Living OUR AREA New Cumnock

New Cumnock, or Cumnock Castle as it was once called, came into being with the splitting of Cumnock Parish in 1650. The parish was split into Old and New Cumnock with New Cumnock having the greater land mass. The Castle of the village's early name dated from the 14th Century - it has also been referred to as the Castle of the Black Bog or Kumnock Castle. By the early 19th century the castle was a ruin and it occupied the site of current Arthur Memorial Church.

Despite being the larger of the two Cumnocks, New Cumnock's soil was poor and often waterlogged. However as landowner's adopted improving techniques such as draining and liming the soil matters improved. Remains of two of Sir Charles Mentieth's three draw kilns which turned limestone into fertilizer can still be seen. Limestone from Benston and Mansefield proved valuable in bridge construction due to its ability to bind under water.

Robert Burns visited New Cumnock and a cairn has been built near the River Afton - Flow gently sweet Afton -  in memory to his visits.

As with the surrounding villages coal has played a major role in the life of New Cumnock. First sought from bell pits and outcrops, the first commercial mining begun at Straid by the Afton Mining Company in the early 18th Century. This industry soon grew quickly and was further helped by the coming of the railway in 1850. By 1909 New Cumnock Collieries was the largest in the area having taken over the Bank and Lanemark Coal Companies. During nationalisation after the Second World War, the six remaining pits were taken over. One of these, Knockshinnoch Castle Colliery, was the scene of a major underground rescue. When a peat bog broke through to the workings over a hundred men were trapped. It took over two days to rescue the men and thirteen were killed.

An ironworks was built in 1847 which saw an influx of workers from County Durham and the housing built for them was called the Furnace Rows. However this was not a successful venture and ten years later it was on the market. Other minerals proved more successful with clay from the area being used in both Cumnock Pottery and brick production.

The closure of the mines and increase in opencasting has resulted in a number of the smaller disparate communities such as Connel Park, Burnfoot and the Bank, moving out. Many were rehoused in the new housing scheme at Bridgend.

A monument to New Cumnock's mining past has been erected at the Castle.

In the early years of the Twentieth Century Glenafton Sanitarium was built to aid recovery from tuberculosis. It was paid for in part by public subscription and lay in the clean air of the Afton Valley. It was converted to a geriatric unit after the introduction of the wonder drug Streptomycin but in the 1960s it was demolished.

The current population of the town is 3749.

For more information on New cumnock why not try looking on www.new-cumnock.co.uk