Long Stone of Convention

Burnfoot Moor

Muirkirk

Ayrshire

NGR - NS 686279

 

The Long Stone of Convention is located just within a forested area on Burnfoot Moor, north-west of Muirkirk. A path from Smallburn (off A 70)  can be followed to the site, or else a track and path leaving the B 743, just north of Muirkirk Cemetery on Glasgow Road.

The stone was at one time broken, and had been repaired in 1929, as shown in the old photograph above. (Some accounts errneously state the date to be 1920). It has since been broken again, and the inscription is illegible.

The original inscription read as follows:

 

The

Long Stone

of

Convention

1686

Replaced

1929

Long Stone of Convention

 

The Long Stone of Convention is located on Burnfoot Moor, to the north of Muirkirk.

The stone is located 881 feet above sea level, on the highest point of the moor hereabouts.

Tradition claims that this was the site of a major conventicle in 1686. Little more is known about the site, or who may have preached at the conventicle. One theory is that the preacher was Rev James Renwick, who is known to have preached at a conventicle in the district around that time.

John Smith, writing in 1895 in Prehistoric Man in Ayrshire, noted that: 'The Long Stone of Convention was set up on the summit of rising ground at Bankend in 1686, a date which it still bears. It was evidently not a favourite, and has been cast down and broken into three parts. Round about it there are said to have been six graves, but whether they were older or of more recent date that the Stone of Convention, tradition sayeth not.'

In The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland of 1926-27, a map in an article by Fairbairn on antiquities around Muirkirk simply marks the spot as 'Longstone Conventicle'.