photos/images/video – Kilbirnie, Local History and Cultural Things

ِDennyholm Street, Kilbirnie (again)

I have attached some photos. On one you can see Dennyholm street houses (left bottom – they look like chalets) and on the other a map showing that “the Dennyholm” (street) ran parallel to Newton Street but was on a level at the back and beneath the street. (next to number 836 on the map). The street itself ran all the way into the mill complex.

The other two photos show: the entrance to the mill complex and the demolished site before they built the new housing estate.

The North Ayrshire Directories of that time describes them as “a long row of houses prone to flooding.” The census of 1921 shows them as having only 2 rooms each. You can see them in this photo, to the left, bottom.

I have colourized this for a better effect.

The area has been completely replaced with the Dennyholm Wynd Housing Estate.

In the 1900s the street had shops and a school. Dennyholm Street no longer exists.

Glengarnock Steel War Memorials

The metal one is still there on the side of a building by the Steel Works. The inscriptions are here

Maggie McTaggart, Kilbirnie 1920

I have this death certificate for Maggie McTaggart who died at Dennyholm, Kilbirnie on April 27th 1920. She was the sister of my Great Grandfather.

It is interesting to see the other people listed here, definitely Kilbirnie names and sad deaths from 1920. Thomas Kane and Patrick Bannon both died in 1920.

Townhead, Kilbirnie

Here is an old and a new picture of Townhead Street. The long white building which is demolished where the trees are in the new picture was Martin’s Shed, a local meeting place. Gospel Hall meetings took place there before the Gospel Hall was built in 1897.

Hugh McDonald Watson, Soldier WW2.

I don’t know much about him except that he lived in Muirend Street. Kilbirnie. He became quite well known.

Let me know if you have any further information.

The photo came from The Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald.

Beith High Church, Windows and Tower

Hebron Hall, Glengarnock

Kilbirnie Home Guard

National Union of Distributive Allied Workers 1937 Photo

Catherine Greenan Loughran

Here is a picture of my Great Grandmother, Catherine Greenan. She lived in Kilwinning and had a really huge family with my Great Grandfather John Loughran. I have a number of photos of her and older members of the family if anyone wants to see them. They were intertwined with the Gartland family, another local family around North Ayrshire. Her daughter Mary married my Grandfather Andrew.

She was well known locally as a ballroom dancer, the Barrfield Pavilion, Largs, was one of her places. They used to chalk the heels of her shoes.

She died in Ireland in the late 1920s/1930s, where she spent a lot of her time with John’s family and is buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Dunamore, nr Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, in an unmarked grave along with older members of John’s family. John was also taken back from Dalry and interred there when he died.

In this picture she is wearing the infamous sealskin coat which everyone fought over when she died. I believe it went to Anna Mariah Campbell, from Kilmarnock.