page_title: Gatehead, East Ayrshire
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gatehead, East Ayrshire / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Cochrane Inn at Gatehead
context_page_description: The village or hamlet of Gatehead is located in East Ayrshire, Parish of Kilmaurs, Scotland. It is one and a quarter miles from Crosshouse and one and a half miles from Kilmarnock. In the 18th and 19th centuries the locality was a busy coal mining district. The settlement runs down to the River Irvine where a ford and later a bridge was located.
context_section_description: Gatehead is most likely to have been named after the Turnpike road and the toll bar or gate. A 'Gatehead Toll Bar' is still marked nearby on the road to Laigh Milton mill and the Craig House estate as late as 1860 on the Ordnance Survey (OS) map of that year. 'Gatehead' is apparently first recorded marked on General Roy's Military Survey map of Scotland (1745–55) and then by Armstrong's 1775 map. The RCAHMS website records the site of a Toll house at NS 3898 3670.
  Archibald Adamson records a walk through Old Rome and Gatehead in 1875. He mentions a neat lodge house at Fairlie, then owned by a Captain Tait and records that the Irvine bridge has recently replaced an older one. The Old Rome miners cottages are in ruins following the local coal pits being worked out and the distillery ruins are still apparent. He goes on to say that Gatehead was established around fifty years back, i.e. circa 1825, and has neither kirk, smithy, mill or market, but it does have a station.
  Laigh Milton viaduct over the River Irvine stands nearby. This is the oldest railway viaduct in Scotland, and one of the oldest in the world.
  The Cochrane Inn is likely to have originally been a coaching inn, serving the stagecoach route from Kilmarnock to Troon and Ayr. A milestone near the Crosshouse junction on the main road in 1860 gave Troon as 7 miles and Dundonald as 2​¹⁄₄ miles and another near the junction for Laigh Milton Mill gave Ayr as 10 miles and Kilmarnock as 2​¹⁄₄ miles.
  A hamlet called 'Milton' is marked on the 1821 and 1828 maps, but the name is not marked on the 1860 and the more recent OS maps. Laigh Milton mill still stands, but is now in a ruinous condition (2007). A laithe or saw mill existed across the river from Craig House, which had its own mill and a ford, together with another mill near Drybridge at 'Girtrig' or previously 'Greatrig'.
  A 'Romford', 'Rameford', 'Room' or 'Rome Ford' was situated where the modern road bridge crossing the River Irvine is located. In Scots 'Rommle' is to rumble or stir violently, a more likely explanation than some memory of the Roman occupation of Scotland. Another suggestion is that 'Room' or 'Rome' in Scots meant a small farm. Both Thomson and Ainslie show the railway apparently branching and crossing the Irvine by means of a bridge near to the ford and this branch or mineral line halting near Fairlie House on Thomson's map and carrying on towards Symington on Ainslie's map. This branch may never have been built, shown due to its planned, but not executed, construction.
  The railway level crossing has been here since the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway opened in 1811, but as stated, the name 'Gatehead' predates the railway. A stable was located hereabouts and the horses pulling the wagons were changed here. Gatehead railway station closed in 1967, having opened with the rest of the line on 6 July 1812. The 1860 OS map shows a milepost indicating Kilmarnock at 2​³⁄₄ miles and Troon at 7​¹⁄₄ miles.
  A distillery once existed near Old Rome, although no signs of its existence are now visible. A smithy existed, as marked on the 1880s OS. It was on the left-hand side, just across the bridge from Old Rome. A school existed at Old Rome that may also have been used by pupils from Gatehead.
caption: The Cochrane Inn.
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