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’.