THE BRIG OF AYR
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR 
 AND SOMETHING OF 
 ITS STORY x x M <By 
 JAMES A. MORRIS 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION 
 
 AYR : STEPHEN & POLLOCK 
 
 1912
 
 QA 
 
 TO 
 
 E. M. 
 
 629748
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VIEW OF THE NEW BRIDGE AND TOLBOOTH 
 
 frontispiece 
 
 REPRINT OF HAND-BILL, DATED 1792 
 
 to face page eighteen 
 
 " THE TWA BRIGS" IN MARCH 1878 
 
 to face page twenty-three 
 
 THE TWA BRIGS" IN THE LATE SIXTIES 
 
 to face page twenty-four 
 
 VIEW OF A YR IN 169S 
 
 to face page thirty-three 
 
 " THE TWA BRIGS" IN 1841 
 
 to face page thirty-six 
 
 THE AULD BRIG IN THE EARLY SIXTIES 
 
 to face page forty-three 
 
 THE AULD BRIG FROM THE NORTH-EAST AFTER 
 PRESER VA TIVE OPERA TIONS 
 
 to face page sixty-six
 
 THE HEART OF THE BRIG, SHOWING THE CON- 
 CRETE SHAFT-HEAD AND CENTRAL SPAN- 
 DREL WALL 
 
 to face page sixty-nine 
 
 THE BRIG ROADWAY AFTER PRESERVATIVE 
 OPERATIONS 
 
 to face fage seventy-five
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 1 
 
 ^HE poem, " The Brigs of Ayr," was 
 written in 1786, and inscribed to 
 the Poet's good friend, Mr John 
 Ballantine, banker, Ayr. He it was who gen- 
 erously offered to advance the sum, happily 
 not required, for the production of the 
 Second Edition, published in Edinburgh in 
 1787, which, following by a year the Kil- 
 marnock Edition, contained twenty -two 
 pieces additional thereto, one of them " The 
 Brigs of Ayr." To Mr Ballantine, Burns ad- 
 dressed several letters from Edinburgh, in- 
 forming him of his reception by the world 
 of birth, letters, and good fellowship ; and, 
 as indicative throughout all his triumphs 
 and later troubles of how warm a place Ayr 
 held in his heart, let the following letter 
 establish : 
 
 March 1791. 
 
 "While here I sit, sad and solitary, by the side 
 of a fire in a little country inn, and drying my wet 
 clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger, and tells 
 me he is going to Ayr. By heavens ! say I to my- 
 self, with a tide of good spirits which the magic 
 of that sound, Auld Toon o' Ayr, conjured up, I 
 will send my last song to Mr Ballantine. Here 
 it is:
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 "Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, 
 
 How can ye blume sae fair ! 
 How can ye chant, ye little birds, 
 And I sae fu' o' care ! 
 
 Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, 
 
 That sings upon the bough ; 
 Thou minds me o' the happy days 
 
 When my fause luve was true. 
 
 Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, 
 
 That sings beside thy mate ; 
 For sae I sat, and sae I sang, 
 
 And wist na o' my fate. 
 
 Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon, 
 
 To see the woodbine twine, 
 And ilka bird sang o' its love, 
 
 And sae did I o' mine. 
 
 Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose 
 
 Frae aff its thorny tree, 
 And my fause luver staw the rose, 
 
 But left the thorn wi' me." 
 
 The second version of the song, one of the 
 most beautiful lyrics ever written, is here 
 given in the form in which it was sent to 
 Mr Ballantine, and not the altered and later 
 version now in general use. 
 
 The New Bridge, designed by Mr Rob- 
 ert Adams, and built during the Provostship 
 of Mr Ballantine, was practically finished in 
 
 10
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 1789 ; but on what I am told was the mid- 
 dle baluster of the range above the midmost 
 arch, on the west and untouched side, is the 
 date 1785, and this baluster is in the pos- 
 session of the heirs of the late Mr John 
 Miller, Fort Castle, Ayr, to whom much of 
 the dressed stonework of the Brig found its 
 way during the period of its demolition. 
 The four valuable cast-lead figures from 
 the Bridge were at first secured by private 
 individuals, but they are now and more fit- 
 tingly in the gardens of Alloway Cottage 
 and Burns' Monument, two in each ; Ceres 
 and Bacchus disporting themselves on the 
 cottage lawn, while Pan and Marsyas, hav- 
 ing found for themselves secluded bowers 
 by the riverside, tune their pipes to its music. 
 In the Town Council minutes of the time, 
 there is a series of interesting references to 
 the building of this bridge. The Committee 
 of the Council charged with the conduct of 
 the work was, on the 24th February 1786, 
 instructed to sign the contract " with Alex- 
 ander Stevens, mason in Prestonhall" ; and 
 at the monthly meeting on the 3rd May of 
 the same year, it was reported that the con- 
 tract had been duly signed. On the aist 
 January 1789, there is the entry that the 
 
 1 1
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 bridge " was finished " ; instructions were 
 given to have it inspected, and, if found sat- 
 isfactory, taken over from the contractor. 
 This was done, and on the 3rd March 1790 
 the accounts, amounting in all to 4063 , as., 
 were reported settled. The poem was writ- 
 ten probably between the publication of the 
 Kilmarnock Edition, on the 3 ist July 1786, 
 and certainly prior to the 7th or 8th of Octo- 
 ber of the same year ; and the foregoing notes 
 from the Burgh minutes are of interest, be- 
 cause they give the authoritative dates of the 
 beginning and close of the building opera- 
 tions. Between the 3 ist May, when it was 
 reported to the Council that the contract had 
 been signed, and the early days of October 
 the period of Burns' letter to Aiken very 
 little even of the " rising piers " could have 
 been visible, and the "braw new coat" then 
 existed only on the contract drawings, or in 
 the poet's imagination ; even the arches had 
 not yet been "streeket ower frae bank tae 
 bank." It was long a tradition among the 
 older generation of Ayr masons indeed I 
 have heard it repeated by a descendant if not 
 of Alexander Stevens himself, then of one 
 whohad a prominent shareinthe work that 
 the foundations were, at the time of building, 
 
 12
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 considered unsatisfactory. Whether, how- 
 ever, this applied to the actual foundations, 
 or to the strata upon which they were placed, 
 I was not able to ascertain. 
 Burns' emphatic prediction, 
 
 " Then down ye'll hurl, deil nor ye never rise ! 
 And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring 
 skies." 
 
 may, therefore, possibly have been based on 
 something more than prescience. 
 
 In 1844, four years after the opening of 
 the railway between Glasgow and Ayr, 
 powers were obtained from Parliament for 
 the widening of the bridge which had be- 
 come inadequate for the increased traffic 
 the terminus of the railway being then on 
 the north side of the river. This widening 
 was carried out " on the upper side, in a line 
 with the east side of Bridge Street, which will 
 give an additional width of 1 3 feet 9 inches." 
 Other than this excerpt from the minutes of 
 the Council, there does not appear to be any 
 further reference to the matter, either in the 
 minutes of the Town Council, or in those of 
 the Road Trustees, both of which bodies 
 apparently had a share in the operations ; 
 nor is there seemingly any allusion to the
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 widening of the Bridge, or its reopening, in 
 any of the local newspapers of the day. 
 
 The new parapet abutted against the still 
 existing old house, probably built with the 
 Bridge, but its characteristic oriel windows 
 are surely an unusual reproduction in Adams 
 work, of what would seem to suggest descent 
 from the plaster and timber oriels of a pre- 
 ceding, and more indigenous style. This 
 older view, shown in the frontispiece, is from 
 a large painted tray in my possession ; inter- 
 esting also as showing the Tolbooth with its 
 " dungeon clock " and nineteen steps, as well 
 as something of the earlier Ayr in the Bridge 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 The widened Bridge became dangerous 
 in 1 877, and was removed in that and in the 
 following year, during the occupancy of the 
 civic chair by Mr Thomas Steele ; from 
 whom I have it that early one morning the 
 chief constable, Captain M'Donald, a decor- 
 ous, douce, and usually deliberate highland- 
 man, rushed in upon him and with upraised 
 hands and gestures of consternation cried out, 
 " Provost, the brig's doon the water ! " 
 
 The location of " Simpson's " Tavern is 
 established by an old hand-bill dated 5th 
 September 1792, which is here reproduced 
 
 H
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 by the kindness of Mrs Campbell of Dal- 
 dorch, who recently accompanied me to 
 the Black Bull Inn, and identified the old 
 house next it on the east, as the house re- 
 ferred to in the circular. It may there- 
 fore be reasonably assumed that Burns, 
 whether in the body or out of the body, must 
 have wandered across the Auld Brig, and, 
 turning to the left at " Simpson's," taken his 
 stand somewhere on the northern bank of 
 the river between the Brigs, and from thence 
 beheld his vision. Reference is also made in 
 the Town Council minutes of the ist July 
 1 789 to "John Simson, Innkeeper at Bridg- 
 end of Ayr," whose petition to be made ex- 
 empt from payment of toll on the New 
 Bridge was refused, on the ground that he 
 kept a public stable, and that " even his own 
 horses are let out for hire." 
 
 I have here to acknowledge with pleasure 
 the kindness of Mr P. A. Thomson, the 
 Town Clerk of Ayr, and my indebtedness to 
 him for ready access afforded me at all times 
 to the Burgh minutes and other documents. 
 
 The version of "The Brigs of Ayr," now 
 reproduced, is taken from the volume in 
 which it was first published ; " Poems, chiefly 
 in the Scottish Dialect. By Robert Burns. 
 
 15
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Edinburgh : printed for the Author, and 
 Sold by William Creech. M, DCC, LXXXVII." 
 Lord Rosebery , however, has in hispossession 
 the MS. of another version, which I saw, and 
 which his lordship took with him and held 
 in his hand while he addressed the meeting at 
 Glasgow, in aid of the Lord Provost's Fund 
 for the preservation of the Auld Brig of Ayr. 
 
 The accompanying outline of the more 
 salient features of the history of the preserva- 
 tion movement, was published prior to the 
 reopening ceremony, as an article written 
 for The Glasgow Herald, which identified it- 
 self, through Dr Wallace, the then editor, so 
 strongly with the preservation movement ; 
 and for its reproduction, in a revised and 
 perhaps more conveniently permanent form, 
 I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr F. Har- 
 court Kitchin, the present Editor of that 
 newspaper. 
 
 As the reopening ceremony followed the 
 article by several days, no reference could of 
 course therein be made to the proceedings ; 
 and the brief extracts from the speeches bear- 
 ing more directly on the Brig, now added in 
 the form of an appendix,* have been incor- 
 porated, as also Lord Rosebery 's always elo- 
 
 * Appendix A. 
 
 16
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 quent and in this instance peculiarly rever- 
 ent and touching peroration, at the request 
 of many readers of this little book ; who, 
 having kindly expressed a strong desire that 
 such reference should be included, are here 
 accommodated ; in order, as they said, that 
 the outline record of the preservation move- 
 ment should be made relatively complete, 
 and the story carried onward, meantime at 
 least, to the day of the reopening ceremony. 
 
 Several correspondents abroad, and long 
 absent from Ayr, have asked if the old sun- 
 dial they remember as boys has been re- 
 tained ? Most gladly do I answer that it is 
 as they knew it, unaltered and untouched. 
 It was carefully taken down in one block 
 together with its several supporting stones, 
 and all in one block as carefully replaced ; so 
 that to-day the sundial stands on the parapet, 
 exactly as it stood when they and I first saw 
 it now perhaps nearly fifty years ago. 
 
 The old wrought-iron lamp, with its par- 
 ticularly long back stay reaching down to 
 the steeply inclined cutwater, which so 
 many of them recall, is also still in position ; 
 and not a few have reverted to their fool- 
 hardy and venturesome scrambles down its 
 slender length to the precarious foothold 
 2 17
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 afforded by the cutwater slope, in predatory 
 incursions after the fragrant wall-flower 
 which found roothold in the open joints 
 between the stones. The wall-flower, alas ! 
 a stray gooseberry bush, and all the luxur- 
 ious vegetation which grew so thickly on 
 the several cutwater slopes, upon one of 
 which a Brig story tells that, in the dawn 
 of a long-ago morning, a goat was found 
 browsing, have been cleared away, and 
 the picturesque covering and colour sacri- 
 ficed at the shrine of preservation. 
 
 It is very pleasant to receive letters inquir- 
 ing about these things, indicating as they do 
 that grown men in far-off lands can become 
 boys in heart again in the remembrance of 
 the Brig. These are among the things that 
 hold a people together, and the spirit which 
 impelled many to clamber down the lamp 
 stay, as also round the narrow cliff edge, now 
 impassable, between Greenan Castle and the 
 sea ; the same old " Daur ye do it ? " in the 
 vernacular of the past, has doubtless carried 
 the same men round many a tight corner and 
 up many a stey brae, in other and later times. 
 JAMES A. MORRIS. 
 
 SAVOY CROFT, AYR, 
 
 \Afth January 1912. 
 
 18
 
 ,UGH SplTH, Shoemaker, : being 
 forced by the MAGISTRATES tdleave the Town, 
 of AIR, becaule iie would riot SWJSAK the 
 liUHGESS OATH,, has opened a SHOP in 
 large Room at the Eaft end of Mr. SIMSON'S 
 Inn, He returns thanlts to thofe who have al- 
 i e<uiy favoured him with their orders; (olicits 
 the continuance of their favour; and* be^s 
 
 o 
 
 leave to affure tliem. and all others who mav 
 
 s 
 
 be pk ull'd to employ him, that he will make 
 Ms iludy to ferve them as well as he is able. 
 
 REPRINT OF OLD HAND-BILL
 
 A POEM. 
 
 Inscribed to J. B*********, Esq ; AYR. 
 
 THE simple Bard, rough at the rustic 
 plough, 
 Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry 
 
 bough ; 
 
 The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush, 
 Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn 
 
 bush, 
 
 The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill, 
 Or deep-ton'd plovers, grey, wild-whistling o'er 
 
 the hill ; 
 
 Shall he, nurst in the Peasant's lowly shed, 
 To hardy Independence bravely bred, 
 By early Poverty to hardship steel'd, 
 And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's field, 
 Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes, 
 The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes ? 
 Or labour hard the panegyric close, 
 With all the venal soul of dedicating Prose ? 
 No ! though his artless strains he rudely sings, 
 And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings, 
 He glows with all the spirit of the Bard, 
 Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward. 
 
 19
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 Still, if some Patron's gen'rous care he trace, 
 Skill'd in the secret, to bestow with grace ; 
 When B********* befriends his humble name, 
 And hands the rustic Stranger up to fame, 
 With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells, 
 The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels. 
 
 'Twas when the stacks get on their winter-hap, 
 And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap ; 
 Potatoe-bings are snugged up frae skaith 
 Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath ; 
 The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer-toils, 
 Unnumber'd buds an' flow'rs' delicious spoils, 
 Seal'd up with frugal care in massive, waxen 
 
 piles, 
 
 Are doom'd by Man, that tyrant o'er the weak, 
 The death o' devils, smoor'd wi' brimstone reek : 
 The thund'ring guns are heard on ev'ry side, 
 The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ; 
 The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie, 
 Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie : 
 (What warm, poetic heart but inly bleeds, 
 And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds !) 
 Nae mair the flow'r in field or meadow springs ; 
 Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings, 
 Except perhaps the Robin's whistling glee, 
 Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree : 
 The hoary morns precede the sunny days, 
 Mild, calm, serene, wide-spreads the noontide 
 
 blaze, 
 While thick the gossamour waves wanton in 
 
 the rays. 
 
 20
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 'Twas in that season ; when a simple Bard, 
 Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward, 
 Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr, 
 By whim inspir'd, or haply prest wi' care, 
 He left his bed and took his wayward rout, 
 And down by Simpson s* wheel'd the left about : 
 (Whether impell'd by all-directing Fate, 
 To witness what I after shall narrate ; 
 Or whether, rapt in meditation high, 
 He wander'd out he knew not where nor why) 
 The drowsy Dungeon-clock^ had number 'd two, 
 And Wallace Towr~\ had sworn the fact was true : 
 The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen-sounding roar, 
 Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the 
 
 shore : 
 
 All else was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e ; 
 The silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree : 
 The chilly Frost, beneath the silver beam, 
 Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering 
 
 stream. 
 
 When, lo ! on either hand the list'ning Bard, 
 The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard ; 
 Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air, 
 Swift as the Gos J drives on the wheeling hare ; 
 Ane on th' Auld Brig his hairy shape uprears, 
 The ither flutters o'er the rising piers : 
 Our warlock Rhymer instantly descry' d 
 The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. 
 
 * A noted tavern at the Auld Brig end. 
 
 t The two steeples. 
 
 J The gos-hawk, or falcon. 
 
 21
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 (That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke, 
 And ken' the lingo of the sp'ritual folk ; 
 Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a', they can explain them, 
 And ev'n the vera deils they brawly ken them). 
 Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race, 
 The vera wrinkles Gothic in his face : 
 He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang, 
 Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang. 
 New Brig was buskit in a braw, new coat, 
 That he, at Lotion, frae ane Adams got ; 
 In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead, 
 Wi' virls an' whirlygigums at the head. 
 The Goth was stalking round with anxious search, 
 Spying the time-worn flaws in ev'ry arch ; 
 It chanc'd his new-come neebor took his e'e, 
 And e'en a vex'd and angry heart had he ! 
 Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien, 
 He, down the water, gies him this guideen 
 
 AULD BRIG. 
 
 I doubt na, frien', ye'll think ye're nae sheep- 
 shank, 
 
 Ance ye were streekit owre frae bank to bank ! 
 But gin ye be a brig as auld as me, 
 Tho' faith, that date, I doubt, ye'll never see ; 
 There'll be, if that day come, I'll wad a boddle, 
 Some fewer whigmeleeries in your noddle. 
 
 NEW BRIG. 
 
 Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense, 
 Just much aboot it wi' your scanty sense ; 
 
 22
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street, 
 Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they 
 
 meet, 
 
 Your ruin'd, formless bulk o' stane and lime, 
 Compare wi' bonie Brigs o' modern time ? 
 There's men o' taste wou'd tak the Ducat-stream* y 
 Tho' they should cast the vera sark and swim, 
 E'er they would grate their feelings wi' the view 
 Of sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you. 
 
 A U L D BRIG. 
 
 Conceited gowk ! puff'd up wi' windy pride ! 
 This mony a year I've stood the flood an' tide ; 
 And tho' wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn, 
 I'll be a Brig when ye're a shapeless cairn ! 
 As yet ye little ken about the matter, 
 But twa-three winters will inform ye better. 
 When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains 
 Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; 
 When from the hills where springs the brawling 
 
 Co//, 
 
 Or stately Lugars mossy fountains boil, 
 Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course, 
 Or haunted Carpal^ draws his feeble source, 
 Arous'd by blustering winds and spotting thowes, 
 In mony a torrent down the snaw-broo rowes ; 
 While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat, 
 Sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate ; 
 
 * A noted ford, just above the Auld Brig. 
 
 f The banks of Garpal Water is one of the few places in 
 the West of Scotland where those fancy scaring beings, known 
 by the name of Ghauts, still continue pertinaciously to inhabit. 
 
 23
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 And from Glcnbuck*, down to the Rattonkey\, 
 Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd, tumbling sea ; 
 Then down ye'll hurl, deil nor ye never rise ! 
 And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring 
 
 skies. 
 
 A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost, 
 That Architecture's noble art is lost ! 
 
 NEW BRIG. 
 
 Fine architecture^ trowth, I needs must say't o't ! 
 The L d be thankit that we've tint the gate o't ! 
 Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices, 
 Hanging with threatening jut like precipices ; 
 O'er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves, 
 Supporting roofs, fantastic, stony groves : 
 Windows and doors in nameless sculptures drest, 
 With order, symmetry, or taste unblest ; 
 Forms like some bedlam Statuary's dream, 
 The craz'd creations of misguided whim ; 
 Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended knee, " 
 And still the second dread command be free, 
 Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or 
 
 sea. 
 
 Mansions that would disgrace the building-taste 
 Of any mason reptile, bird, or beast ; 
 Fit only for a doited Monkish race, 
 Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace, 
 Or Cuifs of later times, wha held the notion, 
 That sullen gloom was sterling, true devotion : 
 
 * The source of the river of Ayr. 
 
 t A small landing-place above the large key. 
 
 24
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 Fancies that our guid Brugh denies protection, 
 And soon may they expire, unblest with resur- 
 rection ! 
 
 A U L D BRIG. 
 
 O ye, my dear-remember'd, ancient yealings, 
 Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings ! 
 Ye worthy Proveses, an' mony a Bailie, 
 Wha in the paths o' righteousness did toil ay ; 
 Ye dainty Deacons, an' ye douce Conveeners, 
 To whom our moderns are but causey-cleaners : 
 Ye godly Councils wha hae blest this town ; 
 Ye godly Brethren o' the sacred gown, 
 Wha meekly gae your hurdles to the smiters ; 
 And (what would now be strange) ye godly 
 
 Pinters : 
 
 A' ye douce folk I've borne aboon the broo, 
 Were ye but here, what would ye say or do ! 
 How would your spirits groan in deep vexation, 
 To see each melancholy alteration ; 
 And, agonising, curse the time and place 
 When ye begat the base, degen'rate race ! 
 Nae langer Rev'rend Men, their country's glory, 
 In plain, braid Scots hold forth a plain, braid 
 
 story : 
 
 Nae langer thrifty Citizens, an' douce, 
 Meet owre a pint, or in the Council-house ; 
 But staumrel, corky-headed, graceless Gentry, 
 The herryment and ruin of the country ; 
 Men, three-parts made by Taylors and by Barbers, 
 Wha waste your weel-hain'd gear on d d new 
 
 Brigs and Harbours ! 
 
 25
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 NEW BRIG. 
 
 Now haud you there ! for faith ye've said enough, 
 And muckle mair than ye can mak to through. 
 As for your Priesthood, I shall say but little, 
 Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kittle : 
 But, under favor o' your langer beard, 
 Abuse o' Magistrates might weel be spar'd ; 
 To liken them to your auld-warld squad, 
 I must needs say, comparisons are odd. 
 In Ayr^ Wag-wits nae mair can have a handle 
 To mouth 4 A Citizen,' a term o' scandal : 
 Nae mair the Council waddles down the street, 
 In all the pomp of ignorant conceit ; 
 Men wha grew wise priggin owre hops an' raisins, 
 Or gather'd lib'ral views in Bonds and Seisins. 
 If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp, 
 Had shor'd them with a glimmer of his lamp, 
 And would to Common-sense for once betray'd 
 
 them, 
 Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid them. 
 
 What farther clishmaclaver might be said, 
 What bloody wars, if Sprites had blood to shed, 
 No man can tell ; but, all before their sight, 
 A fairy train appeared in order bright : 
 Adown the glittering stream they featly danc'd ; 
 Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd : 
 They footed o'er the wat'ry glass so neat, 
 The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet : 
 
 26
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung, 
 And soul-ennobling Bards heroic ditties sung. 
 O had M'Lauchlan*) thairm-inspiring Sage, 
 Been there to hear this heavenly band engage, 
 When thro' his dear Strathspeys they bore with 
 
 Highland rage ; 
 
 Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs, 
 The lover's raptur'd joys or bleeding cares ; 
 How would his Highland lug been nobler fir'd, 
 And ev'n his matchless hand with finer touch 
 
 inspir'd ! 
 
 No guess could tell what instrument appear'd, 
 But all the soul of Music's self was heard ; 
 Harmonious concert rung in every part, 
 While simple melody pour'd moving on the heart. 
 
 The Genius of the Stream in front appears, 
 A venerable Chief advanc'd in years ; 
 His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd, 
 His manly leg with garter tangle bound. 
 Next came the loveliest pair in all the ring, 
 Sweet Female Beauty hand in hand with Spring ; 
 Then, crown'd with flow'ry hay, came Rural Joy, 
 And Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye : 
 All-chearing Plenty, with her flowing horn, 
 Led yellow Autumn wreath'd with nodding corn; 
 Then Winter's time-bleach'd locks did hoary 
 
 show, 
 
 By Hospitality with cloudless brow. 
 Next follow'd Courage with his martial stride, 
 From where the Feal wild-woody coverts hide : 
 
 * A well-known performer of Scottish music on the violin. 
 2 7
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 Benevolence, with mild, benignant air, 
 A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair : 
 Learning and Worth in equal measures trode, 
 From simple Catrine, their long-lov'd abode : 
 Last, white-rob'd Peace, crown'd with a hazle 
 
 wreath, 
 
 To rustic Agriculture did bequeath 
 The broken, iron instruments of Death, 
 At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kind- 
 ling wrath.
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR 
 
 AND 
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 THE idea was curiously slow to for- 
 mulate, and the people of Ayr were 
 loth to believe that the frail and 
 familiar structure which for centuries has 
 spanned their river, was in precarious condi- 
 tion, and imminent danger of collapse ; but 
 slower still, and more tardy of acceptance was 
 the inevitable corollary, that in virtue of its 
 poetic and historic associations, its archae- 
 ological interest, the Brig was worthy of 
 preservation. When, however, after often 
 seeming futile effort, and much opposition, 
 largely because of the glamour of a generous 
 local bequest, these ideas began to prevail ; 
 and, when at length they materialised, and 
 emerging from the Burghal, gathered suffici- 
 ent force and momentum to become national 
 in scope and range, few, if indeed any of 
 the efforts after a monument in honour of 
 
 29
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 Robert Burns, evoked an enthusiasm and 
 response so sincere and universal, as that 
 which had for its purpose the preservation 
 of the Auld Brig of Ayr. 
 
 The appeal on its behalf touched deep 
 chords in many hearts, in many lands ; for 
 the Ayr Brig is the visible expression of 
 much of the Poet's personality, and, with 
 the Brig o' Doon and the "Auld Clay 
 Biggin V' must ever remain one of the triple 
 altars in that imperishable shrine of his 
 worship, which, having Alloway and Ayr 
 for its Mecca, draws towards it the feet and 
 hearts of countless thousands from beyond 
 even the seven seas. 
 
 The Brig is also an historic structure of 
 note, and knew much of the bitter feuds and 
 strenuous life of 'Ayrshire. Generation after 
 generation of famous Scots of all ranks and de- 
 grees have made use of it ; English invaders 
 have crossed its narrow back, and foreigners 
 of many nationalities, for Ayr in its earlier 
 days was the seaport of the West these 
 all, with the honest burghers themselves and 
 their kinsfolk, have climbed its steep ap- 
 proach and worn smooth its cobble-stones, 
 as they spun the record of their separate 
 lives. Venerable in itself, and deserving of 
 
 3
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 reverence for its own sake, the Brig stands 
 the last remaining of the silent monuments 
 of the past, still serving the town in the use- 
 ful purpose of its building ; for which cause 
 alone it is worthy of much regard, and this, 
 even if it had never been richly dowered by 
 the genius of Robert Burns, or hallowed by 
 his personal association its supremest as its 
 most enduring glory. 
 
 Across the Brig Burns oftentimes passed, 
 upon it he mused, from its lofty altitude, 
 high arched above the highest tides, his eyes 
 followed downward to the sea the then, save 
 by it, unbridged river ; and, westward from 
 the harbour mouth across the frith to the dis- 
 tant peaks of Arran, with its long low-lying 
 island hills. If, in a beneficent universe, hills 
 are ever called into being for beautiful ends 
 alone, then surely these were hills reared to 
 form a bar of purple, against those marvellous 
 sunsets which transform the sky into a fiery 
 furnace held in luminous bondage behind 
 deep clouds ; the sea into a pavement of crim- 
 son and gold, iridal with opalescent colours 
 wherein shadows hide, themselves fugitive 
 and elusive as the glistering heart of an ocean 
 shell, wet and radiant in its virginal beauty. 
 These colours, in their limpid and silent
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 beauty, reached shoreward from the sea, and, 
 carried onward by river wavelets to the 
 Brig's feet, overspread its surface and lit up 
 its brown stones with a reflected glory. 
 
 Eastward, into the cool land of the morn- 
 ing, with its flush of rose, its tones of pearl 
 and grey, the upward river, a silver mirror, 
 passed from sight round the wooded bends 
 of Craigie. 
 
 Thus and truly, the divers colours of East 
 and West have laid hold upon the Brig, and 
 the sun has fused their tones into its mason- 
 ry. The strong south-west winds have bit- 
 ten hard into it, and brought up also against 
 it the surge of the sea to break and be spent 
 in leaping spray upon its fabric ; wearing it 
 with the wind, to rich surface texture, each 
 separate and time-wrought stone to round 
 and softened edge. This all was open to 
 men's eyes, and clear as day ; but hidden 
 within the piers, unseen and silently in the 
 darkness, the receding tides with wanton 
 lips long sucked the lifeblood and almost 
 the very vitals from its massive pillars. The 
 river, too, quick-rising and sudden of flood, 
 has lifted its waves against the Brig's life, 
 and beaten viciously into it with ice and 
 plunging tree trunk ; but hardest and most 
 
 3 2
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 unnatural of all, man's ingratitude turned 
 oftentimes lightly from it 
 
 "As friend remember'd not." 
 
 and once and again, with simulated or real 
 forgetfulness, perchance by poverty of gear 
 or of mind, the Brig has been left to stand 
 or fall, as might betide. 
 
 Slezer's view,* dated 1693, anc ^ tne ear ~ 
 liest pictorial record existing, shows the 
 river on the Ayr side seaward of the Brig, 
 with houses and small back lands to the 
 water's edge, and, nearer the sea, infrequent 
 and decaying walls of harbour masonry ; 
 while at the river's mouth and along the 
 northern bank are undulating links and sand- 
 dunes of wide extent, of which Burns' lines 
 depictive of the earliest Ayr are literally as 
 poetically true : 
 
 " Low, in a sandy valley spread, 
 An ancient BOROUGH rear'd her head ; " 
 
 Eastwards of the Brig, but close to it, 
 were in Burns' day many of the fair gardens, 
 for which Ayr early had a name ; those on 
 the southmost bank stretching in orchard 
 and sward, in blossom and flower, from the 
 clear waters' brink upward to the line of 
 
 * Theatrum Scotia. 
 
 3 33
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 old houses bordering High Street and the 
 Mill Vennel, the last named reminiscent 
 of Abbey precincts and appurtenances. In 
 the midst of the gardens the Auld Kirk of 
 the Covenant, the successor of those of 
 other faiths and days, then held restrictive 
 spiritual oversight upon the town ; its 
 shadeless burial-ground, not so many years 
 before made unlovely by the parsimonious 
 destruction of its trees, cut down to form 
 centring for the rebuilding of the Brig's 
 fallen northmost arch. And there, too, in 
 earlier days still, centuries ago from now, had 
 been built in faith, and in the free beauty 
 and meaning of the Gothic vernacular, the 
 neighbouring Monasteries of the Black and 
 Grey Friars ; both in aftertime anger and 
 bitterness of spirit, to be razed to the very 
 ground ; none the less their gardens and 
 burying-places, as their churches, remain 
 the progenitors of those of to-day, so surely 
 does the past mould the present, and inexor- 
 ably guide its trend. These things, the Brig 
 saw and knew, as those others it has outlived. 
 But all that is of the past, and belongs to 
 far-away years ; and now, it is difficult enough 
 to realise the river of even Burns' time in the 
 quay-bordered and railway-ridden banks, or 
 
 34
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 the town,in the electric-power tramway-sad- 
 dled streets of our creating. The High Street 
 that in his day Robert Burns knew, with its 
 projecting gables and outside stairs, lissomed 
 with easy grace and not too rigid boundaries 
 downward from the Fauldbacks, till midway 
 at the Wallace Tower there debouched upon 
 it the Mill and Foul Vennels ; then passing 
 in close succession the Meal Market,theKirk 
 Port, the then lately formed New Market 
 Street dividing the one-time stance of the 
 ancient Tolbooth, the strident and virago- 
 tongued Fish Market at the Auld Brig end, 
 it bore to the left, and its sinuous length 
 drew on to the Sandgate and later Tolbooth, 
 with its " Dungeon Clock " and memorable 
 nineteen steps. At the junction of these 
 two streets, stood the old Mercat Cross of 
 Charles the Second's time, in the waning 
 glory of once beautiful masonry ; but its tall 
 slender stone shaft was even then surmounted 
 by its carven capital with thistle and rose, 
 harp and fleur de lis, superimposed upon 
 which and crowning all, was the copper 
 unicorn with its staff and banneret. 
 
 These all Burns knew ; but the earlier 
 Mercat Cross, the two Tolbooths, the Castle, 
 the Church of St John, the Monasteries, 
 
 35
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 the four Ports, the Town Wells and the 
 Brig, now alone remaining, held the history 
 of the town. The picturesque many storied 
 and gabled houses, still rose in their place, 
 along, and behind the streets ; but, save for 
 the uncertain river fords at the vennel and 
 close ends, the Auld Brig alone joined the 
 keenly jealous friendships and rivalries, of 
 the Old and New Towns. The beautiful 
 Adams Bridge came in Burns' own day; he 
 saw its building, and, by prophetic instinct 
 some say from more prosaic data foretold 
 its doom ; but how perilously near that doom 
 came in later years to the Auld Brig itself, 
 through the agency of the well-intentioned 
 Templeton bequest, few, if indeed any, will 
 ever fully know. The Brig came, it is said, 
 by bequest, and by a bequest some strove 
 frankly and strenuously, that it should go. 
 In a High Street shop, not far removed 
 from the Brig end, Robert Templeton 
 carried on a watch-maker's and jeweller's 
 business. Shortly before his death in Feb- 
 ruary 1879, he made a holograph will de- 
 vising, subject only to certain life interests, 
 his whole estate, in value about 10,000, 
 " to the Provost and Town Council in trust in 
 order that their successors in office may use 
 
 36
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 the whole thereof in rebuilding the Old 
 Bridge of Ayr when such a thing may be 
 required." Ayr, of late decades, has been 
 offered few bequests, and its strong and in- 
 sistent desire to secure the money, and with 
 it build an entirely new bridge, is conceiv- 
 able upon utilitarian grounds alone. Ad- 
 mitting the undoubted weight of Lord 
 Low's opinion, that the money could only 
 be used for rebuilding in the generally un- 
 derstood meaning of the word, that opinion 
 did not, I feel sure, express or interpret the 
 intention of the testator ; for Robert Tem- 
 pleton was a man with the soul of an anti- 
 quary, and none such would make provision 
 for deliberate and vandal destruction ; least 
 of all, by an ambiguous holograph will. 
 The testator often showed me old silver 
 plate and coins, which, in his business, he 
 long treasured and sold with regret ; more- 
 over, the delight and care with which he 
 handled them, was that of a man who re- 
 vered and loved old things. The bequest so 
 generously conceived was fated, if not to be 
 brought stillborn into the world, at least 
 to be well-nigh strangled by the midwifery 
 of law ; and in its portentous existence, the 
 money bequeathed, not, I am convinced, 
 
 37
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 for the destruction, but for the preservation 
 of the Brig, became for a time the Brig's 
 own direst peril and most imminent danger, 
 and this, not even excepting its own often 
 precarious structural exigencies. 
 
 Throughout the centuries, the Brig has 
 time and again been in deep straits, at grave 
 hazard, and in serious disrepair. 
 
 " Wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn," 
 
 is Burns' pregnant descriptive line ; and the 
 Burgh records contain abundant testimony 
 to its frequent damage and repair, even if 
 such were not more surely evidenced by the 
 fabric itself. Much money and effort, have 
 time and again been expended upon it with- 
 out seeming avail, perhaps, because of the 
 quick-rising and sudden spates, of ice, of 
 tides, or because of harbour dredging and 
 consequent increasing river scour incidental 
 to the work of our own day ; but, whatever 
 the cause of its frequent exigencies, it has 
 been left to the Scottish people of this gen- 
 eration to tender that outburst of fervour, 
 which, setting aside all controversy over the 
 bequest, because recognising the final danger 
 and imperative need, became 
 
 " Man to man, the warld o'er,-" 
 
 38
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 and, hearing the call of Kinship which 
 makes a people instinctively one, a call 
 which Burns of all men could supremely 
 voice, they joined hand and heart and laid 
 their ample tribute for the preservation of 
 his Brig upon the Brig itself, the Poet's 
 noblest material shrine. 
 
 The reputed founding of the Brig of Ayr * 
 by the beneficence of two maiden sisters, one 
 of whom, Isobel Lowe, saw her lover perish 
 before her eyes, in the dark waters of the 
 often sudden and turbulent river, is a beauti- 
 ful birth-song ; but legend and romance 
 must to-day inevitably yield place to prosaic 
 fact, and, whatever the motive and origin, 
 the earliest authentic reference to the Brig, 
 whether it be the Brig we know, or an 
 earlier, is in the charter granted by Alex- 
 ander II. in 1236, to the Royal Burgh of 
 Ayr ; wherein, besides provision made for 
 the Town and harbour, is also ad susten- 
 tationem pontis. The Brig is again referred 
 to in the Burgh Charters (1440), and in 
 those of the Black Friars (1488). 
 
 In the accounts of the Lord High Treas- 
 urer of Scotland, under date I /th November 
 1491, is this interesting reference connect- 
 
 * Appendix B. 
 
 39
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 ing James IV. with the Brig and Town : 
 
 " Item, the XVII Nouembris, to the 
 massonis of the bryg off Ayre Xs " ; 
 
 from which some have inferred that the 
 existing Brig was then being built, just as 
 others have assumed an earlier date of erec- 
 tion, and that the Brig was then undergoing 
 serious repair. There is not, however, in 
 the foregoing item any conclusive, and bare- 
 ly inferential, evidence on either side, and in 
 the Brig itself there is little architectural 
 detail remaining upon which to establish, 
 although in general appearance the Brig 
 would seem to indicate a date of erection, 
 somewhat approximate to that of the King's 
 visit ; and there is this, further, that much 
 of its masonry, shows close resemblance to 
 that of those portions of Crosraguel Abbey 
 erected between 14801490, and of later 
 date. On this 1491 pilgrimage to Whit- 
 horn, where he was on the 1 1 th November, 
 the young King twice passed through Ayr. 
 On the outward journey he was ferried a- 
 cross the river, the entry in the accounts 
 being : 
 
 " Item, to Sane Johnis Kirk, for the ferying 
 of horss and men ower at the water : Vs " ; 
 40
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 and it was upon the return journey that he 
 gifted silver to the Brig masons ; just as on 
 the 22nd of the same month he gave a sim- 
 ilar gift (Xs) to the " Massonis of Paysla," 
 who were then working at the Abbey. 
 Because of this gift alone, none, however, 
 would contend that the Abbey was only then 
 being built, for all know that its foundation 
 dates from the I2th century, and, except 
 that other evidence regarding the building 
 of the Ayr Brig is forthcoming, the refer- 
 ence to it in the accounts of the Lord High 
 Treasurer, is too incidental to found upon 
 absolutely. 
 
 For a period of ninety-eight years, there 
 is seemingly no local reference to the Brig ; 
 but in 1 5 8 3 the Town Council ordained that 
 
 " na middingis nor foulzie be laid upon 
 ye hie calsig passand to ye brig," 
 
 an item to its credit, for in the i6th cen- 
 tury towns greater than Ayr were not too 
 fastidiously sanitary, and the deep holes and 
 mud-pools of the uneven streets in wet 
 weather, became in dry, but infectious dust- 
 pits ; while the freedom with which, at all 
 hours, the contents of utensils were emptied 
 from windows, and the prevalence of "mid- 
 41
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 dings" at all doors, combined to produce 
 odours not always agreeable to sensitive ol- 
 factory organs, and which were themselves 
 moreover fruitful causes of pestilence and 
 plague. In the same year " Johnne Masoun 
 Masoun " was made burgess " for his labor 
 and panissusteinit" . . . " in ye doun tak- 
 ing of ye new work abone ye brig port." 
 
 In 1585 the "Brig port, Carrick port, 
 Kyle port, Sey port" were repaired against 
 infectious persons with "Hinging yettis and 
 leifis." This was the period of the "pest " 
 or plague, which then and for many years 
 devastated the country, but especially the 
 towns ; and the timely action of the mag- 
 istrates would seem to have kept from Ayr 
 the grim visitant. In the next year is a long 
 entry anent " ye repairing and mending of 
 ye brig port qlk is now ruinous and almaist 
 paistlie like to decay vnless ye same be 
 schortlie repairit." Accordingly, "David 
 Frew and Johnne Masoun, Masounis," un- 
 dertook " To big up the Brig qr ye same is 
 presentlie fallen & to mend and repair the 
 pilleris," receiving in return one year's " im- 
 post " on all goods specified "in zair gift," 
 which were brought into the town by way 
 of the Brig. 
 
 42
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 In 1588 the Brig must again have been 
 in serious disrepair, for on the i oth of July 
 James VI., after having ordained a commis- 
 sion to report, made gift of certain imposts 
 to the town. The Commission "having sene 
 and considerit the estait of the harbyr sey- 
 port and brig," and after conference with 
 the " maist auncient and best experiencit 
 burgessis and craf tismen induellaris theirof," 
 reported that the "said harbyr hevin and 
 brig" and other works "ispresentlie ruynous 
 and safar decayit and fallen doun that gif the 
 samin be not remedit and helpit in tyme it 
 sail altogidder decay." The King therefore 
 granted that certain goods, passing into the 
 town by the harbour or Brig, be taxed for 
 the due upkeep thereof. 
 
 In 1592 the Town decreed that, in grati- 
 tude for certain favours and kindness done 
 to the Town by the Regent Morton, " his 
 Graceis armes to be vpoun ye brig vnder ye 
 Kingis graceis armes w h ye townis." 
 
 In 1595 "ye bowis of ye brig y* ar ap- 
 perend ruynous to be reparit w* all diligence 
 becaus ye seasonn of ye yeir now provokis 
 ye samen" (i4th April). 
 
 In 1 597 the drastic order went forth that 
 " na kynd of cartis slaidis or carries be suf- 
 
 43
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 ferit to half passage alangis ye brig " under 
 penalty of the destruction of the same, " w* 
 fyve punds of valaw " as additional punish- 
 ment. 
 
 King James VII. (1687), because the 
 Burgh had difficulty in meeting its needs 
 for the proper repair of the Brig, Church, 
 Streets, and Harbour, granted right to levy 
 impost on all ale or beer, and all malt brew- 
 ed ; also upon Spanish and French wines 
 imported and sold in the Burgh. 
 
 To summarise, repeated entries in the 
 Minutes of the Town Council afford an 
 almost continuous record of alternate dam- 
 ages and repair, of which, the more note- 
 worthy may be briefly instanced. 
 
 On the 5th of June 1732, when apparently 
 hurriedly convened in Council, the Provost 
 reported "That the North arch of the bridge 
 fell yesternight.** In none of the Minutes 
 immediately previous is mention made of 
 the instability of the arch ; it therefore pre- 
 sumably fell suddenly, from, I am inclin- 
 ed to think, the collapse of the northward 
 land abutment. A long and interesting re- 
 cord is given in the Council Minutes, of the 
 contract for rebuilding the Arch, made with 
 "Alexander Gray Masson in Stewarton and 
 
 44
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 Thomas Anderson Masson in Ayr," the con- 
 tract price being One Thousand and Nine 
 hundred merks Scots, " the Town to furnish 
 all materialls." The timber for the "Cume" 
 or centring of the arch was made of trees 
 cut from the " Kirkyeard," and the " firr 
 timber" of the "culm" was not sold by roup, 
 but retained for the "Jests and laying out of 
 the Lofts in the new Steeple." The Brig, 
 however, was still insecure, other piers show- 
 ed indications of weakness, and soon after- 
 wards the Council ordained that at low water 
 when the river was fordable, the bar should 
 be put up at the Porch, and no carriages 
 allowed to cross the Brig. 
 
 In 1756 there is an entry that the pil- 
 lars of the Brig are to be repaired. In 1754, 
 that the Brig is to be repaired. In 1779 
 is a report on the causewaying, and in 1781 
 the Brig is again in need of repair. In 1782 
 the Town Council had the Brig fully ex- 
 amined, and the three old arches were re- 
 ported as being insecure. Two years later a 
 proposal was made to widen and repair the 
 Brig, but this proposal was, in the follow- 
 ing year, set aside in favour of a new Bridge 
 joining the Sandgate, by way of the Water 
 Vennel, with the Main Street of Newton, 
 
 45
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 on the line of the old ford ; and this Bridge 
 the Town was in 1785 empowered by Act 
 of Parliament to build, the Auld Brig being 
 retained for foot traffic only. 
 
 The period from then intervening, has 
 mainly been a record of patching and re- 
 pair. Since so recently as from 18678 
 onward, the piers, always the weakest por- 
 tion of the structure, have been protected, 
 first by piling, then by encasing their found- 
 ation with concrete fenders, and lastly, in 
 one pier, by slight underpinning. In April 
 
 1 902, upon a report by the Burgh Surveyor, 
 the Council minuted their resolve, that the 
 piers be " instantly repaired." Mr Kennedy, 
 the contractor for the concurrent harbour 
 works, in a report to the Council almost 
 immediately following that of the Surveyor, 
 was even more frankly outspoken. In June 
 
 1 903, Mr John Eaglesham, C.E., submitted 
 a very exhaustive report, closing with the 
 ominous warning that " this work must not 
 be too long delayed." In September of the 
 same year, the Surveyor reported subsidence 
 of the hornising above the Southmost Arch 
 through the open joints of which a foot- 
 rule might be dropped into the river. 
 
 As the Town Council even then seemed
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 reluctant to take any action, I ventured in 
 October to bring the matter before the re- 
 presentatives of the First Electoral Ward ; 
 thereafter, by the courtesy of the Ayr press, 
 before the Ayr public ; and, as a record of 
 the inception and progress of the preserva- 
 tion movement, may some day be desirable, 
 a brief reference to it from the Town Coun- 
 cil minutes, and other correspondence, may 
 not in the meantime be without interest. 
 The campanile of St Mark's having then 
 only recently fallen, I ventured, in my letter 
 to the local press, after detailing recent Brig 
 operations, to suggest a parallel. " In both 
 structures subsidence of foundations, rents, 
 cracks, and decay were reported and con- 
 sidered ; and one day the campanile col- 
 lapsed irretrievably. Here, happily, the 
 parallel ends. Our Old Bridge has his- 
 toric and poetic associations belonging not 
 to Ayr only, or to Scotland, but to a large 
 portion of the English-speaking world; and 
 it would be a matter of deep sorrow if so 
 ancient and valuable a monument of na- 
 tional life should, from any cause or reason 
 whatever, be allowed to perish." 
 
 As it is not easy for those who live in 
 intimate communion with an historic mon- 
 
 47
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 ument always to realise its value, I wrote 
 an article on it in one of the December 
 magazines, and, in the hope of further in- 
 fluencing the Town from without, I wrote 
 also to several of the Editors of the London 
 press, and to friends who might influence 
 them, notably Mr Thackeray Turner, Hon- 
 orary Secretary of the Society for the Pro- 
 tection of Ancient Buildings. His Society 
 cordially and at once took the matter up 
 with me, and, communicating with the 
 Town Council, their letter was published 
 in the November report of the Council pro- 
 ceedings. The wider publicity thus given, 
 was the keynote of all after efforts to pre- 
 serve the Brig, it having been at once mani- 
 fest that any influence, to be actively oper- 
 ative, must be other than local. 
 
 The Town Council was at this time un- 
 doubtedly wishful to do what it thought 
 was right, but it was also and unfortunate- 
 ly for itself on the horns of a dilemma, 
 and divided between two opinions. The 
 validity of the will creating the bequest 
 having been already contested by the Heirs- 
 at-Law, the Council was very naturally 
 anxiously cautious as to its procedure ; for, 
 if by its action the money should be lost to
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 the Town, its members feared the displeasure 
 of the ratepayers, and, on the other hand, 
 the resentment of the wider public, if the 
 Brig fell ; the latter an instinctive premoni- 
 tion curiously accurate, for, it was by the 
 contributions of the outside public, that the 
 Brig was ultimately preserved to the town. 
 To remove, if possible, the initial difficulty 
 incidental to the bequest, I saw the agents 
 for the Heirs-at-Law, and suggested a com- 
 promise, a course to which they were then 
 agreeable ; but the Legatees appeared dis- 
 inclined to entertain the proposal, and it was 
 not at the time carried further. Meanwhile, 
 to make their position clear, they raised a 
 judicial action in the Court of Session, a- 
 gainst the Heirs-at-Law and the Judicial 
 Factor, and, pending a decision, called in 
 Mr Hall Blyth, C.E., to carefully examine 
 and report upon the Brig. On the 25th 
 February 1904, Mr Blyth telegraphed thatin 
 his opinion the Brig was unsafe, and should 
 be closed. This was forthwith done, the 
 three southmost arches strongly centred, the 
 parapets barricaded, and the Brig again open- 
 ed to traffic. During these operations, I was 
 most courteously allowed to take a very ex- 
 haustive series of photographs of the Brig. 
 
 4 49
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 In June, Lord Low decided that the money 
 had vested in the Town Council, and to 
 slightly anticipate the last beneficiary hav- 
 ing died on the I5th December, the capital 
 sum was paid over. 
 
 In November, during heavy and continu- 
 ous river floods, several of the centring sup- 
 ports were washed out to sea, and it became 
 desirable to at once write to the Town Coun- 
 cil, pointing out the serious danger to the 
 Brig, if repairs were longer delayed. I also 
 wrote to Mr Thackeray Turner, stating that 
 the river bed had been scoured away by the 
 floods, from beneath a large portion of the 
 south pier fender ; but, while we were arrang- 
 ing a series of letters to the London and Pro- 
 vincial press, the Town Council showed 
 indications of movement, and we decided in 
 consequence to postpone any public action, 
 in order that we might not in any way tra- 
 verse its policy or efforts. 
 
 In February 1905, the Town Council 
 definitely decided upon rebuilding the Brig, 
 in terms of Lord Low's interpretation of 
 the bequest, and Mr John Young the Burgh 
 Surveyor, Mr Eaglesham, and myself were 
 asked to consider and report accordingly; but, 
 as Lord Low's interpretation of rebuilding 
 
 50
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 might readily involve the destruction of the 
 Brig, the task was not without difficulty. 
 After careful examination of the Brig itself, 
 and exhaustive consideration, no practicable 
 engineering scheme being apparently forth- 
 coming, whereby the older and more essen- 
 tial portions of the fabric could be retained, 
 I, having reason to understand that Sir 
 William Arrol was sympathetically inclined 
 toward preservation, suggested that we ask 
 leave to consult him as a bridge-building 
 contractor of wide experience ; for, after all, 
 whatever engineering scheme might ulti- 
 mately be accepted, it would, from the very 
 nature of the work, rest with the contractor 
 to meet the varying needs and difficulties, of 
 each separate day and hour. Unfortunately, 
 however, Sir William's opinion was that the 
 Brig should be removed, as it was not worth 
 preserving; and, although I pointed out, that 
 this would involve the destruction of a fabric 
 which we wished to conserve, he was unable 
 to accept or apprehend its cogency. Having 
 failed with Sir William, I then suggested to 
 my colleagues that, as we seemed unable to 
 arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, and as 
 my suggestion to utilise the heavy piers and 
 work from within, was in their opinion im- 
 
 5 1
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 practicable, we ask leave to consult an emi- 
 nent engineering specialist in stone-bridge- 
 building, and submit our difficulties to him. 
 It was now the evening of our last meeting, 
 and final effort. We telephoned to the interim 
 Town Clerk, who, coming at once, agreed to 
 submit our request to his Council, but only 
 upon one definite and specific condition, 
 namely, that, to end the matter once and for 
 all, we would agree to accept the engineering 
 decision, so to be given, as final. From this, 
 I dissented; pointing out that the issue in- 
 volved was too grave to hazard upon the 
 decision of a possibly unsympathetic con- 
 sultant, and, that we must at any cost, evolve 
 a scheme to save the Brig, not to destroy. 
 After much disputation, we separated near 
 midnight, but my point had been gained ; 
 for, had the engineering decision to be given 
 been accepted in anticipation as final, then 
 there would not have been an Auld Brig to- 
 day. In reality, it was the crisis of the struggle, 
 and upon so frail a thread the existence of the 
 Brig indisputably hung. Mr Hall Blyth,was 
 the consultant appointed by the Town Coun- 
 cil ; we laid our views before him, and in his 
 report thereon to the Town Council, he re- 
 luctantly set aside as impossible, all idea of 
 
 52
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 preserving the fabric, and submitted instead 
 a highly coloured drawing of the " rebuilt" 
 Brig to be, showing a vividly blue river and 
 sky. He declared the Brig to be " twisted 
 from end to end and from side to side," a 
 literal fact ; but, he also established as a 
 premise, that the identity of the Brig must 
 be preserved, and that identity he proposed 
 to conserve by careful rebuilding, forgetting 
 that the rent and shattered stones which he 
 intended to take down and re-use, could only 
 be preserved and strengthened in situ, and 
 that any attempt to otherwise handle them, 
 must of necessity be fatal, a fact amply evi- 
 denced, when the actual work was under- 
 taken. 
 
 At the Town Council meeting called to 
 consider the reports, the Burgh Surveyor 
 and Mr Eaglesham concurred with Mr Hall 
 Blyth. I ventured to dissent, and obtained 
 leave to record my dissent. I further sub- 
 mitted a statement, that to take down and 
 rebuild the Brig was not to preserve its 
 identity ; that, as an asset, the Brig was of 
 priceless value to Ayr ; and that the impos- 
 sible in engineering had not yet been reached. 
 Admitting the utilitarian argument, I ap- 
 pealed for a higher, maintaining that each 
 
 53
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 individual member of the Town Council 
 was the Trustee of a great national monu- 
 ment ; and, that until they had exhausted 
 every effort for preservation, the ultimate 
 and final responsibility for destruction must 
 rest upon them. I begged that they would 
 make one last effort, and not say to any 
 engineer, "Is it worth preserving?" but, 
 " Will you undertake the work, and give us 
 a reasonable prospect of success ? " 
 
 All the reports were submitted to Sir 
 William Arrol, who endorsed Mr Hall 
 Blyth's view, and the Town Council, de- 
 finitely deciding upon rebuilding, invited 
 my co-operation. Realising the nature of 
 the work intended, I asked for certain assur- 
 ances, which being refused, I also refused to 
 take any responsibility for work of which I 
 could not approve ; moreover, had I done so, 
 my hands would have been tied. The Town 
 Council having embarked upon rebuilding, 
 before any reconsideration of the matter 
 could reasonably be asked, 'it was essential 
 that an authoritative plan of preservation 
 should be forthcoming. I therefore again 
 communicated with the Society for Protec- 
 tion of Ancient Buildings, who generously 
 consulted Mr John Carruthers, an eminent 
 
 54
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 London engineer, and, from the notes which 
 I sent from Ayr, an outline scheme showing 
 that preservation was not impossible, was 
 duly submitted to the Town Council in June 
 1 9 o 5 , by Mr Thackeray Turner. Although 
 the preservation scheme so submitted was, 
 by the Council, relegated to "lie on the 
 table," its purpose had none the less been 
 served, for Mr Turner's letter having appear- 
 ed in the press report of the Council's pro- 
 ceedings, it reawakened public interest ; and 
 Mr Oswald, the Convener of the County, be- 
 ing then fortunately in London, there saw 
 the letter, and, having called upon Mr Tur- 
 ner, joined in the effort to preserve the Brig. 
 He at once wrote to Provost Allan, asking 
 that nothing be done to destroy the Brig till 
 every effort for preservation had been ex- 
 hausted ; and to me, generously offering to 
 help in any possible way. Through Mr Os- 
 wald followed the memorable intervention 
 of Lord Rosebery, whose letter at once gave 
 a prominence to the whole endeavour, such 
 as it had not before enjoyed. 
 
 The Town Council now declared its will- 
 ingness to consider any reasonable schemes 
 for preservation, and the whole question was 
 thus once again opened up, with the result 
 
 55
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 that Mr Carruthers, on behalf of the London 
 Society, visited the Brig and reported ; Mr 
 Francis Fox also, because of his regard for 
 old structures ; Mr John Strain, because of 
 local interest ; Mr Alexander Simpson and 
 Mr W. S. Wilson, the latter of whom ulti- 
 mately carried out the work, besides many 
 others. Meantime, certain of the Federated 
 Burns Clubs were bestirring themselves, and 
 indicating possible financial aid ; the annual 
 meeting of the Burns Federation was at hand, 
 and its President, ex-Provost M'Kay of Kil- 
 marnock, kindly invited me to attend, and 
 plead the cause of the Brig. At the meet- 
 ing a Committee was appointed, and, in due 
 course, a memorial was addressed totheTown 
 Council. It was now gradually becoming 
 evident that if, as a last resource, it should be 
 necessary to appeal to the general public for 
 the requisite funds, the response was likely 
 to be generous ; but the feeling was also ap- 
 parent and frankly expressed, that if public 
 subscriptions became inevitable, then the 
 greater portion of the required sum should 
 be raised within the Royal Burgh itself, as it 
 was the town of Ayr that, in a financial sense, 
 would almost wholly benefit by the preserva- 
 tion of the Brig. Unfortunately, however, 
 
 56
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 the contributions from the town of Ayr, 
 proved, in amount, to be almost negligible ; 
 and it was from the many generous sym- 
 pathisers, at home and abroad, that the 
 money required eventually came. 
 
 Although schemes for preservation had 
 now been formulated, the Town Council's 
 plans for rebuilding were still in progress 
 and well advanced ; and the question of the 
 Brig versus the bequest was not yet by any 
 means settled. Something, however, had 
 been gained, and the agitation had not been 
 altogether barren ; for the Town Council, 
 because of the increasing interest manifested 
 outwith the town in favour of preservation, 
 became apparently more anxious to consider 
 the desirability of preserving the Brig, as well 
 as the bequest, and once again decided to sub- 
 mit the matter to Sir William Arrol ; this time, 
 for any observations he might see fit to make, 
 upon the several preservative schemes now 
 proposed. 
 
 Sir William's opinion was not made pub- 
 lic, but it was in general circulation that the 
 schemes submitted were not by him consid- 
 ered practicable ; and, as the Town Council 
 was reticent, it was arranged that specific 
 questions be asked at the October Electoral 
 
 57
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 Ward meetings, which questions elucidated, 
 as was anticipated, that Sir William's objec- 
 tion was the old one not that the schemes 
 were impracticable, but, that the Brig was 
 not worth preserving. 
 
 Mr Turner accordingly wrote a strong 
 letter to The Times, and in the same month 
 the Town Council intimated to Mr Oswald, 
 Mr Turner, the Burns Federation, and my- 
 self that, in order to afford promoters of 
 preservation an opportunity of providing 
 the funds already indefinitely indicated, it 
 would delay the commencement of rebuild- 
 ing operations, for a period of four months. 
 An informal Committee of those named was 
 at once formed, ex-Provost M'Kay of Kil- 
 marnock representing, from its head-quar- 
 ters, the Federation ; and as it was necessary 
 before appealing for public funds to make 
 clear the position of the^f 1 0,000 held under 
 the bequest, we asked a meeting with Prov- 
 ost Allan before formally communicating 
 with the Town Council. As the outcome 
 of several meetings, Mr Oswald and I had 
 a final interview with the Provost and, with 
 his concurrence, on the 1 1 th November on 
 behalf of the Committee, I addressed a mem- 
 orandum to the Town Clerk, outlining a 
 
 58
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 scheme of compromise with the Heirs-at- 
 Law, as a necessary preliminary to any public 
 appeal for funds. This memorandum, after 
 very considerable delay and some opposi- 
 tion, was submitted to Mr Clyde, K.C., the 
 Solicitor-General, and to Mr Wm. Hunter, 
 K.C., now Lord Hunter, and an Ayr man. 
 
 Meantime, in order to bring the Ayr Burns 
 Club into line with the Federation, it was 
 agreed to ask the Club to nominate a member 
 to serve on the Voluntary Committee, and Mr 
 Walter Neilson was accordingly appointed. 
 
 Although Counsel's opinion was not com- 
 municatedto the Committee, it was generally 
 understood to be not unfavourable to com- 
 promise, but the Town Clerk precluded any 
 hope of compromise by formally intimating 
 to me his instructions that, while his Coun- 
 cil would be pleased to meet the members 
 of the Voluntary Committee, it declined at 
 the meeting, to allow any reference to, or dis- 
 cussion of the opinion of Counsel, an opinion 
 which it had itself in Council agreed, at our 
 request to ask. 
 
 After some hesitation to accept this veto, 
 the Committee ultimately decided to meet 
 with the Town Council ; having first, how- 
 ever, drafted heads of proposals whereby to 
 
 59
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 counter the change of front, in the hope that 
 these proposals might also form the basis of a 
 possible agreement with the Town Council. 
 These provided that the Town Council hav- 
 ing ruled out any reference to or use of the 
 bequest, then, in the event of the Committee 
 successfully appealing to the public for 
 1 0,000, that the Brig be handed over to 
 the Committee for preservative operations. 
 Further, that as a temporary bridge would 
 be necessary for the convenience of the pub- 
 lic, it should be provided by the Town 
 Council. The Town Council and the Com- 
 mittee accordingly met, and the foregoing 
 proposals havingbeen submitted to theTown 
 Council, and, with one or two additional 
 clauses, having been agreed to, they were 
 adjusted by the Town Clerk and myself on 
 the following day, signed by Mr Oswald for 
 the Committee, and confirmed by theTown 
 Council at its next statutory meeting. Why 
 the Town Council finally granted that which 
 it had previously so steadfastly refused, is a 
 matter for interesting conjecture ; but what- 
 ever the motive, the way was at last clear 
 for the effort of the Committee, to raise the 
 1 0,000; an effort which, from its com- 
 mencement many declared to be absolutely 
 
 60
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 hopeless. These, however, were the fearful 
 and unbelieving, who did not realise the 
 strength, nor understand the living and en- 
 during power of the mighty dead; nor were 
 their eyes yet opened to the truth that a 
 prophet is not without honour save in his 
 own country, and in his own house. 
 
 The whole interest now revolved round 
 the possibility of raising the required sum ; 
 and, through the kindness of a friend, widely 
 experienced in the methods of appealing to 
 and procuring money from a responsive and 
 generous public, it was made possible for me 
 to prepare a list of those from whom help 
 might be expected, together with the ap- 
 proximate sums likely to be received. 
 
 It was accordingly decided that an effort 
 be made to raise one half of the jT 1 0,000 pri- 
 vately; then to call a great public meeting, 
 state that one half of the money was in hand, 
 and ask the general public for the remaining 
 5000. The Voluntary Committee was 
 now largely increased, and the list of possible 
 private subscribers allocated ; Mr Oswald 
 readily undertaking the larger share, and 
 working strenuously. At the next meeting 
 heintimatedtwocontributionsof^ooeach, 
 one from Sir James Coats, the other from the 
 
 61
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 Marquess of Bute ; and it is safe to say that, 
 but for Mr Oswald's unremitting and en- 
 thusiastic efforts to raise the money, it might 
 not have been forthcoming. So successful 
 was he, that by the time of the public meet- 
 ing addressed by Lord Rosebery at Ayr on 
 the 26th September 1906, Mr Oswald was 
 able to intimate that a sum of over 4,800 
 had been raised ; and although he did not say 
 so, it was raised mainly by himself. 
 
 Lord Rosebery's speech is historic in 
 Burns Annals. As his letter to Mr Oswald 
 had first raised the Brig controversy to its 
 true altitude, so his great speech at Ayr 
 thrilled the Burns world. Its devotees had 
 not looked to their High Priest in vain, and 
 Lord Rosebery voiced for them their better 
 aspirations and desires. It was the first of a 
 trilogy ; the second followed at Edinburgh ; 
 the third at Glasgow,* the occasion being 
 the inauguration of the Lord Provost's Fund, 
 a fund mainly due to the initiation of Dr 
 William Wallace, then Editor of the Glasgow 
 Herald. The Daily Record and Mail, the 
 Glasgow Evening News, the Ayr newspapers 
 and many others, opened their columns for 
 subscriptions. The Town Council of Ayr 
 
 * Appendix C. 
 62
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 declined to subscribe ; several, however, of 
 its members did so as private individuals, but 
 the Provost, and others, absented themselves 
 from Lord Rosebery's meeting, although 
 it was an important public meeting, called 
 for the furtherance of the Town's interest, 
 and the conservation of its good name. 
 None the less Scottish and St Andrews So- 
 cieties, abroad and at home, readily helped, 
 the name of Robert Burns was magical, and 
 early in the following year the Executive 
 Committee was able to intimate to the Town 
 Council, that the required^ 1 0,000 had been 
 raised, and that it was prepared to proceed 
 with the work, in terms of the agreement. 
 
 In May 1907 work was commenced up- 
 on the Brig, Mr Wilson being in charge of 
 the engineering work ; and, as I knew the 
 Brig well, I was asked to associate myself 
 with Mr Wilson and undertake the Archae- 
 ological work, leaving all questions affecting 
 stability entirely in his hands. Acceptance, 
 of course, involved retiral from the vice- 
 chairmanship of the Executive Committee, 
 as also from the Committee itself. Mr Wil- 
 son entered upon the enterprise with a very 
 wide experience of underpinning, and he un- 
 derstood to the full the delicate and arduous 
 
 63
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 nature of the preservative work before him. 
 As it turned out, the Brig was even more 
 insecure than had at first been supposed, and 
 the marvel is that the old structure held 
 together so long. Its tenacity and dourness 
 have indeed been great, and the Brig now 
 enjoys its well-earned reward. 
 
 Fortunately, this structural work was not 
 let out to contract, but experienced men 
 were employed under Mr Mitchell, an ex- 
 cellent engineer foreman ; and as from time 
 to time the peculiar nature of the work to 
 be done developed, so it was treated. 
 
 Beneath the Brig is a bed of brown boulder 
 clay, from a few inches, to i o feet in thick- 
 ness, with a southward dip across the river. 
 Below this boulder clay is a thick bed of 
 light fireclay, and, near the surface, gravel. 
 The south abutment, and its complementary 
 pier, are founded upon the boulder clay, the 
 north abutment upon fireclay almost solidi- 
 fied into rock, thickly interspersed with fos- 
 sils, and divided by several thin coal seams, 
 from which good coal was often taken, for use 
 at the Brig. The increased river scour, con- 
 sequent upon harbour dredging lower down 
 the river, had undermined, if not the piers 
 themselves, then at least in places their fen-
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 ders, to the extent of in one portion 6 feet 
 inward. The greatest water-flow is beneath 
 the south arch, where the bed of the river, 
 at the beginning of operations, was from 4 
 to 8 feet below the level of the oak cradle 
 foundations of the piers. These oak cradles 
 were formed of roughly hewn timbers, in 
 part squarely dressed, half checked at the 
 cross angles, scarf ed at the longitudinal junc- 
 tions, and pinned together by a number of 
 i -inch oak pins, securely driven home. The 
 timbers varied from 4 to 5 inches, to 8 to 
 i o inches square. The heaviest followed the 
 outline of the piers and cutwaters, and were 
 held together by lighter cross-pieces, these 
 again, beneath the junction of the piers and 
 cutwaters, being stiffened by angle struts. 
 This oak cradle framing had been set upon 
 the boulder clay, which again had been cut 
 into, or the cradle wedged up from it, with 
 oak wedges to a level surface, and upon 
 the timbers large irregular flat stones laid. 
 The spaces between these stones, as also be- 
 tween the cradling timbers, had been filled in 
 with loose stones and whin boulders, of vary- 
 ing sizes ; and, as the piers rose, the hearts 
 inside the heavy dressed stone facing would 
 seem to have been similarly filled in, and 
 5 65
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 the interstices packed with lime run in hot. 
 Where this lime was free from damp and 
 decay, it was found to be as hard as the 
 stone itself. Part of the difficulty of preser- 
 vation, lay in the fact that the joints of the 
 stone facing not having been kept tightly 
 pointed, water had found its way in, and 
 that in time, aggravated by the suction of 
 the falling tides, had rotted or torn away 
 the lime from the heart of the piers. The 
 cavities thus left behind the facing stones, 
 extended into the piers from i to 6 feet, 
 and upward to high-water mark ; moreover, 
 these cavities became in time solidly packed 
 with a fine deposit of river mud. So hol- 
 low were the piers in places immediately 
 above high-water mark that, while refacing 
 one of the cutwaters, I could on either side 
 of a removed stone freely insert a footrule 
 3 feet in one direction, and in the other, to 
 the extent of my arm from the elbow, with 
 in addition the full length of the 3-feet rod. 
 Each of the three piers had been often re- 
 faced, but none had sunk very materially, 
 although the northmost pier had moved at 
 one end nearly i o inches laterally at its base, 
 while the cutwater of another had sunk 
 several inches at its outer extremity, but in 
 
 66
 
 THE AULD BRIG FROM THE NORTH-EAST AFTER PRESERVATIVE 
 
 OPERATIONS
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 its lower courses only. The arches, how- 
 ever, had suffered sorely by rain soaking 
 in between the roadway cobbles, and this 
 soaking, had gradually wasted or washed out 
 the lime from between the stones forming 
 the arches, especially towards the crown, 
 and these stones closing together in conse- 
 quence, had in two of the arches torn them, 
 with their spandrels, away from the cut- 
 waters, as much as 5 inches at the top, de- 
 creasing downwards towards the springing. 
 The outer ring of voussoirs, was conse- 
 quently in some places badly fractured be- 
 cause of unequal pressure, and the soffits of 
 many of the stones throughout the arches 
 were splintered seriously. The spandrel walls 
 near the top, and the parapets immediately 
 above, seem to have been renewed frequent- 
 ly, and I am inclined to believe that some 
 ofthestonesoftheexistingparapetjWerethose 
 taken from the fallen north arch, which, with 
 part of the northmost land abutment, col- 
 lapsed, as already stated, in 1735. In the Min- 
 utes of theTown Council,there do not appear 
 to be any references to the removal of the 
 arched gateway of the Brig, shown in Slezer's 
 view of 1693 ; but, from the appearance of 
 the north-west abutment wall, and from the
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 facts disclosed during the excavations at the 
 gateway site, I am strongly inclined to the 
 opinion, that it was, in at least large part, car- 
 ried away by the fall of the northmost arch 
 and its immediate landward abutment. 
 
 The Brig proper consists of four beauti- 
 fully shaped segmental arches, each from 5 2 
 to 53 feet span, three massive piers of 15 
 feet in thickness, with triangular cutwaters 
 and heavy land abutments. It rises 27 feet 
 above high-water mark, and the tide fall is 
 9 feet. The width of the Brig footway aver- 
 ages 1 2 feet between the parapets, and the 
 steeply sloping roadways, that at the south 
 end between houses, gives the Brig and ap- 
 proaches an approximate length of over 500 
 feet ; but the Brig proper between the abut- 
 ments is 2 5 5 feet long. About the Brig there 
 is nothing mechanical, either in the setting- 
 out of the work, or in the building ; and it 
 has all that indescribable charm of humanness 
 which is thedistinctivefeatureof all old work. 
 For instance, no two arches or cutwaters are 
 exactly similar, and the northmost arch, 
 the last built, is 2 feet less in height than the 
 others. None of the arches spring too accur- 
 ately from the piers, and there is that delight- 
 ful honesty of procedure manifested through- 
 
 68
 
 THE HEART OF THE BRIG, SHOWING THE CONCRETE 
 SHAFT-HEAD AND CENTRAL SPANDREL WALL
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 out the work, showing so frankly that where 
 a pier and its lower arch stones had been 
 built 4 inches over much to one side, and the 
 variation discovered, the builders accepted 
 the fact, and laid the next arch course 4 inches 
 back and into the true line. The very spur- 
 stones of the pier bases vary, and one of them 
 has on its upper surface a large incised heart. 
 Let those sympathetically conversant with 
 the unaffected working of the human mind 
 in old buildings, conjecture its why ! 
 
 This, then, is the Brig we set out to handle, 
 the goal being to so preserve it, with all its 
 curves and twists and settlements, that when 
 the work should be completed few might 
 know it had been touched at all ; and more- 
 over, we desired that each separate move- 
 ment of the fabric might be preserved, and 
 clearly shown on its face. 
 
 And now a word about the distorted, and 
 much criticised south arch. The resolution 
 of the public meeting instructed " that all 
 work falling to be done shall have for its ob- 
 ject the preservation of the existing fabric, 
 as far as possible, in its entirety, and shall 
 interfere as little as possible with its outward 
 appearance, construction, or form." The 
 south arch, therefore, was retained, because
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 the Engineer was able to make it as secure 
 and strong in its existing shape, as it would 
 have been had it been taken down and rebuilt. 
 Further, had it been taken down, it is safe 
 to say that not 10 per cent, of its stones 
 could possibly have been re-used. 
 
 Mr Wilson early recognised the possibili- 
 ties of the heavy piers and cutwaters, and at 
 once proceeded to utilise them ; but before 
 pitting through their middle, he required 
 first to ensure the stability of the arches, and 
 to that end the outer joints of the spandrel 
 wall-stones had to be securely and deeply 
 pointed with pure cement, to resist the great 
 after pressure of forced groutingf rom within. 
 In so pointing, I added to the cement a little 
 fine gravel, keeping the cement well back 
 from the face of each weather-beaten stone, 
 and bedding small pieces of old slate in the 
 more open joints, closely following in this 
 as in all else the original work. More- 
 over, in pointing, each separate stone or slate 
 bedding-in was separately pointed all round, 
 in order that the weather-beaten surf ace tex- 
 ture of the Brig might, as far as possible, be 
 preserved. The outer casing of the Brig 
 having now been made secure against the 
 pressure of the cement grout to be pumped 
 70
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 into the fabric from within, Mr Wilson pro- 
 ceeded with the treatment of the Brig, arch 
 by arch and pier by pier successively, begin- 
 ning at the south end. He first cut trenches 
 3 feet wide across the roadway, immediately 
 above the south abutment and its comple- 
 mentary pier ; these trenches were cut 
 through the sand filling-in of the arch haun- 
 ches and piers, strongly bratticed as they were 
 sunk, carried downward to the solid masonry 
 of the piers, and filled with concrete. 
 
 Thereafter, the sand between the old out- 
 er spandrel walls was removed, the interstices 
 between the rough upper faces of the arch 
 stones carefully cleaned out and filled in 
 with cement, and a 9-inch concrete covering 
 laid over all. Following this work, a longi- 
 tudinal central spandrel wall 2 feet 6 inches 
 in thickness was built of concrete on, and 
 along the centre line of each arch. The in- 
 ner joints of the outer spandrel walls having 
 been also picked out, were grouted with 
 pure cement under air-pressure of from 20 
 to 30 Ibs. per square inch. At a much later 
 period in the operations, concrete jack-arches 
 were carried from the side to the centre span- 
 drel walls, thus forming a continuous con- 
 crete under-roadway, upon which was spread 
 
 7 1
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 a specially prepared impervious coating of 
 rock-building composition, to within i inch 
 of the outer edge of the parapet walls ; and, 
 upon this coating, a layer of sand, in which 
 the roadway granite setts were laid. 
 
 The Brig was now ready for the more dan- 
 gerous work of underpinning. Frombetween 
 the 3~feet transverse concrete walls already 
 sunk above the piers, and carried down to 
 their solid stonework, the sand hearting was 
 removed, and the old external walls grouted 
 under pressure ; thereafter, an 8 by 4 feet 
 shaft was sunk through the stone heart of 
 each pier, and downward through the clay, 
 9 feet below the oak cradles. A 1 2-inch 
 concrete floor was laid, a powerful electric 
 motor centrifugal pump brought into opera- 
 tion, and the mining beneath the piers to 
 their outward faces commenced. As these 
 mines, each roughly about 3 feet wide, were 
 foot by foot driven, they were strongly tim- 
 bered, and cement grout forced upward 
 through the temporary boarded roof into the 
 old foundations, which sometimes fell out 
 like a ruckle of old stones into the mine ; in 
 the more dilapidated piers, sometimes from 
 as much as 2 to 3 feet above the oak cradling, 
 which cradling it was unfortunately found 
 72
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 necessary to largely cut away. The under- 
 pinning of blue brick in cement was then 
 built upon a concrete foundation, and in the 
 brickwork several 2-inch iron pipes were laid 
 for dealing more easily with seeping water, 
 but also because through these pipes cement 
 grout could afterwards be forced into the in- 
 terior of the brick underpinning. As the 
 temporary timber roofs were reached they 
 were removed, and against the smooth face 
 of the cement grout previously forced in, the 
 brick underpinning was wedged up, and 
 grouted solid, under high pressure. This 
 procedure was afterwards successively and 
 successfully carried out in each of the 
 twenty mines or underpinning sections of 
 each pier, and the corresponding twelve sec- 
 tions of the abutments. It reflects the great- 
 est credit upon the Engineer, his foreman and 
 workers, that there was no subsidence of the 
 structure, not even a single crack in the outer 
 superstructure ; nay, more, not one of the or- 
 iginal cracks in the external stonework open- 
 ed by a fraction, save at one point in the east 
 cutwater of the north pier, where it was in- 
 finitesimal ; and it is to be remembered that 
 in this pier there was one large old rent 5 
 inches wide, and also, that into a cavity of 
 
 73
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 the pier one could work one's whole arm, up 
 to the elbow. As an instance of one of the 
 many difficulties incidental to the carrying 
 out of the work, from one mine in the south 
 pier the sinkers were driven out for nearly 
 three continuous weeks by the inrush of 
 water, which at full tide was very great ; 
 and even at low water the mine was nearly 
 always full. In several of the mines, looking 
 from within, one could at low water see be- 
 tween the Brig cradle and the boulder clay 
 the blue sky of heaven, so much of the river 
 bed had been washed away from the pier 
 foundations, and it was literally inch by inch 
 that way was made by damming out the 
 water till the underpinning had been com- 
 pleted. Often, day after day, at low water, 
 when the river and weather permitted, and as 
 one of many expedients, 2-inch boards over- 
 lapping, or as sheaths, were driven into the 
 river bed outside the piers, and the space be- 
 tween packed with clay, or grouted with ce- 
 ment; sometimes cement in bags was packed 
 round, and usually, as one hole was stopped, 
 another developed. Patience, resource, and 
 deliberation in the end prevailed, but there 
 was none the less many an anxious hour for 
 those in charge, and too much credit cannot 
 
 74
 
 THE BRIG ROADWAY AFTER PRESERVATIVE OPERATIONS
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 be given to Mr Wilson, and all who worked 
 under him. 
 
 In May 1 909, the engineering operations 
 were sufficiently advanced to permit a serious 
 beginning with the archaeological work. 
 The masonry of each of the three piers, from 
 the splayed stone base upward to nearly the 
 corbel springer of the arches, had been at 
 various times refaced with stone or brick- 
 work. It was mainly patchwork, and the 
 regular courses of the original work had been 
 wholly ignored. Moreover, many of the later 
 facing stones had not been properly bonded 
 into the masonry of the piers. The west nose 
 of the south cutwater had, in its lower 
 courses, sunk about 5 inches, and the space 
 between the oversailing upper courses which 
 had remained in position, filled in with stone 
 patching and Roman cement. Upon remov- 
 ing the fractured stones, a deposit of fine 
 river mud was seen to penetrate for a dis- 
 tance of 2 or 3 feet inward, in one pier as 
 much as 6 feet, and this mud deposit with the 
 rotted lime had effectually checked the flow 
 of cement grout, driven under pressure, from 
 within the piers. Structurally, therefore, it 
 was necessary to clear away all such mud, rot- 
 ted lime, and fractured facing-stones wher- 
 
 75
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 ever found ; and as the latter were almost 
 wholly new, and practically only patchwork, 
 they were archasologically valueless. After 
 rebuilding with brick and cement, outward 
 from the solid portion of the piers to the new 
 stone facings, which were built on the orig- 
 inal lines, and using therein any old stones 
 found, the whole was grouted with cement 
 under high pressure ; and in order to follow 
 and ascertain the rise and movement of the 
 cement within the piers, open joints were 
 left between certain of the facing-stones, and 
 closed as the cement rose. When the cement 
 had sufficiently consolidated, fresh grout at 
 full pressure was forced in, to make up any 
 space lost by consolidation, also to wedge 
 hard against all upper work, and solidly fill 
 in all open spaces. After the piers, the abut- 
 ments were similarly treated. 
 
 The fractured portions of the outer ring of 
 voussoirs were then cut out, from never less 
 than 9 inches to the extent of fracture, and 
 new stones of identical size were inserted and 
 clamped to the old by lead dowels run into the 
 intersections; a V channel was also cut along 
 the top of the stones, through which chan- 
 nel liquid cement was pumped in, thus 
 solidly binding all new and old work to-
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 gether. The spandrel walls, where loosened 
 from their backing, were treated in a some- 
 what similar fashion. When, within com- 
 paratively recent years, the roadway level 
 was altered, and straightened from the old 
 curvatures caused by the movement of the 
 arches, the original side gutter channeling 
 was then also broken off, or torn out from 
 beneath the parapet ; thus materially de- 
 creasing its stability. The joints were badly 
 worn, and so seriously decayed, that at the Ayr 
 end the east parapet overhung outward near- 
 ly 9 inches. The footings and walls therefore, 
 required rebuilding, so the old side guttering 
 and gargoyles were renewed, and the para- 
 pets carefully taken down in short lengths 
 and rebuilt against standardised rods, to their 
 old lateral curvature. A 2-inch joggle chan- 
 nel was cut in the beds and joints of each 
 old stone, and grouted with cement, and all 
 possible old stones were re-used. Where 
 old stones were very much worn away, the 
 joints were bedded in with hard red tiles 
 pointed with cement, so that the old work 
 might be readily distinguishable from the 
 new; but the pointing was done different- 
 ly from that of the outside walls, because 
 weatherworn joints were here forbidden, 
 
 77
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 and the wall surfaces had to be kept as even 
 as possible. For this reason all cement 
 joints were made V-shaped, the apex being 
 of course outward. Unfortunately, from 
 an archaeological standpoint, cobble-stones 
 were prohibited in the roadway, but small 
 rough granite setts, with wide joints, were 
 used, in order to repeat as far as possible 
 the texture and scale of the parapet walls; 
 upon which were placed five wrought-iron 
 lamp standards, made in the same fashion 
 as the one old lamp, also replaced in posi- 
 tion. The excavations at the north end of the 
 Brig, disclosed an early roadway of cobble- 
 stones and roughly-built guttering, from 
 12 to 1 8 inches lower than the present 
 roadway, and with a more steeply inclined 
 slope. The lower walls of the old tri- 
 angular toll- or guard-house, were also ex- 
 posed; and it may be noted that this cham- 
 ber, with its deep foundation walls all the 
 way up, was built against, and not with, the 
 earlier abutment wall of the Brig. The 
 east foundation of the arched gateway was 
 followed downward for over i o feet, without 
 reaching its bottom, but the correspond- 
 ing west foundation had altogether disap- 
 peared. All these remaining portions of old 
 
 78
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 work have been carefully preserved, exact- 
 ly as found ; and, for their better protection, 
 enclosed by an iron railing. In the Brig 
 parapets have been retained the square holes 
 in the wall stones and copes, wherein rested 
 the later toll-beams or barriers. As little as 
 possible of the original work of the Brig 
 has been touched, and any new work, or in- 
 sertions essential for its maintenance, have 
 followed as closely as modern work may, the 
 lines of the old. Several masons' marks were 
 found, and of each a careful impression was 
 taken, and the results afterwards tabulated. 
 It was difficult at first toibreak the masons, 
 working on the Brig, from these character- 
 istics of modern work, impersonally hewn 
 stones, and mechanically plumb and level 
 building. The old curves and twists of the 
 Brig soon, however, made their power felt, 
 and the workmen gradually found that there 
 was more beauty in the old slightly camb- 
 ered and full line, than in the one absolutely 
 straight, from start to finish. Taken all 
 round, they were an excellent lot of men ; 
 and when once they realised that preserva- 
 tive operations cannot be pushed or worked 
 out as is a contract job, they settled down 
 to the order of things wherein craftsmen, and 
 
 79
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR AND 
 
 not merely operatives, are required ; very 
 many taking a deep interest in the pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 Now that the work is completely finished, 
 the retrospect is not unsatisfactory, although 
 there is little doubt, that, in the town of Ayr, 
 the preservation of the Brig does not com- 
 mend itself to many. In origin and essence 
 it is based largly upon sentiment, upon 
 historic reverence, and archaeological re- 
 gard. 
 
 It did not, and does not, appeal to utilitar- 
 ian instincts ; and whatever of material value 
 it may hold, belongs of necessity to other 
 generations, when men shall more clearly see, 
 and understand also, its intrinsic worth. 
 
 But for one or two staunch friends of the 
 Brig in the Town Council, the work, at least 
 in its initial stages, would probably never 
 have been carried through; and in Mr J. B. 
 Ferguson of Balgarth, then a Councillor, the 
 Brig found a warm and fitting friend, for his 
 interests are largely centred in Alloway, and 
 his home for long Doonholm, where William 
 Burness worked as gardener ; and, on near land 
 was built the "Auld Clay Biggin', " wherein 
 the poet was born. Then, was not the first 
 man who ever offered me local help and en- 
 80
 
 SOMETHING OF ITS STORY 
 
 couragement in the earliest days of the en- 
 deavour, when help was sorely needed, also 
 of an old Ayrshire family, the representative 
 and lineal descendant of one whom Scotsmen 
 must ever revere ; the Patriot who held for 
 Scotland her freedom, who first gave to her 
 consciousness of national life, who won the 
 Battle of Stirling Bridge, and burnt the Barns 
 of Ayr ? Mr H. R. Wallace of Busby, stood 
 strongly for the Brig, from the very first day ; 
 and at the very outset of the enterprise, long 
 before subscriptions were even thought of, 
 he, possibly foreseeing the ultimate neces- 
 sity, generously offered a contribution of 
 25 should it be required. 
 
 Living on the Brig practically at all hours, 
 and in all weathers, wondering over and 
 dreaming of it often, the thought ever up- 
 permost in my mind was, What did the 
 shade of Robert Burns think of it all ? I 
 recalled his marvellous insight into the 
 human mind, his terrible perceptive power 
 shredding act from motive, his trenchant 
 words, his humour and generous thoughts; 
 and, I wondered what he would say to the 
 workers on the Brig, to his fellow-towns- 
 men, to the Brig Committee and to its Chair 
 man, so unsparing of himself; but most of 
 6 81
 
 THE BRIG OF AYR 
 
 all to the Knight of Dalmeny? I could 
 imagine the two men meeting on the crown 
 of the Brig causeway, gripping hands, and 
 looking deep into each other's eyes. What 
 would they see, and what say! They are 
 both men and one something over.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE Auld Brig of Ayr was reopened by 
 the Right Honourable the Earl of Rose- 
 bery, K.G., K.T., on the 29th of July 
 1910. At the Brig the Provost of Ayr said, 
 "Ayr has been given the sobriquet of 'The Auld 
 Toon.' She would have forfeited her right to 
 such a tide had she allowed her Auld Brig to be 
 demolished. We love the Auld Brig for itself as 
 well as for its associations. We must protect and 
 preserve those relics of the long-past ages, as there 
 are sermons in Art as well as in Nature. Senti- 
 ment must not always be swept aside by utility. It 
 is important that the future may read the records of 
 the past. We are here to-day to congratulate our- 
 selves on having successfully negotiated the last 
 fence in connection with the Auld Brig, this c ghaist 
 alluring edifice' as Burns has called it, 'whose wrink- 
 led arches' we can see to-day have been maintained, 
 partly by preserving, partly by restoring, and part- 
 ly by rebuilding. The preserving and restoring 
 have been done at the expense of a very widely scat- 
 tered company of loyal Scotsmen and admirers of 
 our national bard, who look upon this Brig as the 
 finest monument we have to his memory." 
 
 Lord Rosebery briefly replied, " I congratulate 
 Ayr not merely on a great restoration, but on the 
 prevention of a great desecration. It was with in- 
 credulity and with horror that the great mass of 
 Burns worshippers throughout the world heard 
 that there was any idea under any circumstances 
 of tampering with this immemorial bridge. For- 
 6* 83
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 tunately, owing to the enterprise and energy 
 mainly of Mr Oswald and Mr Morris, that de- 
 secration has been averted, and I think we may 
 hope and believe that as long as the poet's works 
 live, so long will the Auld Brig of Ayr stand as 
 a testimony to him for ever." 
 
 At the Town Hall, and immediately following 
 the reopening ceremony at the Brig, the Freedom 
 of the Burgh was presented to Lord Rosebery and 
 Mr Oswald. In the course of his speech his Lord- 
 ship, in commenting upon the intolerance of the 
 Church of Burns' day, said, " His,' ' Burns ', " great 
 horror was of anything which savoured of hypo- 
 crisy and cant, but what he had mainly in his mind 
 then was religious hypocrisy and religious cant. 
 Cant survives, though religious hypocrisy and 
 cant are but little in fashion now. They do not 
 pay as they did then. But are we quite sure that 
 in avoiding one kind of cant we are absolutely 
 free from any other ? Are we absolutely certain 
 that our characters in these days are as free from 
 cant as Burns wished them to be ? There are a 
 thousand forms of cant which form the dry rot of 
 our country. It is not my task to-day to point 
 them out. I might introduce division where I 
 only wish to leave a united Ayr behind me. I do 
 ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to apply yourselves 
 the touchstone of Burns' diatribes against cant, 
 and I prophesy for you that you will find your- 
 selves none the worse for it. Now, Mr Provost, 
 I must apologise for having detained you so long, 
 but when one is given the freedom of Ayr one can- 
 not but touch upon Burns, and when one touches 
 
 8 4
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 upon Burns one cannot well check oneself. As I 
 have said before, I am quite aware that you are 
 only giving us this freedom to-day because we are 
 living admirers of Burns, and because you cannot 
 give it to the dead man himself. To speak the 
 honest truth, Burns never seems dead to me. Of 
 all dead men he is the most living to me, much 
 more living than many men who to-day are alive. 
 I know no man who has impressed his individu- 
 ality and his vitality so strongly on his fellow- 
 creatures as this man who was born here 1 50 years 
 ago. His blood still courses warm and strong 
 through the veins of Scotland. His spirit is 
 abroad in all our country, and from our country 
 it has passed over the world ; but its home, its 
 original source, its favourite region is this county 
 of Ayr, and I trust that in the long days to come, 
 when people remember with shame and almost 
 with terror there was once a risk of the Old Brig 
 being demolished, they will also remember in turn 
 their responsibility, that the connection between 
 Burns and Ayr is indissoluble and eternal." 
 
 On the afternoon of the day of the reopening, the 
 Town Council caused to be placed on the parapet 
 of the Brig a bronze tablet with this inscription: 
 
 THE AULD BRIG OF AYR 
 
 ERECTED IN THE I3TH CENTURY 
 
 PRESERVATION WORK 1907-10 
 
 REOPENED BY LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 29TH JULY I9IO 
 
 JAMES S. HUNTER 
 PROVOST OF THE BURGH OF AYR 
 
 85
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 The Preservation Committee on the 9th June 
 1911 placed another bronze tablet by its side, 
 which records 
 
 IN ADMIRATION OF 
 
 ROBERT BURNS 
 AND HIS IMMORTAL POEM 
 
 THE BRIGS OF AYR 
 
 THIS BRIG WAS DURING 1907-10 
 
 RESTORED BY SUBSCRIPTIONS 
 
 RECEIVED FROM ALL PARTS 
 
 OF THE WORLD 
 
 R. A. OSWALD, CHAIRMAN OF 
 THE PRESERVATION COMMITTEE 
 
 It is unfortunate that neither of the tablets 
 are quite happily phrased, for while the one might 
 readily convey to future generations that the 
 work of preservation had been carried out by the 
 Town Council ; the other might also, and without 
 hypercriticism, be held to imply that those who 
 worked for or gave of their means toward the 
 preservation of the Brig, were actuated merely by 
 " admiration " of the poet, rather than by the 
 deeper and more enduring sentiments of rever- 
 ence and veneration. The noun implies less than 
 the truth, and the inscription fails to recognise, 
 or altogether ignores the devotion and even love 
 which many of those who shared in the enter- 
 prise, bear in their heart for Robert Burns.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 THIS tradition has survived in at least two 
 forms. The first, that the lover was a 
 knight, drowned while crossing the river 
 to the Ayr side ; the second, that the sisters were 
 enamoured of two monks from one of the Ayr 
 monasteries, who, in fording the river from the 
 Ayr side to the Castle of the New Town, met 
 the same untoward fate. As indicating the per- 
 tinacity with which tradition survives, an old man 
 recently told me he remembered the arched gate- 
 way of Newton Castle, through which, he stated 
 it had long been said, these monks commonly 
 passed. 
 
 Except as very vague and now almost forgotten 
 traditions, these, as many of the uncertain happen- 
 ings of the past, are rarely reliable in detail, al- 
 though in circumstance often indisputable. In 
 this case the second story is the more unlikely, 
 not in practice but in sequence, for while the 
 earliest known reference to the Brig is in 1236, 
 it does not follow that the Brig was only then 
 built ; and one must not forget that the first of 
 the two larger monasteries on the Ayr bank, that 
 of the Dominican or Black Friars, was built but 
 six years prior to the date named. Whether, then, 
 it was a lover or lovers who essayed to ford the 
 river, and whether soldier or priest, is of little 
 moment to-day. The human element is always 
 
 87
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 as ever the essential factor and real interest, and 
 the music of the song that remains clear and 
 dominant centres round the circumstance that a 
 devoted lover was by the river bereft of life, and 
 in this tradition, or legend or tale, a tale as old 
 as man and belonging to all ages, the Brig found 
 its reputed origin and being.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE following postscript from a letter 
 which I received from Lord Rosebery a 
 few weeks ago, is of interest psychologi- 
 cally as evidence, if not of fact, then at least of 
 the power which sincerity and eloquence may 
 exert upon a sympathetic and perhaps imagin- 
 ative mind. 
 
 " P.S. Since writing the above, I have been 
 looking at the book, and a recollection comes 
 across me that may be of interest to you. 
 
 " After my speech at Glasgow for the Brig of 
 Ayr, I received a letter from a stranger saying that 
 he had been present at the meeting with his son, 
 and that while I had been speaking he had dis- 
 tinctly seen the form of Robert Burns standing 
 behind me, or walking in behind me as I was 
 speaking, as I described him in my speech. 
 
 " I do not know who the man was, and give the 
 story for what it is worth, but I think it is in- 
 teresting."
 
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