Ayrshire Area Recommendations?

[Flip Martian]

Howdy

Has anyone got any recommendations for places to live in Ayrshire or nearby? Or indeed, places to avoid?

For a few reasons, my wife and I have decided to leave jolly (?) old England and move to Ayrshire. Selling our house in North Bucks and buying cheaper (up to about £230k'ish) and banking the balance (I've not been able to work for health reasons for a while, so this is to store enough money to act as a buffer while I get healthy again).

We're both in our 50s now and more into a slower pace of life so we're more after a quiet life, although reasonable access (with an hour's drive) to live theatre, the odd gig, etc is still important. Plus reasonable access to a main town or 2 as my wife will be looking for work (and me, later, hopefully). Love the coast along that side and we're thinking as far north as Troon, and as far south as perhaps Turnberry and heading inland about 20-30 mins should give us a few decent places to look at.

We've had a long weekend up a week or so back in Ayr and Troon looked suitable, some bits of Ayr, incl Alloway. Straiton inland was nice, although nearby Dalmellington really wasn't - we're really just after a heads up for good and not so good, from anyone up there who knows the area, please?

There is the possibility that we might let out a room via Air B&B or something (if we can find something suitable) to bring a bit of money in too, so picturesque inland areas and coastal spots welcome too. We did go up as far as Largs which looks great but is probably slightly out of our price range.

Any suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance.

[Flip Martian]

Thanks for the tips, both. Interesting to hear about the job situation, I'll do some digging about. We did view a house in Dalmellington - great house but the town really did look a bit desperate. Noticed a few other places looking in a similar desperate state too. We did notice the number of golf courses - never played personally but tapping into the B&B thing if that's what we end up going for, is a good idea, thanks.

We were wondering why the "lovely 3 bed cottage" in Straiton we viewed had been on sale a year - tonight I found out the village (and others) gets hit by flooding from the Water of Girvan during bad storms. Can't find out where exactly but I can imagine that putting plenty off. And making insurance harder for everyone.

I'll check out the other bits suggested, thanks. Seem to spend my life in RightMove at the moment...

[Flip Martian]

Jader1973 said:

I was brought up in Largs.

Avoid: (these may have nice bits but you couldn't pay me to live there)
The 3 towns: Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Stevenston (or Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia as someone on the train once called them)
Irvine
Kilmarnock
Kilwinning
Kilbirnie
Anywhere in the triangle between the A76 and A77 e.g. Patna, Drongan etc etc. In other words all of East Ayrshire - all ex-mining towns and in decline. Closer to Ayr is going to be better e.g. Coylton.

Look at:
West Kilbride (has dodgy bits)
Largs (has dodgy bits)
Fairlie
Prestwick
Troon
Ayr (has dodgy bits)
Girvan

Thanks for all those. Must admit I did mentally scrub out Irvine as a bit dodgy from pics I saw. Didn't know about Kilmarnock though. Will grab my AA map now and put a ring around all those. We did drive through Girvan and it seemed quite run down - but someone did mention they were regenerating. Nice coastline down there anyway, so will bear it in mind too. Cheers.

[Flip Martian]

Jambo85 said:

Always love reading the label of a bottle of Hendrick's gin which tells you about the beautiful seaside town of Girvan in which it is made...

Also Sally traffic on Radio 2 who always pronounces it "Girvanne", rather than the more authentic "Gurrvin" makes me chuckle!

Storing that - already got caught out on pronouncing "Culzean Castle" when we were up there.

[Flip Martian]

Thanks for the input fellas, appreciated.

I'll take a look at property in Symington and Maybole (we drove through Maybole and did seem a bit run down, the bit we went through).

We both loved the roads up there - we were in my wife's Suzuki Alto (!) this time as I can't drive too far right now but we drove down to Wigtown and back round past Stranraer and up the coast road back to Ayr and I would have loved to have the MX5 with me (although at least this time I could gawp at the scenery).

We did go up to Glasgow - well, we turned off for Clydebank just before Ibrox I think - on the Sunday morning and couldn't believe how easy a drive it was. The roads up there really are a breeze to drive on. Again, cheers for all the input.

[Flip Martian]

BMR said:

Maybole is getting a bypass soon.. the high st will receive some investment once complete and the place should scrub up well.

A suggestion I haven’t seen is Dalrymple. It’s in the East Ayrshire catchment area but is about a 10-15 minute drive from Ayr. I was brought up there so may be some rose tinted specs, but I believe it’s a pretty decent little village. There are lots of newer build houses in the last 10-15 years if that’s your cuppa, and they’ll be a lot cheaper than Alloway which isn’t that far away.

That was in the general area we were looking at. More keen on older property but being within easy distance of Ayr is a plus. Thanks.

[Flip Martian]

Thanks for the tips, fellas. Hoping to avoid anywhere where big developments are going up (we have that where we are now and it's ruining the place with no infrastructure to support it). And not be too close to Glasgow, to avoid that suburbs thing. The job stuff is useful too, thanks.

[Flip Martian]

RTaylor2208 said:

I've lived in Ayrshire all my life and in particular Symington (East Ayrshire), Loans \ Troon \ Prestwick \ Coylton and now Ayr.

Your £230K budget wont stretch far in the more affluent areas like Alloway and Doonfoot in Ayr, although will get you something nice and fairly large in the likes of the castlehill area, something like this is over budget but similar properties in the same estate have been cheaper.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...

Troon and on its outskirts Barassie and Loans are decent places to stay with little in the way of bad areas, Prestwick is also good with a decent main street with good restaurants, bars, niche shops etc. House buying in Prestwick is highly competitive though and good houses get snapped up in hours. My brother recently sold his house in Prestwick in less than a day!

Symington is a nice little village between Ayr and Kilmarnock with a good school but not much in the way of amenities as is another called Monkton. I grew up in Symington and still have some relations in the village.

Personally I would avoid the old mining towns like Drongan, Patna, Dalmellington, Tarbolton and Mossblown. I know people who live there that are very happy but there is also a rough element.

Interesting, cheers. We could spend more but the budget is set for us to bank as much as poss for the future - and to be honest, there's only the 2 of us downsizing so 4/5 bed estate homes are off the menu - my wife is after more "cosy" and less "oh God, we'll never keep this clean" . We've been able to find a few things but Troon has little in our range at the moment. Will have a look at Symington and Monkton, ta. We're next up that way next weekend for a few nights so have been shortlisting a few places to view - so far, 2 in or near Alloway and others in Straiton, Maidens, Kirkoswald, Kirkmichael and Crosshill.

[Flip Martian]

Drive Blind said:

Have you considered renting for a while to get a feel for the area, then buying ?

We have...and to be honest, if our house sells quickly we may also consider that to facilitate the sale with less stress. But renting isn't as cheap as I thought it might be, and given I can't work at the mo' and I'm living on my redundancy payout, rent is dead money really.

There is something to be said for renting through the winter (which I guess would be Ayrshire at it's worst) and getting used to it and deciding where we want to be. That said, even the estate agent selling our house here (with no vested interest) said he knows so many who have made the move north of the border and not regretted it for a second.

[Flip Martian]

Just been for our 2nd visit. We've upped our budget a little and got a better idea of where to focus on. Out of central Ayr for definite but within half an hour of it (unless something unmissable crops up in Largs/West Kilbride area). Wifey really didn't like Prestwick. My impression was that driving around there and that side of Ayr generally, is far busier than elsewhere.

Overall I'm gravitating towards "south of Ayr, north of Girvan" personally but will see. Looks like I might be shuttling up to Prestwick airport on me tod if something pops up in the next week or 2, as wifey won't have a long weekend free for a while.

Thanks again for all the suggestions, they've been most helpful. Incidentally, someone did PM me and offer to help but I suspect my reply went in his/her spam bin as I never heard back (just in case you see this).

Edited by Flip Martian on Saturday 28th July 22:36

[Flip Martian]

TheJimi said:

Do you like the idea of walking into the centre of the village or town that you live in? You know, just going for a wander / coffee etc?

If so, I'd bin Ayr. It's depressing AF.

Largs or Prestwick would be my recommendations.

...as well as Fairlie & Seamill.

Edited by TheJimi on Sunday 29th July 19:02

Yeah that would be part of the appeal. To be honest, we found Prestwick dingier than Ayr - but Ayr is obviously bigger and more busy. We're slimming down the parts of Ayr we'd look at, having sampled a few.

We are casting our net a bit wider into North Ayrshire as there just isn't much new coming up in South Ayrshire at the moment, so nearer Largs and around there is back on the radar.

[Flip Martian]

TheJimi said:

Also, I know it's not Ayrshire but just over the "border" in Renfrewshire -

* Lochwinnoch
* Howwood
* Kilbarchan
* Bridge of Weir
* Klmacolm

Thanks, will take a look.

[Flip Martian]

Jonny_gti said:

That's nice areas your looking at mate cant go wrong, once your in feel free to drop me a message me and a few fellow petrolheads meet up once/twice a month around aryshire for breakfast and car chat then go a drive round some decent roads. Feel free to come along.

Cheers, appreciated!

[Flip Martian]

Just back from our 3rd trip up to Ayrshire this time - we saw 9 houses in 4 days, from Fairlie down to Kirkmichael - some twice. Found ourselves a solicitor, and - HOPEfully - a house. A 60 yr old 4 bed detached place in Straiton, near Maybole with fields all round. We have kept going back to Straiton as it just feels "right" - very friendly old fashioned community feel, near the Galloway forest - loads of great rural walks nearby. And the prospect of letting out a room via AirBnB next year to walkers, bikers and cyclists (who all seem to visit the village) will be handy extra income.

Found ourselves a solicitor and they seem pretty on the ball, so hopefully we can pull this one off - although we have heard plenty of stories about the bonkers Scottish property system...

We also saw a beautiful Victorian place in the citadel part of Ayr which belonged to Ally Macleod (those of you who know your Scottish footy will remember him) - his widow is selling up. To be honest, that was a very close 2nd, just thanks to being so close to the beach, although it does need a fair bit of modernising.

My Tomtom driving in England seems to get updated whenever a road out of our village gets dug up...this doesn't seem to work at all in Ayrshire, where the damn thing took us down several roads closed for long term works and wouldn't take us any other way. And diversion signs are less than crystal clear too when you don't know where you're going.

Thankfully, google maps on my phone helped, after a fashion but we endured a 9 hour trip back today. Thank God the M6 was relatively trouble free or we'd still be driving now

But we're still in love with the place, which is a good sign!

Once again, thanks to everyone who's input - it's all been really useful.

[Flip Martian]

s2kjock said:

About 10-12 years ago a group of us on a car run went into a bar in Straiton for a refreshment, and it immediately went deathly quiet as soon as we walked in - proper wild west style.

As we were of course all driving we ordered a round of cokes, which I expect didn't help.

After about 10 minutes of silence in the rest of the bar we upped and left we felt that uncomfortable - our party included a couple of 6 footers, and a martial arts instructor from Glasgow who was the first to suggest we leave as his "spidey sense" was tingling.

It was a reasonably regular route we used to take on a 180 mile Sunday hoon, but we never stopped there again.

I'm sure it is much nicer now though

How strange. Yeah they regularly get cyclists and walkers there and apparently it’s now on a new bikers route. As English strangers there we were surprised how many people were happy to chat and tell us about the village.

Mind you, we haven’t been in the pub yet...(its currently being sold).

Edited by Flip Martian on Wednesday 22 August 08:35

[Flip Martian]

Jambo85 said:

If you like Straiton then try looking further South into Galloway itself.

Unless you need a marina or the fancy golf courses or short drive to Glasgow, it is definitely worth a look. Much nicer countryside, fewer people and your money will go further. I'm biased of course having grown up there

Oh I was all for it there - but wifey wanted to be closer to Ayr. I'm looking forward to spending some hazy days down there, certainly.

[Flip Martian]

Drive Blind said:

welcome to scotland - the home of midgies and munchy boxes

be sure to post pics of your first munchy box in the DTaP thread > here

Haha, fair enough. Not come across that particular delight just yet. Some blinding Italian retaurants though.

[Flip Martian]

Offer accepted, Straiton it is. Really pleased. Just wishing I wasn't having to sell my MX5 before we move - some lovely driving roads around there. I think wifey would notice if the Focus disappeared instead though...

[Flip Martian]

xcseventy said:

Superb village and area, good choice. Make sure you check out The Buck, great coffee and cake.

I got married at Blairquhan Castle (about 2 mins from Straiton) last year, and come to Ayrshire 4/5 times a year from Glasgow to cycle (http://www.ayrshirealps.org/)

Good luck with the move.

Thanks - driven past that castle several times; shame it's not open to visitors. Chatting to the owners of The Buck actually on our last visit was what made us reconsider a house there. They're selling up sadly (if we were a bit younger we'd have put an offer on it ourselves) - as is the owner of the pub/hotel as it happens. They're hopeful someone will take on the cafe at least (certainly be a shame if it closed altogether).

[Flip Martian]

Uggers said:

Straiton is a good choice.

I live in Maybole and if I wanted a quiet village life, Kirkmichael or Straiton would be my choices. I'm a fellow Englander, there isn't many of us around here!

Cheers! Something about South Ayrshire that felt "right" ultimately. We've been a bit surprised to meet English people each time we go! We did check out Kirkmichael too but Straiton seemed more welcoming ultimately.

Just found out that South Ayrshire Council have included the field behind our proposed house as the 1 spot in Straiton suitable for houses in the "next 10 years" plan (12 of them). Given we're escaping 150 being build on the field behind our current house, I suppose this is improvement! But Straiton will still be a small village with all that entails and should stay fairly unspoiled in our lifetimes at least.