Lochnorris House, 47 Auchinleck Road, Cumnock

Lochnorris House, 47 Auchinleck Road, Cumnock

Lochnorris is possibly named after Lefnoreis Castle which lay about 100 yards north-west of the old stable block of Dumfries House.

 

Image - onthemarket.com

        

        Lochnorris is a 2-storey red sandstone Category B Listed Building. It was built in 1891 by James Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour Party, with the help of a £600 interest-free loan from business man Adam Birkmyre. 

        Keir Hardie was born in 1856 in Legbrannock near Holytown, Lanarkshire. When he was twenty three he married Lily Wilson and set up house in a single end in Hamilton. In 1879 he became  Secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Association  and, at their request, came to Cumnock where they lived in a single-end in Waterside Place and later moved to a two-room-and-kitchen in the Barrhill Road. His next, and permanent, move was to his newly built house, Lochnorris, where he and his wife raised their family. James was born in 1881, Sarah, their second child, died at the age of two, Agnes (Nan) born in 1885 and Duncan in 1887.  James Keir Hardie died in a nursing home in Glasgow on 26 September 1915.

        His widow and his daughter Nan continued living at Lochnorris. Nan married Emrys Hughes in Lochnorris on 8 August 1924 and sadly, on 18 October that same year, her mother Lily died there. Nan inherited the house.

        Both Nan and Emrys were involved in politics. Nan was her father's daughter. Welshman Emrys, like his father-in-law, was a fiery socialist and a pacifist. He has been described as 'the most imprisoned objector in Wales'. He became the Labour MP for South Ayrshire and was known for being very controversial. Both became Provosts of Cumnock, Emrys from 1934-1935 and Nan from 1935-1947.  They initiated  a major programme of  slum clearances and provision for council housing.  They were also councillors - Emrys from 1934-1935 and Nan from 1933 until she died in 1947. 

        Emrys married Martha Cleland in London two years later and their wedding notice reports that they 'returned to Lochnorris, Mr Hughes's Ayrshire home'. Emrys died in Lochnorris in 1969. It was Martha who bequeathed the Lochnorris Collection to Cumnock & Doon Valley District Council before selling Lochnorris in 1983.

Sources: 

Sunday Post 4/9/1949 Wedding Notice

The New History of Cumnock, John Strawhorn 

Cumnock History Group