Close to Prestwick Airport, a few miles from Ayr, a handsome monument stands on high ground. It was erected in the middle of the eighteenth century to commemorate a local boy, of very humble beginnings, who had made a fortune in the service of the East India Company. The monument came close to total collapse before, hurrah, a local campaign secured its future.

Macrae is said to have left his native Ayr when little more than a boy and found work on boats leaving the busy port. He worked his way up the ranks to the influential position of Governor of Fort St George, a British power base at Madras (now Chennai) in India. In his time as Governor (he held the position from 1725-1730), Macrae ‘acquired a handsome Estate’, and he returned to Britain a wealthy man in around 1731. In 1736 he was said to be laying out his fortune in ‘purchasing Lands’ and this included an estate at Monkton, near Ayr, which he called Orangefield in honour of William III – Macrae also funded the erection of a statue of William of Orange in Glasgow in 1735.

Four years after Macrae’s death in June 1744, work began on his monument. No records have been found to explain the planning behind the structure – there is no inscription and the architect is unknown. We don’t even know who commissioned the monument, although Macrae’s sole heir and executor the Countess of Glencairn, née Elizabeth Maguire, seems likely. Whilst there has been speculation that the structure was intended as Macrae’s mausoleum, his will simply requests that he be ‘decently buried’.

John Swan began work on the monument in 1748, but the near complete structure is recorded as having collapsed the following year before being rebuilt in 1750 (and this is corroborated by the discovery of damaged stone in the rubble infill during the restoration). This information, the only early history of the monument the Flâneuse can find, is recorded in the second volume of James Paterson’s History of Ayr, published in 1852, and all later descriptions of the fine monument rely on his account.

A century after it was built surveyors mapping the county of Ayrshire noted ‘Macrae’s Monument’ as a ‘very prominent object’ (earlier maps simply mark the structure as ‘Monument’). It is unsurprising then that in the second half of the nineteenth century it was used as a landmark for the hunt, with many reports of the hounds and their prey racing by. Robert Bryden (1865-1939) took this view in 1912, and by that date the monument was ‘in a rather dilapidated condition’, although no major issues can be seen in his fine etching.

In 1967 an officer from the National Monuments Record of Scotland visited the site. He wrote that the ‘small pylonic monument’ was ‘well executed’ and noted the maritime motifs which featured on the four faces. There was however ‘considerable decay of the stonework’, although some repointing was underway when he visited.

These motifs include a shell, dolphins, a stylised castellated building on a rock, a trident and an anchor. Mr Hay’s detailed investigation of the monument took longer than expected, with an added delay caused by his Land Rover getting stuck in a stony patch. Disgruntled and hungry, he finished his report with the note ‘No lunch’.

The tower continued to decay, and by the end of the twentieth century it was in a most precarious condition, having been damaged in a storm. The monument was restored in the early years of the current century under the auspices of the Three Towers Trust working with Ayr-based ARPL Architects. There was strong support from the landowner, Glencara Estates, and from the local community, as well as funding from Historic Environment Scotland and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The obelisk had to be taken down to enable the rebuilding of the square base, and the shaft was re-erected once that had been consolidated.

Macrae was buried in Monkton churchyard, but no stone marks the spot (although a modern headstone records that he is interred somewhere in the churchyard). The story is told locally that a group of Macrae’s friends, in high spirits after a two-day drinking spree, exhumed his body from the churchyard and re-interred it in the newly-completed monument. Human remains of four adults and two children were found in the monument during the restoration work, but were thought to be of a later date. Like much else about the monument, the identity of those whose remains were found remains a mystery.

In the jet-setting 1940s Macrae’s former estate became home to Prestwick Airport, with the mansion as its centrepiece – Orangefield is probably the only country house to end its days with an air traffic control tower plonked on its roof. The building is sadly no more.

The monument (upgraded to Category A in 1994), was once a distant landmark, but is now on the edge of a new housing estate and is easy to reach from the road named…

The Flâneuse thanks Susan Kellerman for sharing her research into the monument, undertaken at the time of its restoration. Thanks also to Peter Drummond, of Peter Drummond Architects. Peter was part of the ARLP team at the time of the restoration.

UPDATE: thanks to John Malaiperuman for the fascinating observation that the monument echoes the tower and spire of the church of St Mary at Fort St George, a building that Macrae would have known well.

This is the 400th post to be published after 8 years of the Folly Flâneuse. Thank you for reading!

Inspired by a folly which he had seen in Ireland, Joe Donnelly decided to build an eye-catcher on a patch of waste ground near his home. It was constructed between 2011 and 2015, and once the building work was complete Joe, with his grandson Aidan, created a garden around the folly. During lockdown Joe and Aidan (the latter by now working in horticulture) used their time to redesign the planting around the sham ruin.

The folly echoes the genuine ruins of nearby Kilwinning Abbey, below. The abbey was established in the late 1100s as home to a community of monks from Kelso Abbey, but was abandoned after the Protestant Reformation in Scotland in 1560. History tells that the abbey was pulled down by a ‘Protestant mob’, but the dramatic wall and gable of the south transept were left standing.

The folly at Kilwinning continues a Scottish tradition of such simple, but extremely effective, eye-catchers in the landscape. At Blair Atholl in Perthshire stands The Whim, built in the middle of the eighteenth century as an object to be viewed from Blair Castle in the valley below.

And on the Mellerstain estate in the Borders is the wonderfully named Hundy Mundy, thought to have been erected in the 1720s as an eye-catcher from the mansion. The tale is told that the folly takes its name from a Pictish Princess called Hunnimundias who lived nearby. The Flâneuse often experiences frissons of excitement when visiting follies, but she was surprised to feel such a powerful surge when visiting the Hundy Mundy: it turns out that she was leaning against an untagged electric fence when trying to get a good photograph.

High on a hillside in Easter Ross are the equally exotically named Gates of Negapatam, also known as the Fyrish Monument. The folly was erected in 1782 by Sir Hector Munro, the 8th Earl of Novar (1726-1805) who had served in Madras and, as the story goes, modelled his hilltop monument on that city’s Gates of Negapatam.

The Kilwinning folly might stand in a slightly less palatial plot, but it is every bit as impressive. The planting around the folly is constantly evolving, with old roses, herbaceous plants, grasses and bulbs adding interest.

The folly can be seen from the road, but as it is a private garden the Flâneuse won’t reveal the exact location: intrepid folly spotters will find it. For more on Kilwinning Abbey click here.

The Whim at Blair and the Fyrish monument can be reached via public footpaths. The land around the Hundy Mundy is now a tranquil woodland burial ground but respectful visitors are welcome.

Thanks to the Scottish Correspondent for sharing news that the Fyrish Monument’s lonely hilltop setting is threatened by plans for an onshore wind farm. There’s more here.

Your thoughts are always welcome – scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page to get in touch. Thank you for reading.

The gruesome tale is told that William Wallace, the famed Scottish soldier, stood on Barnweil Hill, near Tarbolton in Ayrshire, and watched as the barns in which he had trapped English soldiers were set alight. He is supposed to have uttered the words ‘The barns o’Ayr burn weel’, giving the spot its name. Few people seem to have genuinely believed this story, but in 1854 the decision was taken to erect a tower on the hilltop to commemorate ‘the matchless Sir William Wallace’.

Wallace led his country’s rebellion against the English, including a great victory at Stirling Bridge in 1297. But in 1305 he was captured, pronounced guilty of treason and executed in London. He became a national hero in his homeland, and ever since has personified Scottish patriotism.

One of his greatest admirers was William Patrick of Roughwood, near Beith, a ‘patriotic Ayrshire gentleman’. He gave the funds to build the tower, which was erected on land given ‘with hearty concurrence’ by Brigadier General Smith Neil of Swinridgemoor. Superintending the building work was William Dobie, a local antiquary and poet who is credited with the design of the tower. Dobie was also responsible for the ‘greater number of the many spirited inscriptions on the monument’ (of which more in a moment).

In the first days of August 1855 preparations were being made for laying the foundation stone. The mason, Robert Snodgrass Snr, and his team must have cracked on as within three weeks the tower was already over 20 feet high. Stone slabs were set into three faces of the tower ready for the encomiastic inscriptions composed by Dobie. As there are hundreds of words on the three panels the Flâneuse does not intend to transcribe them here, but in summary they list Wallace’s great military victories and commend his leadership in throwing off the ‘yoke of foreign oppression’ and maintaining the ‘independence and nationality of Scotland’.

In 1899 the two remaining trustees of the tower handed it into the care of Ayr Town Council, along with a ‘small sum of money for maintenance’. The tower was at that date described as ‘badly out of repair’, so the funds were presumably soon depleted. Historically, there was access to the rooftop viewing platform with its magnificent panorama, but this is now limited to occasional open days.

The exterior of the tower (listed at Category A) can be seen at any reasonable time, and unlike many a hilltop tower there is a narrow road right up to it for those who don’t fancy the climb.

As a plaque on site notes, the Barnweil Tower is ‘one of a series of Wallace monuments built throughout the country in the nineteenth century’.

Among them is the national monument to Wallace, which stands in Stirling. It was first proposed in 1851, but progress was slow and the foundation stone was not laid until 1861. A funding crisis in 1863 threatened to leave the unfinished tower as ‘one of Scotland’s follies’, but the promoters did not give up, and the opening ceremony was held, at last, in 1869.

But by far the most dramatic of the memorials is the wonderful statue of Wallace high above Dryburgh Abbey in the Borders. Erected in around 1814 it stands a monumental 31 feet (9.44m) tall.

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome: the comments box can be found at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading.

It is hard to find a town or village in Ayrshire that doesn’t have a monument to Robert Burns, but the little town of Mauchline has the honour of being home to the ‘National Burns Memorial’. Together with five cottage homes for ‘deserving people who have fallen on hard times’, the tower was built in 1896 as a memorial to the poet.

Burns (1759-1796) rented a farm near Mauchline from 1784 to 1791, and it was during this period that he produced many of his best-loved poems. He married a Mauchline girl, Jean Armour, who was known as ‘the Belle of Mauchline’.

Whilst living at Mossgiel Farm Burns would visit Mauchline and drink at Poosie Nancy’s tavern, which still stands today. Did he also pop into the town’s Syrian Barbers to have his trademark tousled locks attended to?

The competition to design the monument was won by architect William Fraser (1867-1922) and the foundation stone was laid on 23 July 1896. The crowd present was said to be 10,000 strong, and the procession of trades, guilds, clubs and the general public stretched a mile in length.

The ceremony was followed by a celebratory banquet for the V.I.P.s where the menu included ‘Scotch Haggis’ as an entrée and ‘Burns Tart’ as one of the sweet courses. The Flâneuse hasn’t been able to find a recipe to recreate this for a Burns Night supper, although it seems it may have been something like an Ecclefechan Tart which has nuts and fruit in a pastry case.

The tower became a museum housing Burns memorabilia, and visitors could climb to the top to admire the impressive panorama.

The museum is long gone, but for the last 12 or so years the tower has been home to Johnston Art, showing the work of Elaine Johnston, and if you visit when the gallery is open you might be lucky enough to be invited to climb up to the roof to admire the view (and the artworks en route).

This post will arrive with readers on Burns Night 2025, so best wishes to all who are celebrating this evening. The Folly Flâneuse and the Uncouth Companion will ‘take a cup of kindness’ and toast you all.

For lots more on Mauchline and the monument visit the Ayrshire History website.

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