Pow Burn, a name used in Scotland for small watercourses, is a long

burn A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, cold, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ultraviolet radiation (like sunburn). Most burns are due to heat from hot liquids (called scalding), solids, or fire. Burns occur mainl ...

located in South Ayrshire, Scotland. The name "Pow" or "Poll" refers to a slow-moving ditch-like stream.

Location

The Pow Burn is fed by a small

loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spelling ...

near the estate of Coodham and is narrow until it reaches

Prestwick Prestwick ( gd, Preastabhaig) is a town in South Ayrshire on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland about southwest of Glasgow. It adjoins the larger town of Ayr to the south on the Firth of Clyde coast, the centre of which is about south, an ...

, where it starts to widen. The Burn separates Prestwick and Monkton. It crosses

Prestwick Airport Glasgow Prestwick Airport () is an international airport serving the west of Scotland, situated northeast of the town of Prestwick in South Ayrshire and southwest of Glasgow. It is the less busy of the two airports serving the western part of ...

and flows through Prestwick Golf Course, where is serves as a natural obstacle. Prestwick Holiday Park overlooks the mouth of the burn, where it flows into the

Firth of Clyde The Firth of Clyde is the mouth of the River Clyde. It is located on the west coast of Scotland and constitutes the deepest coastal waters in the British Isles (it is 164 metres deep at its deepest). The firth is sheltered from the Atlantic ...

. The Ayrshire Cycle Track, Route 7 and Ayrshire Coastal Path, Route7 cross over the burn by a bridge not far from the estuary.

Mills

At one time there were four mills operating on the Pow Burn. Near the mouth was Prestwick Mill, later called Monkton Mill. Upstream were Powbank, situated near Monkton, Adamton Mill and, ¾ mile east of Symington, Helenton Mill. The small tributary from Barnweil Loch had also the Heugh Mill. Powbank Mill closed at the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, when it was requisitioned as a Canteen/

Naafi The Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI ) is a company created by the British government on 9 December 1920 to run recreational establishments needed by the British Armed Forces, and to sell goods to servicemen and their families. It runs ...

. After the war, the mill never returned to the family, being the home of the Scottish Aviation Club, before they moved into the St Cuthbert's site on Kirk Street.

Wildlife

Ayrshire Coastal Path bridge over Pow Burn

The Burn is one of the last coastal wildlife havens in

South Ayrshire South Ayrshire ( sco, Sooth Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir a Deas, ) 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. On 30 June ...

. Parts are designated as a Wildlife Corridor and as a Wildlife Site. It has locally rare habitats and nationally rare species. Plants and animals been sighted at the Pow include otters, red admiral, rare

dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

species and

songbirds A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds ( Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 500 ...

such as

thrush ''The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'' is an American spy fiction television series produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television and first broadcast on NBC. The series follows secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a secret ...

and

nightingale The common nightingale, rufous nightingale or simply nightingale (''Luscinia megarhynchos''), is a small passerine bird best known for its powerful and beautiful song. It was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now ...

. There has been a decline in the number of waxwings migrating to the area. The Pow Burn is managed by the local council for conservation and recreation. It provides an area where families can picnic beside the burn and play on the sand dunes west of the burn. The dunes were once a sand quarry.

Footnotes

External links

* {{authority control Rivers of South Ayrshire Protected areas of South Ayrshire