9.54 miles 4h 21m ascent 209m
Glen App Kirk- Ballantrae
Behind yon hills where Stinsiar flows,
Robert Burns
‘Mang moors an’ mosses many, O
This was our first section of the Ayrshire Coastal Way, taking us from Glen App Kirk over hills and across moors to Ballantrae and the River Stinchar. Nine and a half miles, but 15.3 miles according to my GPS tracker which seemed to think I had gone across Loch Ryan. There are two options for this section: one takes a “Clifftop route” between the Shallochwreck Burn and Downan point, while the other, the “Scenic route” meanders along farm tracks and (very) minor roads about a kilometre inland. I would usually have chosen the clifftop option but some descriptions I had read suggested it was closed, while others painted a disconcerting picture of electric fences and dangerous paths needed to avoid bulls etc. What with having the dogs with us it seemed prudent to choose the Scenic Route.
As I mentioned, we started near Glen App Kirk at the official start point for the Ayrshire Coastal Path (ACP). There is a small car-park under the trees on what was the old A77, just past the white cottage but someone had decided it was a good spot to store several tons of gravel. We did manage to squeeze the car in though.
The path starts with a gentle climb up the side of Sandloch Hill. The hillside and hedgerows dominated by a plant the forestry commission describes as Scotland’s most threatening invasive non-native plant – the rhododendron.
We came to a locked farm gate, but with enough of a gap for the dogs to squeeze underneath, but then another one with no such gap. Mabel, being tiny was able to get under the fence but we had quite a palaver getting Christy to crawl through a wee gap.
The Blarbuie standing stones are “of national importance” according to Historic Environment Scotland but I’ll have to admit to being somewhat underwhelmed. I might have walked right up to the stone but the Spaniel-ometer of wetness bounded before me. The splashes followed by a couple of kerplunks put me off.
The Nickaloggie Burn marked the beginning of real roads rather than farm tracks. The Black Glen Burn is well named and the 90° left bend in the road was our warning that the split in the route was close.
As it was, there was no mistaking the split in the route when we came to it. Several large signs spelled out the pros and cons of each way. We chose the one marked…
Ayrshire Coastal Path
BALLANTRAE 5 1 miles
Scenic Route, gentle ascent
Quiet tracks and minor roads
No Gates or Livestock
Suitable for less fit or able Walkers
I walked on wondering about the rather random use of capital letters on the sign.
The hedgerows along this road were unusual in having a great deal of fuchsias, something we would see in several places along the walk. There were cows in the fields, and both Ailsa Craig and Arran in the distance.
Despite us seemingly walking along a country road, locked gates meant it was closed to vehicles. Kilantringan Woods gave both us tree trunks to sit on and shade for our lunch-break. Despite being in Ayrshire there were belted Galloway’s in the fields. After lunch we walked through Low Ballochdowan and climbed over the low ridge past huge milking sheds. The few trees here had been unmistakenly shaped by the wind.
Unfortunately there were a couple of cattle grids with gates that didn’t open. Bypassing them which involved walking through bovine ‘mud’ but we got there in the end. Once over the wee rise we had views of the Mull of Kintyre, Arran and Holy Island. And the twin extrusions of Ailsa Craig and her landlocked twin Knockdolian. It was strange how the size of Ailsa seemed to vary as we walked. Sometimes large sometimes tiny. The actual distance cannot have changed very much but it always seemed larger if seen over the shoulder of a hill.
The road passed from farmland into moorland, where the wind picked up, and then into stands of trees as we came closer to the grounds of Glen App castle.
A rough clearing, which I imagine was once the entry to the ‘disused quarry’ on the OS map, was fenced off. Behind the wire, the gravel was covered with pink flowers superficially like Herb Robert but with very different leaves. I did not recognise them but had a close look. They turned out to be Fairy foxgloves. I don’t recall coming across them before.
We passed Glenapp castle, or at least the North Lodge gate, and as you can see in the photo, Mabel didn’t want to stay for her photo.
A strange sight here is a cemetery without a church. It doesn’t look like an ancient cemetery that has lost its church so presumably it is an overflow, from Ballantrae, perhaps?
The next things we had an eye out for were the Garleffin stones. There had been a circle of eight stones at one time and seven as recently as 1991. Now there are two, both in the garden of a 1960s bungalow, one in the front garden, the other in the back, and just visible beyond a fence.
My GPS had been playing up since early on in the walk and I had given up using it to assess how far we had walked. By the time we reached the A77 near the River Stinchar it was reading 14.37 miles. An obvious error. We were closer to eight point something. But it made me feel tired all the same.
I imagine that the road we walked down to the A77 had been the original route. There was a bench and an information board on the small triangular green where the roads met so we could have a brief rest while looking up at what remains of Ardstinchar castle.
The castle was built in the 15th century and hosted King James V and Mary Queen of Scots in its time but fell into disuse and was mostly demolished in 1770 to provide stone for the nearby bridge. It is now just a ruinous tower.
The Auld Brig built from its stone is still there but no longer carries vehicles. We crossed the river on the newer bridge built in 1964.
I have mentioned before that I have read two derivations for the name Stinchar, the more poetic is ‘Staing Aos Ath Irr‘ meaning ‘The River of the Sacred place of the Druids”; the other “abounding in pools”, but without much explanation of how that became Stinchar. I can’t say that I am convinced by either. The first is the more poetic, but the second is a realistic description.
Robert Burns is said to have fished the river Stinchar but despite being impressed by its beauty was unable to find words that rhymed with the name. (From a Wikipedia ‘citation needed’ comment much repeated online).
But there is a way around that.
“Beyond yon hills, where Stinsiar flows,
‘Mang muirs an’ mosses many, O,
The wintry sun the day has clos’d,
And I’ll awa’ to Nanie, O”
The town’s War Memorial stands below the old castle, its white stone and tidy lines contrasting with the ruins above.
Ballantrae seems to have two parts. One is straight out of a period drama, with picturesque villas and ”Ballantrae in Bloom” signs. The other, approaching the foreland, and its small car-park is monochrome in comparison.
Between the two Ballantraes is the old cemetery with the Kennedy Mausoleum. This impressive piece was built in 1604 and a new parish church was subsequently built around it. That church is now gone, replaced, in 1819, by one across the road but the mausoleum remains.
The mausoleum was built by Lady Bargany, widow of Gilbert Kennedy, Laird of Bargany and Ardstinchar. He had been killed aged 25 in a skirmish near Maybole. He and 30 attendants were ambushed in a snowstorm, by 200 men from another faction of the Kennedy family.
Her husband’s body was originally in the old Kirk in Ayr, but she wished to have him interred closer to their home and had the mausoleum built. She died only a year or so later, of “eittick fever” diagnosed by the Queen’s physician in London. Hectic fever was typically seen in tuberculosis). Lady Bargany was buried in the mausoleum with her husband.
Glen App Kirk, when a car park is not a carpark, Water of App, Bridge of Mark, climb to the shoulder of Sandwich Hill an views of Loch Ryan, sunshine, rhododendrons, underwhelming standing stones, spaniel-ometer of wetness, Nickaloggie Burn and the beginning of real roads, Black Glen burn, the alternative route, cows in fields, locked gates, Kilantringan Woods, lunch, Low Ballochdowan, the milking shed, wind shaped trees, cattle grids with gates that didn’t open, views of Mull of Kintyre, Ailsa Craig (of varying size), Arran and Holy Island, Glenapp castle (at least its gate), cemetery without a church, the Garleffin stones, Ardstinchar castle, the auld brig, War Memorial, the River Stinchar, Ballantrae, period drama and post apocalyptic version, Kennedy Mausoleum, foreland, Ballantrae in bloom, wind, fairy foxgloves, forgotten comfrey, fuchsia hedges
