Dalry Witch

On the 8th Nov 1576, midwife Bessie Dunlop, resident of Lynne, in Dalry, was accused of sorcery and witchcraft. She answered her accusers that she received information on prophecies or to the whereabouts of lost goods from a Thomas Reid, a former barony officer in Dalry who died at the battle of Pinkie some 30 years before.

.She said she first met him while walking between her own house and the yard of Monkcastle, and after a discussion he then disappeared through a hole in a wall, apparently too small for a normal person to pass through.

She said she was trained by her “familiar” on how to make and use ointments to heal livestock and people. She was said to have cured and advised various people from poor children to gentry. As a “wise woman” her strange efforts at the time attracted the attention of the law. Her abilities were more akin to today’s current psychics, and with an understanding of medicinal herbs, she was identified in a time of witchcraft hysteria. It resulted in a conviction and the tragic outcome was that she was burnt at the stake at Castle Hill in Edinburgh in 1576. She is also said to have been burnt at Corsehillmuir, just outside Kilwinning.

Alexander Peden (1626-1686) the renowned covenanting minister and remarked as a “profit” (sic) traveled throughout the district. He was said to have preached from Peden’s Point (a rocky outcrop) in a natural auditorium at the head of the Lynn glen.

When the main parish church at the Glebe was resited at the “cross” in 1608 it created around it a “kirktoun” establishing the village of Dalry. By 1700 the inhabitants of Dalry still however, numbered barely 100 and contained only about six dwellings. In the mid 18th century, Dalry was still the only town in the parish.

In 1830 there were about 1,000 inhabitants, and the town consisted of five streets, three of these radiated from the “cross” or centre forming a square.Weekly market were held on Thursdays, and there were fairs in January, May and July.

At that time it was a reasonably large irregular shaped rural parish, centred around on the small town of Dalry. The parish included the small settlements / villages of Blair, Burnside, Drakemire, Southfield and the Den.