Airds Moss

This took place on the 22 July 1680 when a party of 112 government troops commanded by Andrew Bruce of Earlshall loyal to King Charles II came across a group of covenanters on the road between Cumnock and Muirkirk.

[3] Airds Moss was the location of the Tarrioch Ironworks, the only 18th century charcoal-fired blast furnace in southern Scotland.

The Tarrioch Ironworks were constructed in the early 1730s by the Earl of Cathcart to take advantage of locally available materials, wood from the river valleys was used to make charcoal, water was diverted from the river to power a waterwheel which powered the furnace bellows and the local quarries produced hematite iron ore.

In some parts of Airds Moss the vegetation has been altered by historical drainage and quarrying for hematite and these areas are dominated by purple moor-grass (Molinia caerulea).

Other parts of the site, where there is surface patterning and extensive area of more typical bog vegetation are dominated by heather (Calluna vulgaris), deergrass (Trichophorum cespitosum) and cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix) while white beak-sedge (Rhynchospora alba), cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) and carpets of the moss Sphagnum magellanicum can be locally abundant.