Historic Ayr re-born and re-located
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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If you previously found the old Historic Ayr, start from where the cache was.
If not, this will take about two hours starting at the beginning and you will learn a lot about the town
This is intended to be a pleasant interesting and informative walk and fun cache, the co-ords given are the car park behind MFI just off Main Street, Newton on Ayr.
I suggest you park there and cross the river by the new bridge.
The bow fronted building on the left of the bridge was standing before the bridge was built, look down and you can see the original ground floor which was beside a ford.
You are looking for a small house, I don’t mean a but an ben or a room and kitchen, this is a very small house at 55 27.882, 004 37.923 When you find the little house, read the rest of this to extract the information you require, it’s a date.
You can now have a look at the big house and gaze in awe at a building that has been standing here since before America was discovered.
From the little house on a bearing of 150 degrees you will see a large building with a clock and spire, we are only interested in the side of the building facing the little house, ie the frontage on the Sandgate.
As you are about to cross the road, look at the roadway, you will see a circle of stones and a cross. Between 1595 and 1659 twenty eight women were accused of witchcraft in the town of Ayr, at least twelve were burnt to death at this spot. Contrary to popular belief, a woman accused of witchcraft did not have to be old, ugly and living alone with a black cat for company. She was more likely to have an uncontrollable tongue, be at odds with her neighbours, contemptuous of religion.
("Kiss the God's arse" said Agnes Campbell when urged "to behave herself more Godly") and have a husband who was anxious to be rid of her. Janet Sawer "with a seeming willingness submitted herself to death" on the day of her execution, according to an officer of Cromwell's garrison in 1658. She acknowledged her "wicked life" in her address to the crowd, but continued to assert, as she had done throughout her trial, that she knew nothing of witchcraft.
Now for the fun part, this is all street level stuff, ignore floors above ground level, count the big windows including the shop ones, count the doors (entry and exits, if its after hours and the storm doors are shut the exit door has a letterbox on it), not the actual swinging bits but the doorways.
Count the small pains of glass (these are each bit of glass surrounded by a frame). Note the position of the doors to the windows.
A little history now, where the small pains of glass are a coaching inn stood on this site and the ground level was much lower than it is today as the Sandgate ran down to a ford across the river.
In order to build the spire, look at those massive blocks of stone, a earth ramp was build from the harbour to the building and the blocks of stone were mounted on wooden sleds and a system of wooden rollers and ropes pulled the stone blocks up the ramp powered by horses.
When the spire was complete and the bridge across the river was being built to replace the ford the earth from the ramp was used to raise the street level to match the bridge. Many of the buildings were built before this happened and the ground floor became the basement.
About fifteen feet below ground level, below the small windows the stables of the coaching inn still exist, or at least they did twenty years ago with a bricked up door well below current ground level (look at picture of the stable below your feet), Look in the entrance door and the lobby, this has only recently been made a lobby by driving a passage through massive stone.
This room was built with the two large windows and door as a place for the gentlemen of Ayr to sit by the fires, one at each end of the room, drink tea and coffee and read the newspapers which were supplied.
It later was incorporated as part of the Ayr Burgh Police Station and was the detective’s office, the Burgh Court behind the frontage is still in use today and the cells are now used for storage(see picture).
When the new Ayr Police Station was built it fell into disrepair and dry rot ran wild, in the early 1980’s it was a converted to a mainframe computer suite which was in use until mainframe computers were superseded by networked PC’s.
So windaes tell a story, they are not just for counting!
If you stand with your back to the small windows and look across and up the street the building the building now with the Tourist Information Office on the ground floor was the home of Lady Cathcart, this is another ancient building, go and read the plaque. John Loudon McAdam was born on the top floor of this house, on September 21, 1756. John held valid patents on his method of road building that he had developed, undertaken, and built at his own expense. His methods proved so important that his patents were not protected and enforced by governments, even in England. The term "Macadamized Road" long since has died out. Only the term "Tar-Mac", short for Tar-Macadam used to describe airport runways remains.
Now head for 55 27.878, 004 37.767, look up river and down and count the white swans, an approximate count is good enough, post this count on the site and we can watch the swan population rise and fall.
A few years ago you could look West from this spot and see Arran in all its beauty, now you can only see blocks of flats where the fish quay was.
We are looking for a date from this spot. Now it’s a short walk to 55 27.804, 004 37.826, This time raise your gaze to first floor level and look for a statue, if you stand with your back to the ex bank now a pub, now empty you can read what is carved on the plinth, take a note of it. Now from an idea pinched from FFB, walk 197 meters on a bearing of 162T, If you have trouble with that don’t panic, its another building with a clock and it follows a theme from the statue, just walk up the High Street. You need date information about building of this structure, battle details and height information. Its all there to read.
Now you have all the information you require to find the location where the original cache was and is the starting point for the last bit. Turn left at this building and read the board, “the Ayr barns burn”, you might want to take a note of this date. If you look ahead you will see a block of flats and a walkway passing under them, proceed, the wall on your left is where Blackfriars Monastery stood, you quickly come to a bridge over the river, cross the bridge looking at the yellow topped poles and think “have I counted them?”. At the end of the bridge you have a choice, turn right (you are on the River Ayr walk), pass under the main road (Victoria Bridge) and continue to 55 27.400, 004 36.687 where you cross to the other side, you have to double back a few yards before the short walk to the cache.
The walk from the yellow bridge to the original location should take you under half an hour and it’s a lovely walk The alternative is to turn left and head back to the car park, it’s a straight line walk and take the car to 55 27.367, 004 36.466 which is on the Holmston Road between the A77 and the roundabout at the station. The large fireplaces near the cache were for burning limestone to convert it to lime for agricultural. use The cache was hidden at Lat 55 ab.cde Long 004 fg.hij To find the Latitude of the cache:= The number of windows to the left of the exit door on the first building with a clock is “a” The second building with a clock, add the three digits of its height to give “b” Compare the year that Mary Queen of Scots lodged at the larger version of the little house with the date the tower was built, there are two numbers the same, add the two same numbers to give you “c” Take the date of the battle (second building with clock), add the first two digits (k) and divide the number of pains of glass in the small windows (first building with clock) “d=small pains of glass/k” Take the number of letters in the Surname on the statue, subtract the number of doors (entrances and exits) to get “e”
To find the Longitude of the position:- The number of large windows to the left of the entrance door is “f” Look again at the Mary Queen of Scots date, find which two numbers in the date if added give a total which is also in the date, the two numbers added is “g” Take the date of the battle, take the consecutive numbers and continue the series to give you “hij” As I said earlier this position is on the River Ayr Walk, so if you now have a position that is not adjacent to the river you have an error.
You will now be where the Historic Ayr cache used to be hidden , only a foot under your foot but due to muggles using the location as a den it has moved.
About 50 paces from you is a plaque on a wall, go and read it.
The cache is at N55 27.efc W004 35.fgf
Where a = Take the day of the month it was opened (xxth), add the two digits together and subtract one.
Eg:- if the date is 27th of Aug then a would be 2 + 7 = 9 – 1 = 8
Where b= the second digit of the year.
Where c = the last two digits of the year at the bottom of plaque added.
Eg:- if year was 1822 then c would be 2 + 2 = 4
Where d = third digit in top year
EG:- if year at top = 1810 then d would be 1
The Examples are not the answers, just to show you how to get the answer.
Now the cache is 20 mins. Walk, or if you have taken car you could go to car and follow arrow, there is a parking spot close by the cache but take care it’s a busy road.
Near the cache location there is an interesting water feature.
Take care if you play with it.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Tb hc gur pbapergr fgnvef naq vgf haqre n cbvagl ebpx va sebag bs lbh.