New Cumnock Castle Mystery

Every year more and more people get off the Glasgow to Carlisle train at New Cumnock station, making their way to SWT’s “Knockshinnoch Lagoons” and to the Uplands by way of Glen Afton. Few notice the road sign – CASTLE – as they walk along the main street of the town. There is no sign of any such structure in the area, but there was, and once you realise that every year more weight is added to the theory that this was William Wallace territory you may become interested in the origin of the name.

Firstly, there are two castles in the valley of the Afton: one being the main street, where Comenagh Castle stood, upon what is now known as Castle Hill. The other being situated “up the Glen” and referred to, since the 14th century, as Castle William; William Wallaces stronghold.

No one is sure who built the first fortress on Castle Hill but records tell us that it was a Norman family in the 12th or 13th century. We know for certain that Patrick Dunbar held the Castle here in 1296 as he signed the Ragman Roll: ‘Patric de Comenagh del counte de Are' . Historians can’t agree on the origin of the name Comenagh which has been lost in the mists of time.

One of the posibilities is –MEETING PLACE– which would be apt as that is what it is today, the place to meet to enter a Gateway to the Uplands.

In the winter of 1296/7 William Wallace recouperated in Comenagh, the seat of the Dunbars, so is this where he met others of the same patriotic thinking and organised his forces? Was it a meeting place in the early 14th century? Dr Watson (Fiona) informed us in her Report into the association of Sir William Wallace with Ayrshire for East Ayrshire Council in 1999, that “The castle also had the dubious honour of being the point at which the dying Edward I, desperate to bring Robert Bruce to book, was forced to turn back into England in 1307 due to his ill health. Edward II also stayed there during his campaign in August 1307. The castle was restocked immediately after Bruce’s skirmish with an English force at Loudoun Hill, suggesting that it was regarded as strategically critical in this period, as the English sought, unsuccessfully, to encircle the Scottish king.”

Comenagh has a very strong religious background stretching back to the 6th century but that’s another story. Come to New Cumnock and make up your own mind.

Today the only fortress on Comenagh’s Castle Hill is the derelict Arthur Memorial Church, built in 1912/13 by the Welsh architect GW Beddoes Rees: his only building in Scotland.


Arthur Memorial UF Church	Looking into New Cumnock from the railway station

There are a few websites for those interested in learning more about the history of New Cumnock:
http://www.east-ayrshire.gov.uk/content.asp?url=/comser/tourism/William%20Wallace.pdf
http://www.newcumnock.net/
http://members.tripod.com/bob_newcumnock/nchome/welcomex.html