Town in Ayrshire, Scotland
Largs
Storms drove Norwegian ships ashore at Largs in 1263, a Largs-born governor lent his name to Brisbane, and a 1930s Art Deco café still serves Italian ice cream.
Key information
- County
- Ayrshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- About 11,600 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- The 1263 Battle of Largs, Nardini's ice cream, the Millport ferry and the Viking Festival
- Famous people
- Sir Thomas Brisbane, King Haakon IV of Norway, King Alexander III
- Football clubs
- Largs Thistle
About Largs
The day storms drove Norwegian ships ashore
In the autumn of 1263, King Haakon IV of Norway sailed into the Firth of Clyde with a huge fleet. He wanted to hold on to the Hebrides and the western seaboard, which Scotland's young king, Alexander III, was determined to claim. Then the weather turned. Gales drove some Norse ships ashore at Largs, and fighting broke out on the beach and the slopes above it. Neither side won a clean knockout, but Haakon pulled back north. He died that December in Orkney. The fight at Largs mattered because of what followed. In 1266 the Treaty of Perth handed the Hebrides and the Isle of Man to Scotland, in return for 4,000 marks and a yearly payment of 100 marks. A beach skirmish helped redraw the map of Scotland.
Why a giant pencil stands by the shore
Local people call it the Pencil. It's a slim stone monument at the southern end of the town, near the marina, put up in 1912 to commemorate the battle. It's easy to spot from the shore and out on the water. The Vikings aren't forgotten in other ways either. Each September the Largs Viking Festival brings out longships, costumed warriors and a mock battle on the shore. It ends with a Viking ship being set alight, a fiery send-off the real Norwegians never got.
The ice cream that crossed from Tuscany
Largs's most famous flavour is Italian. The Nardini family came here from Barga in Tuscany, and their café on the Esplanade, in its Art Deco building dating from 1935, became a Clyde coast institution. It grew up alongside the holiday boom. The railway reached Largs in 1885, and Clyde steamers brought Glaswegians down the water for the day or the Glasgow Fair fortnight. They wanted a seafront, a stroll and something cold in a cone, and Largs delivered all three. Today the queue outside Nardini's on a sunny afternoon is as much a local tradition as the Viking festival.
The governor who gave Brisbane its name
Sir Thomas Brisbane was born in 1773 at Brisbane House near Largs. He was a soldier and a serious amateur astronomer, and he went on to serve as Governor of New South Wales in the 1820s. He built an observatory at Parramatta, and in 1823 the explorer John Oxley named a newly found river after him. A settlement beside it later took the same name, and that is how a Largs-born governor ended up with the capital of Queensland named in his honour. Back home, the town also keeps the Skelmorlie Aisle, the surviving 17th-century burial aisle of Largs's former parish church, whose main body was demolished in 1802. Its painted wooden ceiling is one of the most remarkable pieces of Scottish church art of its period.
Boats, ferries and a castle covered in graffiti
Largs looks out at the island of Great Cumbrae. A short ferry crossing from Largs lands at Cumbrae Slip, and a bus carries on to Millport. The town also has one of Scotland's busiest marinas, and its waterfront fills with yachts in summer. Just down the coast sits Kelburn Castle, home of the Earls of Glasgow and one of Scotland's oldest continuously inhabited castles. In 2007 Brazilian artists were invited to paint one of its walls. The result is a riot of colour that was only meant to last a few years and has become a landmark in its own right. On the sports side, Largs Thistle carry the town's football colours, while sailing and regattas have long drawn crowds to the water.