Hear the Hall's story, room by room

Welcome to Loudoun Hall, the oldest surviving house in Ayr. It was built in the late fifteenth century for the Tait family, merchants of the town, and is first recorded in 1517 as the home of James Tait. Stand in the courtyard and picture the scene five hundred years ago. There was no embankment then. Ships came far up the tidal river, and this lane, the Boat Vennel, was the main road between the town and its harbour. Sailors, merchants and goods all passed this way. Over the centuries the house has been home to a merchant, the Sheriffs of Ayr, at least four members of the Scots Parliament and, much later, families crowded into single rooms. It was nearly demolished. It was saved. Let's go inside and hear its story.

You are in one of the vaulted cellars at the bottom of the house. A merchant stored his goods down here, close to the harbour gate. One of these cellars was the wine cellar, and from it a narrow stair led straight up to the great hall above. The house began as a simple oblong of three storeys: cellars at the bottom, the great hall in the middle, and bedrooms at the top. It looked rather like a laird's tower house, but it was built for trade. These stone vaults have stood for five centuries. Today they host tastings, receptions and small exhibitions, in the same rooms where a merchant once kept his stock.

This is the Great Hall, the finest room in the house. Look at the great fireplace with its moulded sides. Its style is one of the clues historians use to date the building. Sometime between 1528 and 1539, James Tait sold the house to Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudoun, the hereditary Sheriff of Ayr. Sir Hugh had been a wild young man, outlawed for ordering the killing of the Earl of Cassillis. He settled down, added a wing towards the harbour, and his family lived here for three generations. Ayr kept its Sheriffs happy. The town's accounts record gifts of wine and boxes of sweets, called confeittis. In 1597 the Sheriff was given six quarts of wine for his April court, and much of it was probably enjoyed right here. The family name stuck, and the house has been Loudoun Hall ever since.

In August 1563, the young Mary Queen of Scots rode into Ayr on a tour of the west of Scotland. She was twenty years old. She spent two nights in the town, and the Sheriff of Ayr, Sir Matthew Campbell, who lived in this house, was one of her firmest supporters. This was probably the finest house in the burgh, and it was the Sheriff's own. And this is where the Queen stayed, as Sir Matthew's guest. Her travel record, kept by her French equerry, says she stayed at "St Jehan d'Era": St John's town of Ayr, named after the town's patron saint. The Provost and magistrates would have met her at the Auld Brig with gifts of wine and sweets, and here, in the Sheriff's house, the gentlemen of the county and their ladies would have been presented to her. Sir Matthew stayed loyal. In 1568 he fought for her at the Battle of Langside, and was taken prisoner. Stand in this room and imagine the Queen holding court.

In 1622 the last Campbell Sheriff died. Soon the office of Sheriff was sold to King Charles the First, and the new Sheriff, James Chalmer of Gadgirth, took on the house too. In 1652 Cromwell built a huge fort barely a hundred yards away, and the old house must have felt rather overshadowed. In 1666 it was bought by John Muir of Park, a merchant who sided with the Covenanters. In 1678 the government accused him of holding secret services, and he appears to have fled the town. After the Revolution of 1688 he came back as Provost, and sat in the Scots Parliament. His son Robert was Provost and a member of Parliament too. Robert traded with France for wine and with Virginia for tobacco, and grew rich. For a generation, as one writer put it, the Muirs had the whole sway and mastery of the town.

By the late 1700s Ayr was changing. New streets and a new bridge took the traffic away from the Boat Vennel, and the well-off moved to elegant new houses, like those around Wellington Square. In 1770 Dr Robert Muir, living in London, sold the old house to Daniel Bruce, a fisherman, for sixty-one pounds and one shilling. A tall stair tower was squeezed into the corner, and the house was divided up. Over the next century it was home to shipmasters, an innkeeper, a stocking-maker and a ship's carpenter. Its history was almost forgotten. By 1903, when typhus broke out here, five families were living inside. In 1936 the council marked it for clearance. Loudoun Hall was going to be pulled down.

Then a few people stepped in. The minister of the Auld Kirk, Archibald Mackenzie, persuaded the owner to hand the building over. He owned Loudoun Hall for just two days, then passed it to the Marquess of Bute, who sent in workmen to clear it and see what survived. The war stopped everything. Afterwards, the council's Housing Committee voted again for demolition, by a single vote. But the Saltire Society offered to restore the house, and in October 1947 the full council changed its mind. The architect Robert Hurd gave his work for free. His new staircase used an oak stair from Culzean Castle, made from the timbers of the Marquess of Ailsa's yacht. On the twenty-sixth of September 1956, Loudoun Hall opened its doors again.

Restored, the Hall became a home for Ayr's clubs and societies, for photographers, chess players, archaeologists and artists. In the sixties and seventies, Ayr Folk Club filled it with music. Pete and Peggy Seeger played here, and so did a young Billy Connolly, with The Humblebums. In 1980 it was listed Category A, the highest protection a historic building can have in Scotland. From 2019 the Hall fell quiet. Then, in 2026, WMA Group became its new custodian, with a plan to wake it gently and bring it back to life. Today it is open again for weddings, celebrations, business events and visits. More than five hundred years on, it is still doing what it was built for: bringing people together. The next chapter could be yours.