NEW CUMNOCK
© Robert Guthrie
ROBERT BURNS
The Burns Trail :
Old Mill
ROBERT BURNS
The Old Mill
New Cumnock was a convenient stopping-off place for Robert Burns on his regular journeys between Mauchline and Ellisland. Here his horse could be fed and stabled overnight whilst he doubtless enjoyed the hospitality in one of the local Inns, either the Old Mill Inn or the Castle Inn. Local tradition suggests that he wrote 'Sweet Afton' at one of these Inns after having visited his friend John Logan at Laight in the picturesque Glen Afton.
It was during a forced overnight stay at the Old Mill Inn, New Cumnock on the 10th January 1789 that Burns penned his bitter ode to the memory of the late Mrs. Oswald. He had never met the lady when she was alive but knew of her only by reputation ' among her servants and tenants I know that she was detested with the most heart-felt cordiality' [Letter to Dr. Moore]. Forced out of the Inn at Sanquhar to make way for her funeral pageantry as it made its way to the Oswald family plot at St.Quivox, Burns' boiling blood may have help keep the wintry chillout as he travelled an unplanned extra 12 miles to New Cumnock.
'In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I had put up at Bailie Whigham's in Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labors of the day, and just as my friend the Bailie and I, were bidding defiance to the storm over a smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs Oswald, and poor I am forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my horse, my young favorite horse, whom I had just christened Pegasus, twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next Inn. The powers of Poesy and Prose sink under me, when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say, that when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed Ode.' Robert Burns, 22nd March, 1789
Verse 1
'Dweller in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation mark!
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonoured years.
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse?'
McKnight of the Old Mill
Chris Rollie gives a brief history of the McKnights of Old Mill in his 'Robert Burns & New Cumnock. He identifies Mrs Betty McKnight (nee Mitchell) and her two sons John and William as tenants of the Old Mill Inn on the night that Burns enjoyed 'a good fire at New Cumnock'. Betty Mitchell was the wife of the late George McKnight (born 1733), son of John McKnight that Chris traces back to the Old Mill in 1732.
These McKnights can be traced further back to Covenanting Times, for in the course of the interrogations of the parishioners of Cumnock (Old and New ) in 1684 is found one John McNaught or McKnaight.
'John McNaught in Mylne of Cumnock*, present upon oath, of the age of 45 yeirs or thereby, maried, depons he cane [add] none to the number of church delinquents conteint in the ministers roll; depones he knowes John Reide in Dunshill and Patrick Gemill, fugatives, but knowes [not] quher they are; depones he knoues ane John Mitchell in the said Millne to have ane child unbaptized, and James Howat in Mossmark to have another child unpbaptized, and depones idem with the former as to the rest of articles, quhich is the trueth . (Signed) John McKnaight.' [Source : Register of the Privy Council, Charles II, 1684]
* N.B.There is little doubt that the Mylne of Cumnock, is the Mill at New Cumnock. The parish of Cumnock was divided into the new parishes of Old Cumnock and New Cumnock in 1650. However, the Earl of Dumfries had this decision annulled in 1667, only to have this reversed in 1691. Therefore any reference to Cumnock in 1684 is a reference to the original parish of Cumnock comprising Old and New. The other references all point to a New Cumnock reference. Patrik Gemil was one of the signatories of the first Sanquhar Declaration and lived at Castle, New Cumnock. Mossmark is adjacent to the Old Mill at New Cumnock .It is also interesting to find John Mitchell in the Millne, an ancestor of Betty Mitchell perhaps.
If John McNaught was born in the Mylne at Cumnock then the McKnights of the Old Mill would go back at least to 1640, one and half centuries before Burns night at the Old Mill. Chris Rollie tracks the family forward from the time of Burns and finds them as Innkeepers not only in the Old Mill, but later at the Castle Inn and later still in Crown Hotel built to capture the passing trade from the new parish church built in 1832.
The Old Mill farm house stands at the Toll overlooking the junction of the roads from Cumnock, Dalmellington and Dumfries. It sits at the foot of a small brae known locally as Shilling Hill. No this wasn't the toll charge to use the road but is simply a corruption of the Scots sheilin hill , a hill where grain is winnowed and freed from the husk.
In his chapter on New Cumnock in his 'Notes on the Way through Ayrshire' George McMichael writes ' the Old Mill and Shelling Hill, by oral tradition the scene of the very old song, "The Mill, Mill, O," a version of which was written down by Burns.
The Mill, Mill, O
'As I cam doon yon water side,
An' by yon Sheilin' Hill, O,
There I spied a bonnie, bonnie lass,
An' a lass I lov'd richt weel, O.
The mill, mill, O, an' the kill, kill, 0,
An' the coggin' o' Peggy's wheel, O-
The seek an' the sieve, an' a' she did leave,
An' danced the miller's reel, O.'
Sadly little now remains of the Old Mill buildings and the mill pond was filled in during the 1970's with new houses built on the site at the bottom of the Afton Road. Gone forever the wonderful Sunday walks along the lade burn from the sluice at the Afton to the mill pond .
