Kilwinning Old Parish church

It is often claimed that the abbey was destroyed during or shortly after Scottish Reformation, but there is no real evidence for this and Timothy Pont, the famous cartographer stated that most of it was still standing in the early 1600s. The structure of this monastery, said Pont, ‘’ He also saw the original abbey records, further proof that it was not destroyed by the Reformers, though they may have been kept at Eglinton Castle by then. Without the revenues from church lands and property, the parish church could not afford to maintain a great building already damaged by wind and weather and as it deteriorated, local builders, including the Earls of Eglinton, helped themselves to a lot of…