Failford

[7] One unusual feature of the village is a range of Almshouses that were constructed using funds from a bequest and had conditions of character, situation and age attached as recorded in 1846 :- "A range of almshouses was erected and endowed, by a bequest of the late Alexander Cooper, Esq., of Smithston, at Failford, near the junction of the Ayr and Fail rivers, for eight persons, who have each a weekly allowance and an allotment of garden ground.

The hospital is spacious and handsome, and is designed for inhabitants of Tarbolton and Mauchline, in indigent circumstances, upwards of forty years of age, and who have never solicited alms".

In the 17th century the covenanter minister Alexander Peden is said to have held conventicles in the remote Coilsholm Wood using a sandstone outcrop that overlooked the River Ayr and this is known as 'Peden's Pulpit'.

[10] A toll house was located on the road to Mauchline at Woodhead on the lane up to the old Failford tileworks on the Yonderton Burn below Tunnockhill Farm.

[12] Substantial quantities of wood were removed from the Coilsholm policies during WWII and the concrete bases of the sawmill machinery are still extant on the path to Alexander Peden's Pulpit.