Home of a vigorous congregation

SERIES

THE part of Ayrshire in which Dreghorn sits benei ts from the situation of the Isle of Arran, to the west, which intercepts much of the rain which would otherwise fall on the mainland.

The land of the Dreghorn area was notably rich and fertile, even before the agricultural improvements of the mid- 18th-century. The associated construction of a road network meant that the main route between the port of Irvine and Kilmarnock ran through the hamlet, which became Dreghorn village.

This elegant church was built in 1780 to serve the parish of Dreghorn and Pearston, created from two mediaeval parishes – Dreghorn (or Langdregarne) and Pierstoun (or Percestoun) – in 1688.

Before the Reformation Dreghorn parish was attached to Kilwinning Abbey.

The church is set on a ridge which has been settled since Neolithic times, and has a fine classical steeple, probably intended as a landmark, and a clock, installed at a time when few homes had timepieces. Such steeples were popular in late-18th and early 19th-century Ayrshire.

The body of the church is octagonal on plan, an example of the centrally-planned churches built at the time for the growing population of Lowland Scotland, designed to allow large congregations to see and hear the preaching of the Word. Dreghorn and Pearston Church was built for the leading landowner in the area, the 11th Earl of Eglinton, Archibald Montgomerie as heritor with the responsibility for providing a church, minister and schoolmaster for the parish. By that time Dreghorn was a centre for handloom weaving. A similar church was constructed in Eaglesham, another Eglinton parish, in 1788, to serve the cotton-mill village the Earl was developing.

The Eaglesham church was enlarged in the early 20th century, but Dreghorn and Springside is externally unchanged, and therefore a very signficant building.

In 1843, at the Disruption, a Free church was built near Perceton House, as a breakaway from the Parish Church. This was replaced in 1878 by a new church, the old one becoming a mission hall. In 1900, on the union of the Free and United Presbyterian churches this became Perceton and Dreghorn United Free Church, and in 1929 when the United Free Church united with the Church of Scotland it became Perceton and Dreghorn Church of Scotland During the 19th century seams of coal, ironstone and i reclay under the parish were exploited, partly in connection with the Eglinton Iron Works at Kilwinning.

Coal was also sent to Irvine harbor by railway for export. T wo brick works were also established at Montgomeryifield and Bourtreehill, the latter for making fiirebricks.

Both closed in about 1970 and were demolished. By that time coal-mining had ceased, in 1954.

In 1966 the New Town of Irvine was set up, with the existing town of Irvine as its core, and the area designated for development included the parishes of Dreghorn and Pearston and Perceton and Dreghorn. Irvine New Town Development Corporation (whose headquarters were at Perceton, formerly Pearston, House) developed much of the parish for housing.

The two parishes were united in 1993 as Dreghorn and Springside parish, worshipping in the former Dreghorn and Pearston, building, the subject of this piece.

Subsequently the former Perceton and Dreghorn church was dismantled and shipped to Japan, where it was rebuilt as a wedding chapel. The New Town Corporation was abolished in 1996 as part of the local government reorganisation of that year, and the parish is now part of North Ayrshire Council Area. Dreghorn and Springside Church now houses a vigorous congregation, with more residents in the parish than ever before in its history, and can be seen as a spiritual as well as a physical landmark for its community.

This article appears in the April 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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