Our easy-to-use website contains details and locations of places to visit around this area. Please select from:

	Places to Stay: Bed and Breakfast Hotels and Guest Houses Pubs with Accommodation Self Catering
	Places to Eat and Drink: Cafes, Coffee & Tea Shops Pubs serving Food Restaurants and Bistros
	Places of Interest: Places to Visit
	Gardens Centres: Garden Centres/Nurseries
	Specialist Shops: Antiques & Restoration Arts and Crafts Fashions Gifts Home and Garden Jewellery Food and Drink Shops

Sorn

Sorn is one of the most picturesque villages in the county and has won national and international awards for its tidiness and well kept gardens. It sits beside the River Ayr, with an 18th century bridge spanning it, and has many delightful cottages. Sorn Parish Church dates from 1658, and the lofts, or galleries, are reached by stairs on the outside of the walls. Sorn Castle dates from the 14th century, with later additions. It was built by a branch of the Hamilton family, and James VI once visited on horseback in the depths of winter to attend the wedding of Isobel Hamilton, the daughter of his Treasurer, Lord Seton. James VI’s journey to Sorn so sickened him that he later said that if he were to play a trick on the devil, he would send him from Glasgow to Sorn on a cold winter’s day. The castle is open to the public from mid-July to early August each year.

Alexander Peden was born at Auchincloich near Sorn in 1626. Known as Prophet Peden, he was a Covenanter who held secret conventicles, or prayer meetings, at lonely spots all over central Ayrshire. The whole area abounds with places that have been named after him, such as “Peden’s Pulpit” and “Peden’s Table”. There is even a field called “Preaching Peden”.