In 1297 Edward I had sent a punitive expedition under Sir Henry Percy to Irvine to quash an armed uprising against his dethronement of John Balliol.

[7] Patrick Warner of Ardeer, the parish minister of Irvine, had been exiled to Holland following the Battle of Bothwell Brig[8] and had learned the techniques of drainage from the Dutch.

[2] This worked well and the existing drain or stank (a stretch of slow-moving water), known as the 'Grip or Gruipe Gutter' running through the town along what is now Chapel Lane, dried up.

[2] In August 1682 the Baillie of Irvine, Hugh Montgomery, was reimbursed for a payment of two shillings made to Robert Miller for "casting the goat leading to the loch running betwixt the taelling rigs and the town lands.

[1] When, in the 18th century, a religious group known as the Buchanites were expelled from Irvine, residents threatened to drown them in Scott's Loch, however they made it safely to the village of Closeburn.