Action Group Supporting Documents.
Rob Close's Notes.
AYR STATION [2], Townhead
AA 16.10.1856 Contractors - Townhead Station - Ayr and Dalmellington Railway.
AA 2.7.1857 Passenger Traffic removed from North Harbour station to new Townhead Station yesterday.
AA, Th 11.8.1881, 4b Railway Company will remove two bridges at Townhead Station after the races, and plan to widen the road opposite Beresford Terrace, and to round the corner, ‘which will be an immense improvement to the neighbourhood’. Now up to the Town to alter/improve the cattle market, ‘an improvement much to be desired.’
AYR STATION [3] and STATION HOTEL
List 328 Andrew Galloway, 1883-1886. Simple French Renaissance, coursed red sandstone, long 3-storey and mansard attic with French pavilion roofs at ends, main entrance front to W, E front looks out over station roofs with bay platform in NE re-entrant angles; N wing is set forward from S wing section with short link and tall square 4-storey attic and garret corner pavilion at centre of composition; N wing consists of 4½ bays of 2 pairs of windows and 2 dormers ending in oblong pavilion with bipartites to front, S wing less regular but basically 4, 2 and 3 windows wide ending in broader pavilions, 2 bipartite windows wide with arch-linked paired stacks marking the bay division. Varied fenestration, arched windows at 1st on E front, wrought iron parapets to pavilion roof platforms except at central pavilion which has a pedimented top. Railed forecourt on W, octagonal gatepiers surmounted by lamps, poor modern addition on W side of S pavilion. Interior: stair, enclosing lift in wrought-iron cage has elaborate renaissance cast-iron balusters. Principal public rooms on 1st floor retain original marble fireplaces, and good contemporary plasterwork, joinerwork, &c. “Carrick Room” has deep panelled dado with ornamental repousse copper panels with figure motifs. Note (from AA 3.6.1886): “Mr Andrew Galloway late engineer to the GSWR prepared the plans. The work was superintended by Mr Robert Wilson, assistant engineer, and Mr Adam. Coffee and Drawing Rooms decorated and furnished by Wylie & Lochhead”. Cost: £50,000. B.
Hume Rebuilt 1886. A 2 platform through station with 2 bay platforms at the north end. The up platform offices are in part of the ground floor of the 4 storey red sandstone hotel, and the down platform offices in a 1 storey 15 bay sandstone block. There were formerly extensive glazed awnings on cast iron columns with cast iron roof trusses, but these have been cut back.
AA, Th 26.1.1871, 6ab Long letter from Red Cap on wrongs of proposed new station at Townhead.
BA 16.4.1880 Ayr TC are agitating for a new railway station in that town.
Groome, 1881 About to be rebuilt.
AA 10.3.1882 It is announced this week that the Directors of the GSWR have resolved to erect a spacious hotel in connection with their new station building at Ayr.
AA, [Engineers Letter Books] Letter of John Mercer, 26.3.1883, to Andrew Galloway. I was sorry at not seeing you when calling to see the plans of new station and hotel last Wednesday, but Mr Adam shewed me them. I was very much pleased with them and have been sounding their praises so much since that the Provost and Magistrates &c are quite on the qui vive to see them, and I may say they are almost to a man in favour of the scheme. It has been proposed to me to write you for a copy of the photo-lithograph to shew them, as they cannot believe from ny description that it is of such magnitude. If you can spare a copy for me, that I may dispel some of their illusions, I shall be much obliged.
AA 17.5.1883 The design and drawings have been prepared in Mr Galloway’s office. 352’ frontage. Successful contractors - Boyd & Forrest, Kilmarnock.
KH, F 18.5.1883, 3a Contractors to be Boyd & Forrest, Kilmarnock. “Mr Galloway has adhered to his sketch plan which we described about a year ago”.
AA 14.1.1886 The business portion of the new passenger station at Ayr was opened on Tuesday.
AA, Th 21.1.1886, 5c … the handsome new station entering from the head of Miller Road had been opened for business purposes. Description; plans: photocopy herewith.
AA 27.5.1886 The Station Hotel will be open for the reception of visitors on and after 1st June 1886.
AA 3.6.1886 Plans prepared by Mr Andrew Galloway, late engineer to the GSWR. Building superintended by Mr Robert Wilson, assistant engineer to the GSWR. Outward design is a free treatment of classic after a simple Renaissance character. Red freestone from Ballochmyle. South end of the west wing is surmounted by a tower with four clock dials. About 350’ in length of the platforms will be covered in with an iron and glass roof constructed by Messrs George Smith & Co., Sun Foundry, Glasgow.
AP 4.6.1886 Contractors: Boyd & Forrest. Marbles, mosaics and tiles, Galbraith & Winton, Glasgow. Stained glass, &c.,J B Bennett & Sons.
Dean of Guild Court 117/1: 119/101 1957 alterations, Frank Burnet & Boston, Glasgow.
AA, Th 22.9.1966, 7b ‘Plans for building an extension to Ayr Station Hotel by constructing a floor on ‘stilts’ over the entrance forecourt would mean that the Ayr-Dunure bus service could no longer pass through the forecourt as at present, Ayr Works Committee were told this week.’
Dean of Guild Court 189/24 1969 alterations, Cowie & Torry, Ayr.
HOTEL
AA, ATD 62/12, 571, AA 15.10.1971
Station Hotel has been sold to the Reo Stakis Organisation. In Ayr, they already own Olde Worlde Inn, Newmarket Street, and Plough, High Street, as well as Halfway House, Symington.
AP, F 3.8.1979, 54be Last Sunday’s Powerhouse Disco Rock Club (Tom Jones) was the last at Station Hotel due to upgrading of the hotel by Reo Stakis. Club has been going for one year. “Renovations and improvements to the hotel, which include a beef house and buffet dining facilities, are almost complete and the suite devoted to the disco fits in to the management’s ‘upgrade’ plans. Tom Jones is going to the Pavilion, Fridays and Saturdays. [The Ayr Folk Club also no longer meet every Sunday in the Kintyre Suite).
ELECTRIFICATION
SRC, HT(Public Transport) SC 2.4.1985
Ayr Ardrossan Glasgow Electrification. First units should be in operation, Ayr Glasgow, Summer 1986, with full service by 6th October 1986, and the Ardrossan service electrified by March 1987.
AP, F 21.10.2011, 8 [1986] 25 Years Ago. The £84 million electrified rail link between Ayr and Glasgow is launched by British Rail chairman Sir Robert Reid. He blows a whistle and waves a flag for the first train, driven by Ayr man John Templeton, and Provost Gibson Macdonald hails ‘a great day for Kyle and Carrick’.
GSWR WAR MEMORIAL
nr Formerly at St Enoch Station, Glasgow, closed in 1966.
Johnston & Hume Sir Robert Lorimer, designer.
Evening Times 17.2.1922 Sir Robert Lorimer, designer.
GH 18.2.1922 Unveiled yesterday by Earl Haig. Large tablet of Dalbeattie granite with bronze panels containing the names of the 302 fallen GSWR staff.
AA, Th 23.2.1922 Unveiled last Friday.
Railway Gazette 36/8, 24.2.1922 Photograph.
JOHN MILLER PLAQUE
AP, F 4.5.2012, 12 Unveiled. Funded by Institution of Civil Engineers
DISTRICT GOODS AND PASSENGER MANAGER
AA, Th 13.7.1944, 2c Robert MARSHALL has retired: retiral bash. Succeeded by James SMITH
STATIONMASTER
TT, F 17.3.1899, 8c Robert BROWN appointed. (stationmaster Lugar 1878-82, Muirkirk 1882-1899)
AA, Th 23.3.1922, 6c Andrew HAMILTON has retired (seriously ill)
AA, Th 23.3.1922, 6c Robert JARDINE, from Kilmarnock, appointed. Born Racks, where was also stationmaster, then various head office jobs, and to Kilmarnock 2.10.1906.