Meeting House (Couplagate)

Place-name:	Meeting House [Couplagate]
Suggested Meaning:	SSE meeting house ‘Meeting House at Couplagate’
Blaeu Coila (1654):	No Entry
OS Name Books (1855-57):	Meeting House (Couplagate)
Location:	Ordnance Survey (1894)

Meeting House

SSE meeting house ‘meeting house’

The entry in the Ayrshire Ordnance Survey Names Book (1855-57) for Meeting House (Couplagate) reads –

A small building fitted up for being a dwelling to serve as a place of worship for a sect known as McMillans and Cameronians. There is a resident minister.

The three ‘Authorities for Spelling’ were Reverend Robert Murray, minister of the parish church of New Cumnock, Dr. Hunter of Polquhirter and John Lee, New Cumnock, a coal-miner living at the Castle. All three considered the Various Modes of Spelling to be R.P. Church, i.e. Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Cameronians

The Cameronians took their name from the Reverend Richard Cameron, Lion of the Covenant. On 12th June 1680, he and a party of twenty fellow Covenanters rode into Sanquhar where at the Town Cross his brother Michael Cameron read out the ‘Sanquhar Declaration’, disowning the tyrant King Charles Stuart II, and his attempts to control the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Inevitably, on 22nd July 1680, Richard and Michael Cameron, along with seven other Covenanters were killed by government forces at the Battle of Airdsmoss near Muirkirk. Among those killed was also John Gemmel in Bank, in the parish of New Cumnock.

McMillanites

The Glorious Revolution 1688/69 saw the reigning Catholic king James VII / II replaced by his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William of Orange. The Revolution Settlement saw the English and Irish Church settled as Episcopalian while the Scottish Church was settled as a modified form of Presbyterian. Although the majority of Scottish Presbyterians accepted the settlement, those of Covenanting stock, i.e. Cameronians, would not secede from their principles borne out of the Solemn League and Covenant. In 1706 the Reverend John McMillan, minister at Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire left the Established Church and emerged as the ‘father of the Reformed Presbyterian Church‘.

In the Old Statistical Account of the parish of New Cumnock (1793) the Reverend James Young recorded that ‘the population of the parish was 1200 with only 12 Secedeers from the Established Church‘ without noting the denomination of the latter [1]. Although he did not record the denomination of the Seceders, it would have been Reformed Presbyterians, since ‘Reformed Prebyterian families had settled in the neighbourhood‘ by that time [2] –

The nucleus of the congregation dates from 1780 when several Reformed Presbyterian families settled in te neighbourhood. For a time the services were held in the open air, but towards the the close of the century a “small meeting house” had been obtained.
W. Couper, The Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland, its congregations, ministers and students (1925)

Indeed in 1804 the Reformed Presbyterian Church societies of New Cumnock and Darvel, some 25 miles away by road, combined under one congregation. The Revered Archibald M. Rogerson, a native of Wanlockhead, Dumfriesshire, served as minister from 1810-1815, while he remained at Darvel after that church disjoined from the congregation [2].

Helen J. Steven in ‘A History of the Cumnocks Old and New’ adds some family names to the early congregation at the beginning of 19th century [3] –

Dissenters belonged to the families of the Reformed Presbyterians, the Wilsons and Stitts, who had come about that time from Dumfriesshire to the farms of Gatehead and Brockloch. The two families formed the nucleus of the church, and by and bye a place of worship was built, probably at the beginning of the century, as it is first recorded in the year 1809. The meeting house was a very small edifice, plain and unpretentious in appearance, and very uncomfortable, notwithstanding, that much was done to ameliorate its first condition.

Helen J. Steven ‘ A History of the Cumnocks Old and New‘ (1899)

In the New Statistical Account of the parish of New Cumnock (1845) by the Reverend Matthew Kirkland, he recorded the number of dissenters and churchmen in 1831:- Established Church,1752; Seceders of various denominations, 299; and Reformed Presbyterians,117, along with the following comment on the latter [4] –

There is a small meeting-house in the parish, in connection with the Reformed Presbyterians. They have no minister, and I believe never had one; but are occasionally supplied with sermon by preachers of that denomination, or by neighbouring ministers
New Cumnock, County of Ayrshire, NSA, Vol. V, 1845*

*N.B. the Reverend Matthew Kirkland compiled his Statistical Account in 1838

The reference in the Ordnance Survey Name Book (1855-57) to a ‘resident minister’ may be that of young Irishman, John Bates, M.A., having graduated at Glasgow University on 1853. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Glasgow on October 16, 1855 and called to New Cumnock on March 25, 1857, however, ill health prevented him from coming forward and gave up the call in November of that year. Sadly, his desire to serve as a field of missionary labour in New South Wales, ended in tragedy when died August 5 1858, aged 26 years, suddenly at Sydney Railway Station on arrival in the city [2].

Reverend Matthew Hutchison, Minister: 1859-1913

On May 2, 1859 Matthew Hutchison, of Loanhead, Midlothian accepted a unanimous call, signed by 44 members and 11 adherents, and was ordained on August 3. By the end of the year a manse was built next to the Meeting House as Hutchison set up home and plans for a new church. It was the manse that Matthew Hutchison and his wife Marion Symington, raised four New Cumnock born children.

On March 15, 1868 an elegant and commodious church, with seating for 300 was opened for public worship as a replacement for the Meeting House.

The church on the left with Afton Bridge in the distance now considered to be Afton Bridgend rather than ‘Couplagate’.

Reformed Presbyterian Church – Afton Free Church – Afton United Free Church

In 1876 the vast majority of Reformed Presbyterian Churches joined the Free Church of Scotland, including Hutchison’s church which was ‘christened’ the Afton Free Church, the Couplagate name associated with the Meeting House now out of favour. Later, in 1893, the Reverend Matthew Hutchison took it upon himself to write ‘The Reformed Presbyterian Church In Scotland, The Origins and History 1680-1876′ [5] .

Further changes in the church in 1900, saw the Free Church unite with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church, an a name change to the Afton United Free Church. Later that year Matthew Hutchison and his family set up in home in Ayr, while remaining the senior minister of the United Free Church. It was probably at Ayr that he embarked upon editing J. H. Thomson’s epic work on ‘The Martyr Graves of Scotland’ completed in 1894; including submitting the accounts of the martyr graves in the parish of New Cumnock [6].

Reverend Matthew Hutchison, passed away at his home in Ayr on 14th July 1913, aged 85 years and is buried at Ayr Cemetery on the Holmston Road.

Reverend Matthew Hutchison (Robert Guthrie) FOR 54 YEARS MINISTER OF AFTON UNITED FREE CHURCH, NEW CUMNOCCK

Reverend Adam Hamilton, Minister: 1900-1902

In 1900, Paisley-born, Adam Hamilton, aged 23, moved into the Afton United Free Church Manse with his 17 year old sister Annie. Sadly, he passed away two years later [7].

Reverend Adam G. Campbell, Minister: 1902-1913

Inverness-born Adam Campbell, 27 and his wife Isabella, 20 moved into the manse. Together they had three children born at New Cumnock, before settling at Portsoy [7].

Reverend Thomas Davidson, Minister: 1914 -1923

Thomas Davidson, born at Leswalt, Wigtownshire was a missionary assistant at Edinburgh Pilrig Free Church and spent several years in Vienna as a Presbyterian chaplain. As well as being an ordained clergyman Thomas Davidson also engaged in literary work and worked with Chambers the publishers in Edinburgh as a lexicographer and later as an editor [7].

“Chamber’s Twentieth Century Dictionary was first published in 1901, under the industrious editorship of Thomas Davidson. The dictionary was to become the recommended source for crossword puzzles because of the inclusion of obsolete, dialectical and Scottish words in its extensive lexicon. Dictionary fans loved the quirky and individualistic definitions which were started by Davidson and continued by later editors.”

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he resigned from his post in Vienna. He moved to New Cumnock to serve as the minister of the Afton United Free Church and gave up his work with Chambers. Reverend Thomas Davidson died at the Afton United Free Church Manse on 16th June 1923, aged 67 years and is buried at the Afton Cemetery.

The Reverend Thomas Davidson ‘Last Minister of Afton Church’ (Robert Guthrie)

The church buildings were sold off and the congregation transferred to the Arthur Memorial Free Church on the castlehill.

The Manse

The Afton United Free Church manse was purchased by James McFarlane, a butcher in the town. He was born at Knockskae farm in Straiton, Ayrshire and named his new home Knockskae, it was here he passed away, some three years later. His son, Thomas McFarlane, born in New Cumnock and also a butcher to trade and his family continued to live at Knockskae, Afton Bridgend.

Knockskae adjacent to Temple Brae (Robert Guthrie)

The Afton United Free Church

Masonic Temple

The Afton United Free Church building was purchased by the Trustees for Freemasons Lodge of St. John No. 334, New Cumnock. It was recorded as a Masonic Temple in the Valuation Rolls of 1925, per Christopher Gracie, Bowlinglea, New Cumnock and those of 1930 per George Nisbet, 84 Connel Park. The path adjacent to the former manse originally led to Cairnhill farm at the top of the hill, was ‘christened’ as the Temple Brae, and still is known as that to this day.

Church, Manse (behind the trees) and the Temple Brae (courtesy Alex Jess ca. 1970s)

Hall

The Masonic Temple changed hands with the Martyr’s Kirk Session, i.e. the parish church of New Cumnock, taking ownership. It was recorded as a Hall in the Valuation Rolls of 1935, per William Gibson, Post Office, New Cumnock, session clerk and those of 1940, per William Gibson, 6 Afton Crescent, New Cumnock, session clerk.

Gospel Halls

The originial Reformed Prebyterian Church buily in 1886 church building was demolished in the early 1970s. Bridgend Gospel Hall was built on the site ca. 1975 and later replaced by the New Cumnock Gospel Hall