South Ayrshire Image 
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South Ayrshire Image March 13, 2012
1. Newmarket Street, Ayr
Date: June 2010
©M.Bailey
2. Architrave of the main entrance to the MacNeille Building in Ayr. Masks of William Wallace, John Knox and Robert the Bruce
Date: October 2011
©M.Bailey
Newmarket Street lies at the heart of the old burgh and provides a link from the High Street to the Sandgate. Today, it is a pedestrianised area although vehicular access is allowed, from the Sandgate to the High Street, for deliveries and for the disabled. There are a limited number of parking spaces for use by disabled drivers.
At the widest part of the High Street stand Winton Buildings, an imposing Classical structure, recently occupied by the Clydesdale Bank but now abandoned. Completed in 1844, when it was called by a local paper 'a great embellishment of our town', and named in honour of the then Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Eglinton and Winton. It was built on the site of the Meal Market, demolished in 1841. In front of the bank, on the wide part of the pavement, stands a bronze sculpture by Doug Cocker, 'The Poet and the World'. This was erected in 1996, on the bicentenary of the death of Robert Burns.
Opposite the British Home Stores, a modern store created behind the facade of older buildings, themselves on the site of the former Buttermarket you find the entrance to Newmarket Street between the two 'islands'. The second 'island' now contains a variety of shops. It was the site of Ayr's medieval Tolbooth. This was the seat of local government from the earliest days of the Royal Burgh, serving as administrative headquarters, court room, prison and storage for the 'yetts', the heavy iron gates which were erected at the town's ports in times of danger. In 1574 a new Tolbooth was built in the Sandgate, and the old one became known as the Laigh Tolbooth. It was used for a variety of purposes until its demolition early in the 19th century.
Behind the two islands is Hope Street, popularly known as the back o' the isle'' On the building at the corner of Newmarket Street and High Street is a niche containing an undistinguished statue of William Wallace, the Scots patriot and a leader in the fight against English occupation, who was executed in 1305.
The statue was erected in the 19th century to commemorate his imprisonment in the Tolbooth of Ayr. A persistent local tradition alleges that the statue was taller that the niche had allowed for and it was made to fit by shortening the legs.
All the two- or three-storey buildings in Newmarket Street date from the late 18th century or early 19th century. Newmarket Street has had several names in its time, including Trinity Vennel, Kirk Vennel, New Yard and Cross Street. Perhaps the most interesting building is that half-way along, at the bend in the street, called the McNeille Building, after Ayr's Provost from 1864 to 1873. In 1870, the town's first public library was housed there. The heads above the doorway represent famous Scots associated with Ayr: from left to right, William Wallace, John Knox and Robert the Bruce. Further along Newmarket Street, there are two entrances on the left into the Queens Court Centre.
The view down Sandgate towards the New Bridge and the Town Buildings, dominated by its spire, is an unforgettable image of Scottish townscape at its finest.
Text based on Historic Ayr, published by Ayrshire Archeological and Natural History Society, July 2001