Its octagonal plan, which is unusual in Scotland, was produced by the church's principal benefactor, Archibald Montgomerie, 11th Earl of Eglinton.

Woodland and open green spaces, including playing fields, separate Dreghorn from Irvine New Town, with the district of Broomlands adjoining the park.

A link from the B730 joins the A71 at a roundabout at Corsehill, providing expressway access from Dreghorn to Irvine town centre, and eastwards to Kilmarnock.

[5] In advance of a development of new housing to the north of properties on the current Main Street, preliminary testing found features including an ancient well.

[7] Three parallel rows of post holes indicated a rectangular structure measuring 23.5 by 5 metres (77 by 16 feet), probably a timber hall similar to the Neolithic long house found at Balbridie.

Possible ritualistic landscape features include a massive post-pit and post holes or pits forming arcs.

He qualified as a veterinary surgeon at the Dick Vet in Edinburgh and set up practice in Belfast, where he also invented a pneumatic tyres for bicycles in October 1887.

[8] Maid Morville's mound was located to the east of the B730, just north of Holmsford Bridge before it crosses the River Irvine.

The name commemorated the tragic drowning of a member of the de Morville family, who were the overlords of the baillerie of Cunninghame.

[4] Following the Scottish Reformation, maintenance of the small rectangular church, the manse and churchyard, as well as payment of the minister's stipend, was vested in local landowners, the Heritors of the Parish.

petitioned the Presbytery in Irvine that "a visitation be made with assistance of skilled tradesmen that the church (in Dreghorn) be pulled down and a new one built" on the same site.

The Presbytery agreed in March 1777, then in 1779 they petitioned the principal Heritor, and patron of the church, Archibald Montgomerie, 11th Earl of Eglinton, to "give in a plan of a New Kirk".

The heritors agreed in March 1780 to commence building work on the basis of his plan, in the shape of an octagon: he may have seen similar churches during his recent years spent in Europe.

[11] Built as a school in 1774 the small building on the right of the entrance to the churchyard was in the 19th century used as a morthouse and a mortuary, with a room for each, later becoming the kirk session house.

The Hotel Sunlife Garden wedding complex, incorporating the reconstructed church as its central feature, was opened with a ceremony on 2 July 1999.