Gatehead

Gatehead is most likely to have been named after the Turnpike road and the toll bar or gate. A 'Gatehead Toll Bar' is still marked nearby on the road to Laigh Milton mill and the Craig House estate as late as 1860 on the Ordnance Survey (OS) map of that year. 'Gatehead' is apparently first recorded marked on General Roy's Military Survey map of Scotland (1745–55) and then by Armstrong's 1775 map. The Historic Environment Scotland website records the site of a Tollhouse at NS 38987 36702. Archibald Adamson records a walk through Old Rome and Gatehead in 1875. He mentions a neat lodge house at Fairlie, then owned by a Captain Tait and records that the Irvine bridge has recently replaced an…

This barony, once part of the Barony of Kilmaurs, ran from Kilmaurs south to the river Irvine. It had no manor house and belonged to the Eglinton family latterly. The following properties were part of the barony: Gatehead, parts of Kilmaurs, Craig, Woodhills, Greenhill, Altonhill, Plann, Hayside, Thorntoun, Rash-hill Park, Milton, Windyedge, Fardelhill, Muirfields, Corsehouse and Knockentiber and Busbie.