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Beith Head Street Burial Records 1854-1900

As you might know, there was a Church in Beith, Head Street which became a cinema, Orange Hall and latterly a Boys Brigade Hall, it has/had a cemetery around it.

Records of burials and lair occupancy.

The first half of the booklet contains the names of people who were buried, the second half contains names of people buried in each  lair.

click here to download the booklet as a zip file from archive.org

Beith Auld Kirk pictures

These pictures of the inside and outside of Beith Auld Kirk are very striking.  The first line of pictures show a monument

One version of the story tells me that  this is  a monument which was installed up at Spiers School. After that was demolished in the 70s the monument was removed and placed behind the Kirk in 1985…. in the Kirk yard where you can still see them today. Another person told me these were actually from Gielsland House and are called “the Gielsand marbles”.

If you know the history of these, please let me know.

 

General Mathew of Place – Death Intimation

This is from the newspaper “The Scotsman” dated August the 4th 1932.

This is the man who unveiled the War memorial and was something of a war hero locally and nationally. He was married to Lady Janet Muir Knox and lived at Place House, across from the Golf course which was demolished some years back. If you want to know more about him, you can click here https://josephmctaggart.org/major-general-sir-charles-mathew/

They are both buried in the family vault – if you go the the huge imposing Knox monument in Kilbirnie old cemetery you will find it just next to there. There is a huge headstone which resembles a birthday cake, which when moved opens up a huge vault underneath. Last I heard it was completely flooded inside. There are more details in the Knox section of this site.

ِ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.

Reminiscing

I always found it strange that my family hated reminiscing.

They were so busy obsessing about survival that there wasn’t a lot of time for sentimentality. Perhaps it was too painful or maybe they had some awareness it could make people sad.  I think this was common in Industrial communities.

Only when they were drunk could they relax enough to look back. Even then it was without photos or keepsakes. They rather preferred stories or maybe I should describe them as glimpses into the past.

It meant that I couldn’t get full pictures about what characters were really like. Only occasional stories.

Whatever the reason, academic storytelling was seen as a weakness possibly because it made something of the past which for them was just everyday life. I can understand that. They were hard days

Whatever the reason,  it was absolutely horrific living in such a controlled environment.