Town in Ayrshire, Scotland

Ayr

The pioneer of macadam roads was born here, in the same town where Tam o' Shanter did his drinking and Cromwell built a fortress around a church.

Key information

County: Ayrshire
Nation: Scotland
Population: about 46,800 (2011 Census)
Known for: Robert Burns, Ayr Racecourse, the Scottish Grand National, a seaside beach and the Auld Brig
Famous people: Robert Burns, John Loudon McAdam, Robert the Bruce (associated)
Football clubs: Ayr United (the Honest Men), Somerset Park

About Ayr

The road-maker from Ayr

Every time you drive over a smooth surface you are in debt to Ayr. John Loudon McAdam was born here in 1756, and his method of building roads with layers of compacted broken stone gave us the word macadam. Tarmac, the tar-bound version, came later: Edgar Purnell Hooley patented it in 1902. But it grew from McAdam's idea. It is a very Ayr sort of legacy: unglamorous, enormously useful and quietly everywhere.

Where Tam o' Shanter did his drinking

Ayr is the starting point of one of Scotland's best-loved poems. Robert Burns, born in 1759 in nearby Alloway, opened Tam o' Shanter with a market day in Ayr, where Tam sits drinking while his wife waits at home, gathering her wrath. He then rides home past the haunted Alloway Auld Kirk and over the Brig o' Doon, where his grey mare Meg loses her tail to a witch. Burns also gave the town its affectionate name. He called it Auld Ayr, a town that 'ne'er a town surpasses for honest men and bonnie lasses'. That line is why Ayr United are known as the Honest Men. The Auld Brig o' Ayr, a medieval stone bridge over the River Ayr, even gets its own Burns poem, The Brigs of Ayr, in which the old bridge and the new one argue with each other.

A royal burgh, a Parliament and a Cromwellian fort

William the Lion made Ayr a royal burgh in 1205, giving the town trading rights and a harbour that put it on the map. In 1315 a Parliament met in Ayr to settle the succession to Robert the Bruce's crown. The town is also tied to the legend of William Wallace and the burning of the Barns of Ayr in 1297, one of the best-known stories of the Wars of Independence. In 1652 Oliver Cromwell's army built a citadel here, the largest of the Scottish forts he raised. It was built around St John's Church, which the soldiers took over as an armoury, using its tower as a lookout. Little else remains of the fortress, but the church tower survives as a reminder of the Cromwellian years.

Horses, a Gold Cup and a Grand National

Ayr Racecourse is the biggest day out in the town's calendar. In April it hosts the Scottish Grand National, the country's top jump race, and in September it stages the Ayr Gold Cup, one of the great sprint handicaps in British racing and a reliable wallet-emptier for punters. Football in the town belongs to Ayr United, formed in 1910 when Ayr FC and Ayr Parkhouse merged. They play at Somerset Park, an old-fashioned ground where the club have been based for well over a century. Ayr also has a long rugby tradition, with Ayr RFC among the best-known clubs in Scotland.

Beach, steeple and Burns country

Ayr is that rare thing, a proper seaside town with a long sandy beach, a promenade and a view across the Firth of Clyde to the hills of Arran. Locals walk the Low Green and the beach year-round, and on clear days the Arran skyline is hard to miss. In town, the Wallace Tower on the High Street is a Gothic landmark built in 1832, topped with a statue of the hero himself. The Tam o' Shanter Inn, with its thatched look and Burns connections, is still one of the most photographed pubs in the town. A few miles away in Alloway you can find Burns Cottage, the Burns Monument and the Brig o' Doon, which together make this one of the world's great literary pilgrimages.

What Ayrshire puts on the plate

Ayrshire farmland shapes the local menu. The county's new potatoes, grown in a mild coastal climate, arrive early and are prized, while Ayrshire bacon and Dunlop cheese, a mild Scottish cheddar-style cheese from the county, are staples. The Ayrshire cow, a handsome red-and-white dairy breed, takes its name from the area. On Burns Night, 25 January, the town's tables fill with haggis, neeps and tatties, washed down with a dram, at suppers in the poet's home turf.

Ayr