Ayr

With a population of around fifty thousand, AYR is by far the largest town on the Firth of Clyde coast. It was an important seaport and trading centre for many centuries, and rivalled Glasgow in size and significance right up until the late seventeenth century. Nowadays, the town won't detain you long, though its prestigious racecourse, venue for the Scottish Grand National, pulls in huge crowds, and the local tourist industry continues to do steady business out of the fact that Robbie Burns was born in the neighbouring village of Alloway.

Ayr's busy town centre, wedged between Sandgate and the south bank of the treacly River Ayr, was rebuilt by the Victorians, and is now busy most days with shoppers from all over the county. The most conspicuous landmark is the big, grey, rather ugly castellated Wallace Tower, erected in 1828 at the southern end of the High Street. It stands on what is thought to have been the site of the Edward I's barracks, which was set alight by Wallace in 1297. At the junction of the High Street and Sandgate stands the rather more impressive Neoclassical Town Buildings, completed in 1832, whose spectacular 226ft spire is guarded by griffins, eagles and a Triton.

Ayr's medieval Auld Brig, just east off the High Street, survived the threat of demolition in the early twentieth century, thanks largely to its featuring in a Burns' poem, and is now one of the oldest stone bridges in Scotland, having been built during the reign of James IV (1488-1513). A short stroll upstream from the bridge stands the much restored Auld Kirk, the church funded by Cromwell as recompense for the one he incorporated into the town's fortress. The church's dark and gloomy interior retains the original pulpit (call 01292/262580 for access).

All you can see of Cromwell's zigzag Citadel, built to the west of the town centre in 1650s, is a small section of the old walls - the area is still known locally as "the Fort". To the south of the citadel are the wide, gridiron streets of Ayr's main Georgian and Regency residential development. Wellington Square is the area's showpiece, its trim gardens and terraces overlooked by the County Buildings, a vast, imposing Palladian pile from 1820. The opening of the Glasgow-to-Ayr train line in 1840 brought the first major influx of holiday-makers to the town, but today, only a few hardy visitors and local dog-walkers take a stroll along Ayr's bleak, long Esplanade and beach, which look out to the Isle of Arran.

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