[2] The Barony of Giffen comprised a number of properties, including Greenhills, Thirdpart, Drumbuie, Nettlehirst and Balgray, covering about half of the parish of Beith.

The castle was acquired by Sir John Anstruther in the early 18th century and he is responsible for allowing it to become a ruin, together with the associated Giffen farm.

[1] For some years after the roof was removed youths would climb the circular stairs and light a fire on the eve of the feast of St Ennan, the saint of the parish.

Thomas Craig, grandson of Robert, passed on the feu to Thomas White in 1816, during whose possession the castle met its final fall, inspiring the following indignant poem by James Wilson, the local poet: "Hard-hearted misers worship dust, Their covetous mind is little worth, Secured in chains for mammon's curse, The older they grow worse and worse!"

In August 1956 the OS reported that the remains of Giffen Castle now consist of three fragments of rubble masonry, the largest portion measuring 4.0 m long by 2.0 m thick and 1.9 m high.

The three fragments of masonry are in fact large tumbled blocks, and together with a mass of loose shaped stone, also from the castle, form a garden rockery.

of Roughwood and Woodside, a descendant of the ancient family of the Ayrshire Patricks, purchased the mid-superiority[14] of Giffen from the Earl of Eglinton in 1855 and also acquired the dominum utile[14] of much of the barony.

[7][15] Giffen Castle and Stables was designed in 1869 by John Murray Robertson working in the Dundee office of Andrew and Thomas Arthur Heiton.

The quarry workers started coming across graves as they worked closer to the chapel and oddly the bodies were found buried face down.

[21] William's son Richard granted more land at this site, however his brother Alexander inherited and wished for his chapel to be held by the monastery of Kilwinning and not Dryburgh.

This situation of excambied[14] or exchanged lands has led to some confusion in that three chapels appear to have existed at one time within the Lordship of Giffen, not two as is usually stated.

By charter, dated 9 March 1413, the Regent Albany confirmed the grants made by Sir John of Montgomerie of Ardrossan, Knight, to Robert, his son, of the lordship of Giffen in Kyle Stewart.

He was later banished for a time because of his reformation principles and was succeeded by a daughter who married John Montgomerie of Scotstoun and inherited part of the Giffen lands.

Earl who had married his cousin-German,[14] Margaret, eldest daughter and heiress of Robert Montgomerie of Giffen and Master of Eglinton.

Henry married a granddaughter of Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven the favourite General of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden.

A song of 1706 on the Union reads:- "There's Roseberry, Glasgow, and Dupplin, And Lord Archibald Campbell and Ross, The President, Francis Montgomery, Wha ambles liked any paced horse."

He had been forced to sell his estates and it was Sir John Anstruther of the Balcaskie family, who purchased Giffen in 1722, under the burden of liferent as Francis was still living.

[7] As Fullarton puts it the large and valuable estate of Giffen, is now broken down into a multitude of inglorious fragments, with scarcely a possibility of its ever again being restored and cemented into its original dignity and beneficial condition.

The width of some of the first roads was determined by the requirement to have at least two people on either side of a new grindstone being transported, with a wooden axle called a 'mill-wand' passed through the hole in the centre.

This artificial mound or moot hill was the site where proclamations of the Giffen Castle Baronial Court's judgements were made.

James Wilson of Thirdpart was a notable local eccentric who wrote and published poems on such topics as the 'Trearne Cattle Shows', the 'Fall of Giffin Castle' and the 'Misfortunes of a clocking-hen'.

[45] A dreadful series of incidents occurred in the locality, starting on 19 July 1576 when the Lady of Hessilhead slapped one Robert Kent, servant to Gabriel, brother of John Montgomerie, for some grave offence given.

John advised him to seek revenge and therefore the next morning Gabriel and Robert gained entry into Hessilhead castle where they found the lady alone, upon which they grabbed her by the hair, pulled her onto the floor, kicked her in the bowels, and bruised her shamefully.

Gabriel intended to shoot the Laird, however the whole household was now awake and the two only just managed to escape by stealing a horse and locking the castle gate from the outside.

Nettlehirst was a fine mansion, also known as 'Nettlehurst', a castle-like structure overlooking the old Giffen Station and Dusk Water on the high ground above the limekilns.

The dramatic fire coincided with the return from South Beach by a special train of Barrmill Sunday School trip on the line from Ardrossan to Giffen Station.

The unusual entrance gatepiers, apple and pear orchard, boundary walls, mausoleum, farm and the stables, with its crow stepped gable ends and an 1811 marriage stone remain.

Limekilns are a common feature of farms in the area, such as Thirdpart, Foreside, Nettlehirst and the Greenhills hamlet; the necessary limestone was quarried extensively in the neighbourhood.

This village or hamlet in North Ayrshire, known locally as the 'Trap',[54] short for 'Man Trap' as the village lies on the old turnpike road from Beith to Kilmarnock, and the more recent and busy Lochlibo Road from Irvine to Glasgow via Lugton where travellers on their return from markets in the old days were encouraged to stop and spend their money at the inn; it was so named by the farmers wives and eventually it was shorted to 'The Trap'.

[57] Close records that Drumbuie Farm incorporates an early 18th-century two-storey house, originally thatched, which was built around 1736 for Hugh Patrick, this being stated on a plaque on the 1815 addition.