West Kilbride

Today we drove to West Kilbride, on the west coast, and the birthplace of Arthur Begg in 1922.  He left for New Zealand at the age of 9 months.  His grandparents, parents and brothers and sisters also migrated to NZ.  His father was the blacksmith, as was his father before him.  The family house is still there, in Cubrieshaw Street:

The Begg family house in Cubrieshaw Street, 2016

The same house about 1914

Arthur's mother lived and worked at a big house above the town, called Crosby Towers, so we went looking for that too.  It's a short distance above the town, in a caravan park.

Crosby House

When we found it, there was a young man moving debris around near the house, who stopped and introduced himself as the son of the owner.  He was very friendly and said he lived there before a fire in 1991 severly damaged it.  He told us his family still owns it, but cannot repair or renovate it because the authorities will not let them do anything except restore it using original materials, which would be impossibly expensive.  As a result it is derelict and slowly falling to pieces!

Crosby Towers is based on an earlier building erected by an uncle of William Wallace ("Braveheart") in the 1300's.

We also went down to check out the beach, which is lined with big houses looking out to sea.  No one was swimming, and we were not of a mind to.

West Kilbride Beach

Lat stop was a visit to the cemetery, where Sue hoped to find the resting place of Tommy Begg, brother of Arthur who died in 1922 as a young boy and was buried here.  After a full search we decided his headstone must have gone, so left flowers at the spot we believed it had been (plot E9).

Flowers for Tommy Begg

West Kilbride flower with bee