Birlinn Historical Guides Ayrshire

This work is a chronological history of Ayrshire from prehistoric times to the 21st century, including maps of the region. The region was inhabited from earliest times, and many duns, cairns and barrows remain, in some of which important Mesolithic and Iron Age artefacts have been found. Ayrshire has a rich and varied history. The region has been inhabited from earliest times, as the remains of duns, cairns and barrows show. In the medieval period it played a key role in the emergence and consolidation of a unified Scotland, and it was from one of Ayrshire’s many powerful families that the Stewart line of kings emerged. From this period there remain many castles and tower-houses. In more recent times, great houses such as Culzean were rebuilt by the finest architects of their day, and there are a number of important sites dating from the Industrial Revolution. This book is both a narrative history and a guidebook featuring maps and plans as well as a detailed gazetteer enabling the visitor to locate and fully appreciate the many sites described.