Ballantrae is a community in Carrick,

South Ayrshire South Ayrshire (; , ) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of Ayrshire. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire. South Ayrshire had an estimated population in 2021 of 112,45 ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Topography

The name probably comes from the

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

, meaning the 'town by the beach'.. The beach consists of shingle and sand and offers views of Ailsa Craig, the

Isle of Arran The Isle of Arran (; ) or simply Arran is an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde and the seventh-largest Scottish island, at . Counties of Scotland, Historically part of Buteshire, it is in the ...

and

Kintyre Kintyre (, ) is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The peninsula stretches about , from the Mull of Kintyre in the south to East Loch Tarbert, Argyll, East and West Loch Tarbert, Argyll, West Loch Tarbert in t ...

. The caves at Bennane Head and Balcreuchan Port are nearby. Both are associated with the legend of Sawney Bean. Ballantrae has lent its name to a subdivision of the

Arenig In geology, the Arenig (or Arenigian) is a time interval during the Ordovician period and also the suite of rocks which were deposited during this interval. History The term was first used by Adam Sedgwick in 1847 with reference to the "Areni ...

group, which is the name applied to the lowest stage of the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

system.

History

The Kennedy family built Ardstinchar Castle in the 1420s. It survived until the 1770s when it was demolished and stone used to build a bridge over the river Stinchar, as well as houses in Ballantrae, including the Kings Arm's Hotel. The first kirk in Ballantrae was built as a mausoleum containing a memorial to Gilbert Kennedy, Baron of Bargany and Ardstinchar, in about 1604. It became a part of the new parish kirk in 1617, replacing St Cuthbert's Kirk on the lands of Kirkholm. The ruined mausleum surives today as the Kennedy Aisle, part of Ballantrae Old Cemetery. In June 1673, while holding a

conventicle A conventicle originally meant "an assembly" and was frequently used by ancient writers to mean "a church." At a semantic level, ''conventicle'' is a Latinized synonym of the Greek word for ''church'', and references Jesus' promise in Matthew 18: ...

at Knockdow near Ballantrae, Alexander Peden was captured by Major William Cockburn, and condemned by the Privy Council to four years and three months' imprisonment on the Bass Rock and a further fifteen months in the Edinburgh Tolbooth. The Ballantrae Windmill of 1696 on Mill Hill above the raised beach cliffs is one of the oldest industrial buildings in Scotland. The present church was built in 1819. James Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape of Strathnaver, was the owner of Glenapp Castle on the eponymous estate, and flowering shrubs spell out the name of his daughter on the opposite side of the glen.Ayrshire Post article - So Brave and so Beautiful
/ref> This daughter,

Elsie Mackay Elsie Mackay (21 August 1893 – 13 March 1928) was a British actress, jockey, interior decorator and pioneering aviator who died attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean with Walter Hinchliffe in a single engined Stinson Detroiter. Her stage nam ...

, perished in an attempt to become the first female transatlantic aviator in 1928. She is commemorated by a

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

window in the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

of the church at Ballantrae. The Glenapp Castle has been converted into a luxury hotel.

Literature

When he was in the

Samoan Islands The Samoan Islands () are an archipelago covering in the central Pacific Ocean, South Pacific, forming part of Polynesia and of the wider region of Oceania. Political geography, Administratively, the archipelago comprises all of the Samoa, Indep ...

writing his novel '' The Master of Ballantrae'',

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...

remembered and borrowed the name of the town he had visited on walking tours, but the setting for the novel is not that town.

People from Ballantrae

* William Hunter (1861–1937),

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

Struan Stevenson Struan John Stirton Stevenson (born 4 April 1948) is a Scottish politician. He was the Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Scotland from 1999 to 2014 and chair and Vice Chair of the Committee on Fisheries, and was also a memb ...

(1948–), former

Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...

MEP

External links

Ballantrae Website - information on the village of Ballantrae, South Ayrshire

References

Villages in Carrick, Scotland Parishes in Ayrshire {{SouthAyrshire-geo-stub