• LETTERS FROM HUNTERSTON

by Dr. Bill Bamford of West Kilbride

The nearest Post Office to Hunterston is at West Kilbride. This opened about 1820, when Mr. William Hunter, the owner of the local store selling draperies and general items, was appointed the first postmaster. However it is

interesting to consider how letters would be sent from Hunterston before then.

Until the 17th century the only way was by private messenger, but when King James VI moved to London in 1603 he established the 'Royal Mail' between Edinburgh and London to keep him in touch with events in Scotland.

Gradually others began to use this service but the post did not come to Ayrshire until 1642. Then a service between Edinburgh and northern Ireland was set up, initially to carry military mail, the route being through Ayr and down the coast to Portpatrick. Shortly afterwards several burghs appointed their own letter carriers, who were known as Burgh Post. One was at Irvine, and his job was to walk to Edinburgh every week of the year carrying letters. Anyone outside Irvine using the service had tQ pay double his normal rate i.e. 4d. per letter.

However in 1689 Irvine got its own Post Office which was linked into the existing network, so that letters from Hunterston had only to be sent to Irvine from where they could be despatched all over the country. It is known that Mr. Robert Caldwell Hunter was using the Saltcoats Post,a Mr. Bob Brown, in the 1790's to take his letters to Irvine.

In the early days of the postal service, apart from the horse post between London and Edinburgh, all mail in Scotland was still being carried on foot. Gradually more horse posts were introduced, and from 1784 onwards the mailcoach was used on the more important routes. Thus a letter coming from London to Hunterston in 1820 would travel by mail coach to Glasgow. This took as little as two days, but 400 horses were required to service this one route. The horses were changed about every 10 Miles. From Glasgow there were two alternatives. The letter could travel to Greenock, again by mail coach, and then to Largs by gig, or it could be put on the 'Telegraph' coach which travelled between Glasgow and Ayr. It would be dropped off at Kilmarnock and then continue by gig to Saltcoats. The post offices at Largs and Saltcoats had been set up some years before the one in West Kilbride, and the mail was carried from them to the village by postal runners. A few years later one of the daily deliveries of mail from Glasgow to Greenock was down the Clyde, such as on the shallow-draught paddle-steamer 'Post Bay'. All this was to change with the coming of the railways, which were immediately used as much as possible for carrying mail. In 1840 letters first came to Irvine on the Glasgow to Ayr line, and in 1841 the railway between Glasgow and Greenock was opened. Although West Kilbride did not have its own railway station until 1878, much of the mail was coming down the coast all the way by gig well before then, the horse being stabled across from the post office.

Before the days of adhesive postage stamps, letters were stamped in ink with the name of the post office. Thus a letter from Hunterston would have an Irvine mark, and later one of Saltcoats or Largs. After 1820 they would receive a West Kilbride mark, the first one being WEST KILBRIDE with 442-G underneath. This was called a mileage mark since 442 miles was the postal distance to London and 'G' signified that the mail went through Glasgow. When the Penny Black stamp was introduced in May 1840, various marks were used to obliterate it on a letter so that it could not be reused, but as these did not show up well on the black stamp it was changed to a penny red (brown) after only nine months. This explains why the penny blacks have become so valuable. A penny to post a letter was still quite expensive in those days but nothing like the cost had been before the introduction of the Uniform Penny Post in 1839. Previously the cost had depended on how far the letter had to go and varied tremendously over the years. The postage rates for a single sheet letter from Hunterston addressed to Edinburgh ana leftat the irvine postofficewere :-4d. (before 1711), 3d. (1711-1765), 6d/7d. (1796-1812), 9d. (1820), 8d. (1836) and ld. (1839 onwards).

From the very start of the functioning of West Kilbride post office there appears to have been a close working relationship with Hunterston. For instance one invoice from postmaster Hunter to Robert Hunter, Esquire, lists a range of postal charges all mixed up with yardages of canvas, blue cloth, flannel and ham, sharpening stones, sugar, soap and many other items. Postage stamps eliminated the need for the logging of postal charges. In the 1850's it is known that there was a private gather bag for mail from Hunterston for which the Post Office made a

. charge of one guinea per annum.

The Return of the Century marked the beginning of the age of the picture post-card, of which some 600-900 million

werepOstediJ!theU.Keach year between 1903 and 1914. The local ones included pictures of Hunterston Castle

anditsgrounds,suchastheentrance,the avenue, the rest tree and the courting tree, and some of these would be

sent by visitors to Hunterston.But just as the sending of picture post-cards has declined, so too has the use of the

Postal service, partially displaced by the telephone. Moreover as letters now go to large centres for sorting, a letter

fromHUnterStonn,inincommon with moscotfromlitrom Ayrshire, is now postmarked 'Kilmarnock'.