

Crossing the moor

Irvine, the Academy 1904

My secondary education was completed after spending 4 years at Irvine Royal Academy. The school was broken into two buildings known as the old school (pictured) and the new school in Kilwinning Road. Classes were conducted between both buildings and often meant crossing the moor to and from either building. This was fine and considered a great timewaster in good weather but was a pain in pouring rain and ice & snow etc.

The old school was a beautiful building which was loaded with character and that also included some of the teachers who could be characters in their own right, the older of whom wore the black robes and generally carried a belt for discipline, although I ...read more here
A memory of Irvine contributed by Margaret Hubble

Extracts From Alloway & Ayrshire books

Alloway, Burns's Cottage 1897

Scotland’s most celebrated poet Robert Burns was born in this simple cottage on 25 January 1759. The cottage, a ‘but and ben’ or two-room clay cottage, was built by the poet’s father, a gardener from Kincardineshire. It later became an inn. Burns’s verses are famous the world over. He died at the early age of thirty-seven in Dumfries. In 1881 the cottage was purchased by the trustees of the Burns Monument and opened as a museum. The pleasant village of Alloway is now the centre of pilgrimage for lovers of Burns’s poetry.
An extract from from"Scotland".

Alloway, Burns's Cottage 1897

Robert Burns was born here on 25 January 1759. The cottage was rebuilt by the poet’s father and later became an inn. In 1881 it was purchased by the trustees of the Burns Monument and opened as a museum.
An extract from from"Scotland Photographic Memories".

Alloway, the Kirk 1897

Robert Burns played in this churchyard as a boy, and the popular legends about hauntings and the ghostly atmosphere of the roofless ruin affected him deeply. He used the Kirk and the Auld Brig O’Doon near by as scenes for his celebrated ghost story ‘Tam O’ Shanter’, which first appeared in the Edinburgh Review in 1791. Burns’s father, who had repaired the kirk wall to keep the sheep at bay, is buried in the churchyard.
An extract from from"Scotland".

Alloway, the Kirk 1897

This roofless church is alleged to be haunted. Burns’s father is buried in the churchyard.
An extract from from"Scotland Photographic Memories".