A Stroll round 1960s Saltcoats

[down south]

So, over the humpbacked bridge, and the Caley railway cutting beneath it, we wend our way.With its long grass on the verges, and its less than direct route, a perfect place to saunter slowly on a summer's day.

Interested to note in passing that in days before the railway , as old maps show, here beside the Laighdykes Farm was Laighdykes Pit; presumably some kind of stone quarry. So that was one hole they didn't have to dig when the railway came through.

And down Waverley Place now. to turn onto Caledonia Road and wander along towards the top gate of the Plantation. All sorts of interesting local residents might be met with along this way, back in the sixties. Couper Wilkie , as I mentioned before, walking the dog and the baby every lunchtime; Mr Paterson of the Royal Bank off to work in the morning.

And at the corner of Mitchell Place I would often on my way to school find myself greeted with friendly interest by a thinning-haired, bespectacled gentleman who lived there, off down Caledonia Road with his briefcase in hand to presumably catch a bus ; whom I eventually found out was a teacher called Mr Maloy. Quite sorry to learn from elsewhere on this site that apparently, if he's the same one, he had such a stern reputation as a disciplinarian at Stevenston High...

He certainly wasn't alone in living in this vicinity; if Ardrossan Road had plenty of doctors and dentists, this area seemed to be even more populated by teachers. Mr Reid, head teacher of Eglinton and then Stanley, also lived in Mitchell Place; and along Sorbie Road Mr Traynor of St Peter's School lived in one of the isolated pair of houses that project into the Plantation ground.

And on the side of Sorbie Road opposite him every other house seemed to be home to a teacher from Ardrossan Academy; Mrs Gemmell and Mrs Connell of the Primary; the fabled head of Classics, Dr Nisbet; and when he became Rector Mr Partridge and his family also moved in.

Susan

[Hughie]

Hi Susan,
Another couple of teachers from Eglinton I recall lived in houses overlooking the Holm Plantation. In South Beach Road just about where the Stanley / Galloway burn goes under the road there lived Mr Gibson who was the headmaster at Eglinton prior to Mr Morrison.

Then around the corner in Sorbie Road, about where Mitchell Place is, and again overlooking the plantation lived the lovely Miss McLean. I believe she married a local minister.

[bobnetau]

She married the minister from St John's, Mr. Wotherspoon, if my memory is correct.

[doreen]

I remember Mr Bryson. He walked around the school with his belt around his neck like a dog collar. I got the belt of him a few times. I remember the school putting on concerts. One was the circus theme. I was an acrobat and my sister was a cow girl, skipping ropes. Then there was the Burns Night and our class, Miss Miller's recited Tam O'Shanter. I have lots of memories of this time and when I was the girls leader of Murray, we won the trophy for the first time in 25 years and Mr Russell was the teacher who led Murray.

Talking about Saltcoats, my dad used to drink in the Rabbie Burns on the corner of Vernon Street. We called it Smalls Pub as the landlady was a Mrs Small. My Aunt Jintie worked there as a barmaid and she used to go on holiday with the tips she used to get. My dad rented one of the old houses next to Smalls from her and he sold jumpers, watches, bracelets, etc. Cricket jumpers was one of his best sellers. He also had an icecream barrow on the shore front. He stored it in Seabanks factory and we got our icecream from them and they would tow us out each day to a different site to ensure that all barrows got a share of the best sites, being the Westfields and the circle. Besides my dad there was a Mr Pettigrew who had another barrow, the rest were owned by Seabanks. A (pokey hat) cone at that time cost thrupence and a nougat was a tanner.

My favourite icecream though was from the cabin in Argyle Road. My gran lived in Glebe Street and she would send me and my sister with a bowl to get so many scoops of this icecream. It was a mink coloured icecream and tasted as if it was made from carnation milk. It was the only icecream I ever liked.

I also remember when I was at Kyleshill School, we would walk to school from Burns Avenue so that we could buy broken biscuits of puff candy from the we shop at the bottom of Raise Street instead of taking the bus. A pennyhappeny could go a long way then.

[down south]

Thanks for all those great memories, Doreen. I would guess the ice-cream shop you're talking about is the one of Gonelli's remembered here; seems you weren't their only fan:

http://www.threetowners.net/forum/viewt ... 099#p86099"

But back to the Plantation now. The Earl of Eglinton first donated it for public use in 1805; by our day it officially belonged jointly to Ardrossan and Saltcoats town councils , who purchased it between them around 1924. As we've discussed at some length in this earlier topic, the area is about equally divided between the two towns:

http://www.threetowners.net/forum/viewt ... 217#p74217"

But it's too close to my heart for me to leave it out of this Stroll ; or fail to discuss it as a whole, even if that means straying a little way over the border at times.

It hasn't really changed all that much since I left town in the early seventies, though the trees are are a lot sparser, and the areas where there are any have shrunk.The main difference is really that it's become a bit more like a public park, less like the semi-tended slice of nature it used to be.

There are more floral plantings and surfaced paths ; and above all there's the splendid ornamental ironwork at the gateways, most of which used to be just gaps in the walls or railings.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.64094 ... 56!6m1!1e1

This one at the top though was always the most imposing, and the pillars, ramp and steps are just as they used to be. And in those days it looked even more like one of the seafront entrances to the beach, because the railings beside there were the same white-painted ones you still find along the promenade, stretching some way along atop a grey-rendered wall.

And the view from up here hasn't changed much either; St Andrew's Church and rectory, and the houses of South Crescent , standing out against the sea-light of the sky.

Susan

[morag]

Beautiful, Susan. You know, I tend to forget all these places and things, (maybe for my sanity!), but as soon as I'm back it's like I never left..

[down south]

Whatever did we do before Streetview, Morag....

And talking of Google, with the help of their maps; some older ones; old photos; and my memories; I've created this representation of the Plantation and its surroundings as it was about fifty years ago. But I don't pretend to perfect accuracy, and I'm very open to any doubts and corrections.

Obviously also I've attempted to show only the main concentrations of trees and bushes. The grey paths are the surfaced ones ( some were gravelled, some ashphalted ); the brown ones are the ones I'm pretty sure were just beaten sandy earth in those days. Some of these were more official and well-trodden than others; down to ones were scarcely there at all, just ways through the long grass made by enough passing feet.

Many of the paths followed similar routes to the ones today, but not all were quite the same; there was one well-used one for example that plunged straight down the hillside from the area at the bottom of the ramp, to the flat ground by the burn that was, and I expect still is, the most popular area of the park for families. In those days that was outlined by an arc of bushes , which you can see in this picture taken on a September Sunday afternoon in 1971. Those must be a line of benches too, in front of them:

Also down there, nearer the burn, were what seemed to be a pair of big round sandpits. I always thought these a bit odd; they seemed too deep for playing in, and more of a hazard to the unwary than anything....but I had my own little sandpit in the garden at home, so I paid them little heed.

More on other details, in due course.

Susan

[morag]

There's been a lot of posts about the Plantation. My memory of it as a teenager was not to go there. It had a bit of a reputation for winching, and more, couples. Does anyone else remember that or was someone messing with my naive, innocent mind?

[down south]

The plantation was a lovely place near to home , Morag, for us to go as a family group when I was smaller. And I was shepherded to and fro to school through there by my big sister for my first few years. That's where I got my affection for it.

But after she left school and I started going on my own , my mother insisted I shouldn't go through there by myself and should go round by the road instead. I grumbled a bit, but I could see the point in some ways...such as less risk of meeting a nasty dog when there was nobody about ; I still remember the occasion coming through the plantation when Anne had to dash to the rescue of a small boy who was being attacked by a vicious Alsatian.

The idea that there were other unsavoury things that might be encountered there percolated more slowly. But even from the road, I soon found that at lunchtimes Academy seniors were often to be seen smooching in the long grass; I didn't see anything too bad thank goodness, but it was very off-putting at that age !

And I'm sure that with such well-established habits even in broad daylight, in the gloaming a lot worse will have gone on in the more secluded spots. So,no, it probably wouldn't have been the best of places to go roaming on your own, at any rate at certain times of day .

Susan

[hahaya2004]

This photo of the slope was taken a bit earlier than yours, Susan (1955).

[down south]

Thanks, Irene.

Looking back at my picture, you can see how much denser the trees were then up in the top corner of the plantation, surrounding the two lone houses on the seaward side of Sorbie Road. Even back then I used to think it was strange that they were there , obtruding on plantation ground. The remarks about the plantation being at " the tender mercies of speculative builders " in the 1897 article recently posted by George, suggest there were worries they wouldn't be the last.

http://www.threetowners.net/forum/viewt ... 04#p102704"

But then it seems that the process may effectively have already started with the building of South Beach Road. If you look at this 1860 map of Ardrossan , which shows the whole area between the two towns, the wooded areas of the plantation , at top and bottom as they are today,stretch a lot further towards Ardrossan, far beyond the line of the upper part of Sorbie Road ; with between them at that end, down by the burn , fields and what seems to be marked as a nursery . So the original plantation could have included a much bigger area, with the woods at least free to roam in.

http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch/view/?sid=7 ... &layers=BT

I would guess one impetus for all this building would have been the opening of South Beach station; that happened in 1885, at the same time as the line was extended to Largs. Maybe that was what was prompting the thoughts about saving some of the public open space before it was too late.

Susan

[Penny Tray]

Susan,

Is the black dot, bottom left in your excellent sketch of the plantation a representation of the drinking fountain from which us boys from the diametrically opposite end of town often refreshed ourselves en route to the South Beach or Saltcoats or maybe just a splodge in your artwork?

Incidentally, Harvie's Park in Ardrossan also had at least one and maybe two sand pits and their purpose was to facilitate the 'long jump' and 'hop, skip and jump' events at the Eglinton School Sports Day. Is there any chance that the Ardrossan Academy or Saint Peters sport days were once held in the plantation?