Дальри: История шотландского городка и его окрестностей.

Dalry (/d//æ//l/'/r//aɪ/) is a small town in the Garnock Valley in Ayrshire, Scotland. Drakemyre is a northern suburb.

In 1892, John Fulton installed one of the first hydroelectric plants in Ayrshire, generating electricity for Broadlie House. The dam still exists (2008) and can be seen on the Putyan Burn close to a pedestrian bridge that gave views of the installation to visitors. The water was carried downstream to a turbine house through a cast iron pipe.

This house derives its name from 'Dogger'. Dogger is Scots for a course ironstone, which has been mined in the area as witnessed by waste bings below Ryefield and at Flashwood. A fine, but now redundant, cast iron bridge crosses the Rye Water at Doggartland.

On the 8th Nov 1576, midwife Bessie Dunlop, resident of Lynne, in Dalry, was accused of sorcery and witchcraft. She answered her accusers that she received information on prophecies or to the whereabouts of lost goods from a Thomas Reid, a former barony officer in Dalry who died at the Battle of Pinkie some 30 years before. She said she first met him while walking between her own house and the yard of Monkcastle, and after a discussion he then disappeared through a hole in a wall or dyke, apparently too small for a normal person to pass through. She said she was trained by her "familiar" on how to make and use ointments to heal livestock and people. She was said to have cured and advised various people from poor children to gentry. As a "wise woman" her strange efforts at the time attracted the attention of the law. Her abilities were more akin to today's current psychics, and with an understanding of medicinal herbs, she was identified in a time of witchcraft hysteria. It resulted in a conviction and the tragic outcome was that she was burnt at the stake. at Castle Hill in Edinburgh in 1576. She is also said to have been burnt at Corsehillmuir, just outside Kilwinning. Alexander Peden (1626–1686) the renowned covenanting minister and remarked as a "profit" (sic) traveled throughout the district. He was said to have preached from Peden's Point (a rocky outcrop) in a natural auditorium at the head of the Lynn glen. When the main parish church at the Glebe was resited at the "cross" in 1608 it created around it a "kirktoun" establishing the village of Dalry. By 1700 the inhabitants of Dalry still however, numbered barely 100 and contained only about six dwellings. In the mid 18th century, Dalry was still the only town in the parish. In 1830 there were about 1,000 inhabitants, and the town consisted of five streets, three of these radiated from the "cross" or centre forming a square. Weekly market were held on Thursdays, and there were fairs in January, May and July. At that time it was a reasonably large irregular shaped rural parish, centred around on the small town of Dalry. The parish included the small settlements / villages of Blair, Burnside, Drakemire, Southfield and the Den.

Various manufacturing existed in the parish relating to cotton and carpet yarn with silk and harness weaving, in which both men and women were employed. A significant number of women were occupied in sewing and embroidering, mainly for the Glasgow and Paisley manufacturers. The dressing and spinning of flax to some extent was also done in the area. The opening of numerous limeworks, and a number of coal pits from the 1840s, wholly changed the character of the parish of Dalry. It became an increasingly industrial area peppered with mines to provide the ore and coal to fuel the blast furnaces at the various iron works. The town lies on the Ayrshire Coast Line and once was a busier junction with trains from Kilmarnock and the Dalry and North Johnstone Line joining the line here. The railway station at Dalry opened in March 1840 as part of the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway. The station at Dalry Junction opened in April 1843 with the line to Kilmarnock via Crosshouse, subsequently closing in January 1860 with the interchange transferred to Dalry railway station. The line to Kilmarnock remained open with local services ceasing in 1955, with occasional long distance passenger services remaining. The line closed in 1973, following the electrification of the WCML. The closure of the Dalry and North Johnstone Line to passengers in 1966 and through freight in 1971, and steel freight traffic to Kilbirnie in 1977. Dalry station retained four platforms until rebuilding of the station and associated overbridge as part of the electrification of the Ayrshire Coast line during the early 1980s. Maps and information of the time indicate a rail line from Blair iron works to the main line. This development of large iron works and the mining of ore and coal further increased the housing stock and population in and around the area. The suburb of Blair for example developed around one such ironworks. Numerous bings next to these excavations in the area are still evident to this day. Morning and evening daily stage coaches passed through Dalry on the routes between Glasgow and various coastal destinations. The "Fair Trader" coach stopped at the Crown Inn and the "Herald" coach at the King's Arms, neither ran on Sundays. There were also several public houses, which had accommodation for travellers. The public libraries at the time were the "Dalry Library", the "Dalry Church Library" and the "United Secession Library". At this time the town was lit by gas, by a Company formed in 1834. The River Garnock helps to irrigate the valley and, joined by the tributaries Rye Water and Caaf Water, was a driving force behind the establishment of the town. These waters were utilised by the various mills in the 19th century

The industries of limestone, coal and ironstone assisted Dalry to develop into a thriving mining community. The iron was smelted in the furnaces of the four great iron companies the Ayrshire, the Glengarnock, the Eglinton and the Blair. In 1845 a visitor was "astonished at the change and at the numerous tasks of the busy labourers. The blaze of furnaces, the smoke of coal pits, the whiter volume emitted by limekilns, and the building of houses, are at intervals seen all over the district." In the 1870s it is stated that Blair Iron Works and others in the area were part of the group owned by William Baird & Co. who then was the largest pig iron producer in the world. This once industrial town, like many such towns in this area of Scotland has seen a sharp decline of traditional industry, which has hit the town hard. In addition to coal mining, iron stone mining and textile manufacturing the town also had clay mines to be used in the areas various brickworks. To produce common red brick these brickworks were also well supplied with clay extracted from coal mine waste, available from the numerous "bings" throughout the valley, whereas the mined clay was required for higher quality fire brick. On the edge of the town lies a large chemical plant once operated by Roche, but now run by DSM, producing vitamins C and B5.

The Douglas Firebrick Company Ltd had its works located where the Wilson Car Auction company now trades (2008). The works closed in September 1945. The railway was double track and narrow gauge, working through a 'cable and pulleys' system on light steel rails. The gravity railroad allowed the weight of the loaded cars, which were disconnected for unloading, to return the empty ones back up to the mine. The surface of the inclined plane railroad was paved with firebricks, for employees to walk up the tracks to get to the main Dalry to Kilwinning road where they could catch a bus. The small brick structure gave them shelter from the weather, while they waited. The building is open on the southerly side, and originally had windows on the others (now bricked in), so that they could watch for the next bus coming. The current access road and bridge are more recent additions, as formerly vehicular access to the works was by a road which connected to the area near the railway station, almost a mile (1.5 km) to the north. The railway went through a short cutting and passed under the main road in a short tunnel. A truck has been preserved at the nearby Dalgarven Mill Museum of Scottish Country Life and Costume.

The Lovers' Lane and Lovers' Bridge in Dalry are recorded on old postcards and maps of the 19th century, however it seems to have evolved over the years to include paths that didn't then exist. The 1856 maps shows that no bridge existed across the River Garnock near the confluence of the Garnock and the Putyan Burn, but a well was located nearby on the town side of the river and a path to this well ran up to Garnock Street and Aitken Street. A formal footpath and a footbridge had been built by 1896 and various postcards show an ever more impressive path running beside the river that is named as the Lovers' Walk. The original bridge was made of steel, now replaced by a wooden construction. A footpath also ran down from Bridgend Lane to the new footbridge and this seems to have been or become part of the Lovers' Walk of Victorian and Edwardian times. Today the Lovers' Walk seems to have been stretched even more to include the walk down beside the river, under the railway and back up to the Blair Road via Blairland Farm. You can still get fine rural views from the Lovers' Bridge across the holm to the old Dalry Manse and sightings of kingfishers are reported from time to time, accompanied by that of ubiquitous but picturesque mallards. The original Lovers' Walk has lost much of its romance, but at least the name lives on locally.

A rural school that lay near the Blair Estate is recorded in a photograph and is shown on old Ordnance Survey maps. In 1856 the school is marked as 'Blairmains' located on the junction onto the lane to Templelandmuir with two buildings, one possibly the teacher's residence and the school room in what may have been a playground. A well is nearby, reached by a path running from the two buildings and a small building was located a few metres away, just the other side of the Blair Estate boundary wall. In 1895 the school appears to have been rebuilt with two quite different buildings present that seem to be a school room and a toilet/washroom block. Two wells are present and a path runs across the site on the other side of the buildings. The nearby building in the Blair Estate is no longer marked. In 1909 only a single well is shown and the surrounding grounds are marked as overgrown. A nearby site of interest is that of a Pre Reformation chapel that was located nearby on the Blair Estate side of the boundary wall. No remains survive above ground.

St Palladius's Church is one of three churches in the parish of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galloway; the other two are Our Lady's (Beith) and St Brigid's Church, Kilbirnie.