GENUKI: Dailly, Ayrshire

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"The ancient name of the parish of Dailly was Dalinakeran, and there were in it several chapels. One of these stood at the lower end of the Lady Glen, and was called the Lady Chapel. Another, which was dedicated to St. Machar, was called Machrikill, and stood on the banks of a small stream near the old castle of Kilkerran. The parish was of large extent until 1653, at which time a portion of it was detached, and thrown into the new parish of Barr."

"Ayrshire Nights Entertainment: A Descriptive Guide to the History, Traditions, Antiquities of the County of Ayr" by John MacIntosh of Galston, Ayrshire, published in 1894, by John Menzies & Co. of Kilmarnock, Dunlop and Drennan.

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Cemeteries

"Pre-1855 Gravestone Inscriptions; an index for Carrick, Ayrshire" edited by Alison Mitchell, and published in Edinburgh in 1988 by the Scottish Genealogy Society covers the churchyards of Old Dailly and New Dailly.

The Parish Church, built in 1766, has its established churchyard whose MIs have yet to be catalogued.

**Presbyterian / Unitarian**
Dailly, Church of Scotland

Churches

**Presbyterian / Unitarian**
Dailly, Church of Scotland

Church History

For more on the history of the church in Dailly.

Description & Travel

The parish lies along the valley of the Water of Girvan in the south of the county. It boasts the villages of Old and New Dailly, and Bargany and several castles, notably those at Killochan and Kilkrerran. The parish was formerly an agricultural area until the development of coal exploitation in the mid 19th century, Deep mining continued in the Dailly area until the late 1960s and the land is only now beginning to page to its former rural landscapes.

New Dailly was originally planned in the 1760s as two main streets running NE to SW with several cross lanes. The original design was affected by the imposition of miner's row houses. That change was continued in the years after World War II by an extensive housing scheme developed by Ayrshire County Council. The parish church dates from 1766.

Bargany originally used the church of Old Dailly until 1766, when it built its own. But the village has now all but gone and the Bargany church itself is now derelict. The key feature is Bargany House first established in 1681, and much improved over successive generations. In the 1890s, Bargany was describedas an estate and mansion in Dailly Parish on the left bank of Girvan Water some 4 and a quarter miles north-east of Girvan. The property of the Earl of Stair through his Countess, a daughter of the Duc de Coigny, and a grand-daughter of Sir Hew Dalrymple-Hamilton Bart.

An 1837 description of Dailly, including a listing of the key personalities of the town, is given in this extract from Pigot's Directory for Ayrshire. The transcript was provided by Keith Muirhead from Queensland.

John Thomson (1778-1840) the landscape painter, succeeded his father as minister of Dailly in 1799, and was given living of Duddingston, Edinburgh in 1805. He became the greatest Scottish landscape painter of the time.

Two Victorian poets, Hew Ainslie (1792 - 1878) and Hamilton Paul 91773 - 1854), a coal-grieve's son, were born in the same cottage on the Bargany estate. Paul became a minister while Ainslie became a brewer and brewery constructor in the USA.

You can see pictures of Dailly which are provided by:

Gazetteers

The transcription of the section for Dailly from the National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.

The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland - 1868

"DAILLY, a parish in the district of Carrick, in the county of Ayr, Scotland. It contains a village of its own name, and extends from N.E. to S.W. about 7 miles, with a breadth of 5 miles. It is bounded by the river Girvan, Barr, Straiten, Kirkmichael, and Kirkoswald. The surface abounds in natural beauties, and rises on both sides of the Girvan Water, which intersects the whole length of the parish, into hills of considerable elevation. The lowlands near the river are fertile, well cultivated and wooded, and the uplands, though not so productive, afford pasturage, and have been partly reclaimed. Coal, limestone, and freestone abound, and the two former are largely worked. The principal proprietors are the Duchess de Coigny, of Bargany, Sir John Andrew Cathcart, Bart., of Carleton, Sir James Fergusson, Bart., of Kilkerran, and the Right Hon. T. F. Kennedy, of Dunure. The parish is traversed along its length by the road from Ayr to Stranraer, on which road the village of Dailly stands, 6 miles E. of Girvan. This parish is in the presbytery of Ayr, and synod of Glasgow and Ayr, and in the patronage of the crown. The minister has a stipend of £348. In 1653 an extensive portion of this parish was detached to form the parish of Barr, to the southward, part of the parish of Kirkoswald being at the same time, however, added to Dailly. Ailsa Craig, in the Firth of Clyde, off the coast, is included in this parish, although no other part of the parish touches the sea-coast. There is also a Free church."

"AILSA CRAIG, in the parish of Dailly, in Ayrshire on the coast of Scotland. It is a remarkable rock also named the Perch of Clyde, and lies at the distance of 8 miles from the coast. Its circumference is 2 miles, and it rises to the height of 1,098 feet above the sea, having an elliptical base of 3,300 feet in the major, and 2,200 in the minor axis. It is a mass of columnar syenitic trap and assumes the form of a cone, when looked at from the N. Its sides slope rapidly, and on the N.W. strike perpendicularly into the sea. Only at one point has a small beach been formed. In some parts the columnar structure appears, the columns having a thickness of 6 feet, and a height of 100 feet. They are of much larger size than those of Staffs. The island has abundant vegetation, and swarms with sea-fowl, goats, and rabbits. The gannets build on the flat tope of the columns, whose fracture is perpendicular to their length. On the summit of the rock are the remains of an old castle. A little below the summit are two springs, one of which has formed a little marsh-land round it, with plants of most luxuriant growth. The family of Kennedys, of Culzean, to whom the island belongs, take from it the title of marquis and baron. Its name and stern character have passed, into the proverbial phrase, "Deaf as Ailsa Craig.""

Ask for a calculation of the distance from Dailly to another place.

Maps

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference NS281003 (Lat/Lon: 55.26657, -4.707809), Dailly which are provided by:

OpenStreetMap
Google Maps
StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
Bing (was Multimap)
Old Maps Online
National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

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Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.