Wallace's Heel Well

Following an incident in Riccarton in which an unarmed William Wallace had single handedly killed or injured several English soldiers the Scottish hero and patriot was forced into hiding and he chose Leglen Wood near Auchencruive as the most suitable site of concealment.

However, he made several expeditions to Ayr and on one occasion he encountered a group of English troops who were challenging all comers to try their strength against one of their number in return for the payment of one groat (four pence), a significant sum at the time.

[6] William immediately set off eastwards towards Leglen Wood[7] along a path that lay above the bank of the River Ayr and after a while it became clear that the hounds being used by the English troops were rapidly making ground on him and that his scent trail would be his undoing.

[13] William made it safely back to the tree lined gorges of Leglen Wood and Wallace's Heel Well has continued to flow into the Ayr from that day to this.

[17][18] A monument to William Wallace and his great admirer Robert Burns is located in the remnant of Leglen Wood on the west side of the Auchencruive/Belston Road, just south of Oswald's Bridge over the River Ayr.