Brown St

A Journey through Newmilns towards the end of the 19th Century In April 1937, Mr Walker read a paper at a Circle meeting entitled "Memories" and these were chiefly concerned with the town as he knew it in his early boyhood days. In his paper, Mr Walker described very vividly and in detail the places, personalities and customs of "our Toon" in the 1880's..... Brown Street, Nelson Street, Bridgend & Toonfit Though a true Newmilnsite both by birth and parentage, my earliest recollections of Oor Toon are coming to it as a visitor. Like many others, when the hand-loom weaving went down, my father had to leave the town to get work. This he found at the railway sheds at Barleith, where we went to live when I was still in the infant stage and it was from there, when I was in my early years, I was brought to visit friends at home. In those days, the Railway Station was at the foot of the brae and stood near where the present weigh-house stands. It was much smaller than the present one, with only one platform, there being just a single line from Galston. The old station was built of grey stone and incidentally, I may say, when it was dismantled, the stones were taken to Darvel and rebuilt as a dwelling house, near the Townfoot of that burgh. Coming out of the station, then as now, Pate's Mill was the first object we saw. The building is little changed, the biggest difference being that in these days, there was a real mill-wheel turned by water from the lade which came from the Miller's Dam just below the Institute Brig. Before going up Brown Street, we shall take a look westwards. In those days, there were only the two lace factories in that direction - Haddow Aird's and Wm. Morton & Co. together with the Liggat's Madras factory. From then onwards, there were nothing but fields till one came to the Bleachfield. Brown Street is pretty much the same in outline as today especially at the west end, but I think I am safe in saying nearly two-thirds of the houses were "thacked" roofed and quite a large percentage of them were still hand-loom shops. Generally speaking, there were four-loom shops and six-loom shops, that is, some houses were big enough to take in six looms whilst others only held four. (The families owning the looms generally resided in the other parts of the house - a family "but and ben" with the weaving shops downstairs and two attics upstairs). As I have already said, hand-loom weaving was on the way out and as a result, house after house got renovated; the six-loom shops turned into a room and kitchen and the "thack" roof taken off and a slate one put in its place. The "smiddy" at the foot of the "Houm" was then occupied by auld Wullie Pollock. A wood erection built on a small piece of ground beside the smiddy had been at one time a photographic studio, but as far as I can remember, in my time it was used by auld Samuel Muir as a workshop when he made walking sticks etc. Half way up the street stood Blair's clipping machine shop in the front portion of what is now Jamieson and Anderson's factory. There may have been more, but I only remember three shops in this street then - Annie Young's or Mrs. Torrance's sweetie shop, Andrew Wallace, whose photo until recently hung in the Temperance Hall, had a grocery shop a few doors further up and James Hood, grocer and tax collector further up the street. What is now the property belonging to Mr Melville was in these days a one-storey old fashioned house like its neighbours. Further up on the other side of the street is the Post Office, still a comparatively new building. This took the place of some low white-washed thatch roofed houses. In one of them, auld Nannie Woods kept a wee shop and was noted for her "Black Man" - a kind of treacle toffee of her own make. Website

The Wee Shops in Newmilns before 1910 The following memories were transcribed from an old letter written by (the late) Jean Lawson in 1980. It begins with a quote from the book 'Lays o' th' Hameland'... "Aft, aft, hae I pondered on scenes of my childhood, The days ance sae happy, O come back again! When I pu'd the wild daisies that spangled the green-wood. And gie'd them awa' to my wee lovers then. O memory's dear." Sitting one night, I was harking back on the old days, over seventy years ago. Everything was so clear, just like looking through a mirror, and I thought, why not write it all down? You can remember, but some cannot, and yet, if they were reading about the old days, it would all come back. So, here goes. I was born in 1898, and when I was four, the family moved to Brown Street. I went to Lady Flora’s school with my elder sister on washing days, but before long I went every day, everyone knew one another. It was really there being so many wee shops in Brown Street, that started me thinking, so that is what your are going to hear about. Starting at the top where the Post Office is now, was Granny McKelvie, she was famous for toffee. About three doors down was Jeanie Smith, a wee sort of drapers etc. you could get a nice wee doll four inches long with long blond hair for one penny, or if you were invited to a birthday party, you could buy a lovely string of pearls in a box for sixpence. She had a glass case on the counter under which rested elastic, baby ribbon, safety pins, false hair, pads and chocolate caramels. Across the street lived wee blind John Jamieson with his granny, he went up and down all day playing a mouth organ and suppose he was at the far end of the street, granny would come to the edge of the pavement and call Joooon, he turned and came back at once. Further down on the same side, John Browning had a greenhouse, he sold tomatoes and sometimes when you went for 1/2lb, he would give you a golden one for yourself – they were very rare then. Brown cowfeeder came next, the kye being slapped through the entry before they made a mess, then Morton the Blacksmith, opposite was Wallace & Torrance Joiners. If there was a death on a Saturday, the hammering went on all day Sunday making the coffin, no ready made ones then. Granny Torrance’s wee shop next, where we went when we were going a picnic to Windy Hill burn, to buy a wee dumpy cola and 1d of paris biscuits - we got 14. Across the street again to Willie Mathie, a paper and sweet shop. Willie was a painter and gave us his old books of swatches to make fans or even parasols. If you fancied a new hat, you went to Yvonne Chambers, in these days we had both spring and summer hats. Website

Some Historical Recollections of Newmilns The following two descriptive passages have been taken from the Newmilns Regeneration Association website where the full passages can be found. As the historical part of the website doesn’t seem to have been edited recently I’ve taken the liberty of copying the text onto this site in case it were to disappear.