Riccarton, Ayrshire

Riccarton is a village and parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It lies across the River Irvine from Kilmarnock.

William Wallace and his connections with Riccarton

A little below the watermeetings^[1] of the Irvine and the Kilmarnock Water took place a pivotal incident in 1297 ^[2]which led to the Scottish Nation regaining its independence following what was effectively its conquest by Edward I of England.

Sir William Wallace was fishing on the Irvine when a troop of English soldiers dismounted and demanded that he give up his catch. He offered to share, but this was refused and he was grossly insulted by the soldiers for his temerity. He had no weapons, however he used his fishing rod to disarm one soldier and then killed him with his own sword. He similarly dispatched two others and the remaining soldiers then fled.

He went to his uncle's castle, the nearby Riccarton castle and in the following months an uprising slowly gained impetus through the example of one unarmed Scotsman killing three armed soldiers.^[1] A thorn tree called the "Bickering Bush" stood nearby and a public house by that name still exists in Kilmarnock.^[1]

Death at Riccarton's Nether ford

At the Nether Ford on the Irvine near Riccarton, Robert the Bruce in 1307 sent Sir James Douglas^[3] to intercept the English soldiers commanded by Sir Philip de Mowbray. The English were ambushed as they crossed the ford on the Irvine and sixty lay dead before the panic-stricken survivors fled in panic.