Castle and Barony of Robertland
Robertland Castle, in the barony of that name, was held by a cadet branch of the Cunninghames and is now a ruin with a few stone features visible.
Timothy Pont records the name as 'Over Robertland' in the 17th century and states that the castle is entirely removed.
The garden wall has a stone with the date 1597 and the Latin sentence, Vita post fine eraverit (There will be life after the end).
The access on the East side of the river no longer exists and the driveway runs down from a gatehouse on the Old Glasgow Road, and over the Annick Water by the Robertland Bridge.
On Friday, 12 March 1914 as the house was empty and awaiting a buyer, two suffragettes[20] broke in through a conservatory window and set the building alight.
He was pardoned on the occasion of the marriage of King James VI and Anne of Denmark, a stone in the garden over the doorway bears the Royal Arms of Scotland and commemorates this wedding.
[28] Robertland was the Ayrshire home of Sir James Hunter Blair, who was the son of an Ayr merchant, and changed his name, adding 'Blair' upon his marriage.
[30] John Smith of Swindridgemuir relates in a letter of 1829 that he was present at a social occasion at Robertland, hosted by Sir William Cunningham at which Robert Burns was present and a discussion took place about the identity of Tam o'Shanter during which the poet revealed that one Douglas Grahame was the individual upon whom Tam was modelled.
[29] Burns was researching the origin of the song 'The Lass of Peaty's Mill' and during a visit to Robertland Sir William Cunninghame of Robertland told the story that the Earl of Loudoun was out walking with his son and the poet Allan Ramsay, at a place called 'Patie's Mill', when they were all taken by the beauty of a young country girl who was working the hay.
[34] It is thought that Robert Burnes, Uncle to the poet and latterly a resident in Stewarton, was the Robertland estate Land Steward.
[29] George Robertson[35] gave a 'traditional' version of the death of the earl, in which Cunninghame of Clonbeith Castle was stated as being an accessory, caught and killed in Hamilton.
The Laird of Lainshaw, a Montgomerie, tried to dissuade him from continuing his journey, but to no avail and on his way back from Robertland he was met and murdered by Cunninghame of Aiket Castle at a place in Stewarton called "the Windy-path".
He was shot and although dying he was able to stay in the saddle until he reached the Annick Ford where he fell from his horse and expired immediately.
James Forrest of Mid Lambroughton was a noted botanist and he recorded the rare Adder's tongue Fern in the Swinzie Burn glen at Robertland in the 1920s.
The Stewarton Flower, so named due to its local abundance and recorded as such by the Kilmarnock Glenfield Ramblers, is otherwise known as Pink Purslane (Claytonia sibirica), found in damp areas.
[37] In 1670 Sir Alexander Cunninghame had some of his horses seized for payment of a debt and brought to Irvine cross to be sold.
Sir Alexander had complained to the Earl of Eglinton who was Bailie of Cunninghame without success, so he got together a party of twenty men, well mounted, with swords, pistols, and plate sleeves and went to Irvine to recover his property.
John Reid, a towns officer emerged from the tolbooth with his halbert and attacked Kennedy, who died nine days later.
[38] In the Stewarton Laigh Kirk graveyard is an extraordinary tombstone memorial to Jane Watt, the spouse of Andrew Picken of Robertland, who died in 1857.
[34] The Queen Victoria Jubilee was celebrated in a field at Robertland, with school children walking up to take part in games and foot races.
[39] Aiton recorded in 1808 that Sir William Cunningham of Robertland found three seams of workable coal on his lands.
