Loch Brown

Loch Brown
The site of Loch Brown
Location	Crosshands, East Ayrshire, Scotland
Coordinates	Coordinates: 55°32′37.5″N 4°24′31.6″W / 55.543750°N 4.408778°W / 55.543750; -4.408778
Type	Drained freshwater loch
Primary inflows	Skeoch and Mossgiel Burns
Primary outflows	Garroch Burn
Basin countries	Scotland
Surface area	50–60 acres (20–24 ha)
Settlements	Mauchline

Loch Brown, also known in Scots as Loch Broun, Broon or Broom, was situated in a kettle hole in the mid-Ayrshire clayland near Crosshands. It is nowadays (2011) visible as a surface depression in pastureland, partially flooded, situated in a low-lying area close to farms and dwellings of Skeoch, Dalsangan, Ladebrae, Lochhill, and Crosshands, mainly in the Parish of Mauchline and partly in Craigie, East Ayrshire, Scotland. Duveloch is an old name for the loch and this may derive from the Gaelic Dubh, meaning black or dark loch.

The loch was natural, sitting in a hollow created by glaciation. The loch waters drained via the Garroch Burn that flows into the Cessnock Water and thence into the River Irvine. The road from Tarbolton to Galston via the old Largie Toll (B744) passes close to the loch site, and close by stands the hamlet of Crosshands on the Carlisle Road (A76).

Robert Gordon's (1580-1661) map shows the loch and two inflows and Jan Jansen's 1659 map shows the loch clearly. Roy's map of 1747-55 clearly marks the loch and the nearby mill, the Garroch Burn running into the Cessnock Water close to Carnell Castle.

Loch Brown was referred to in the first statistical account (1791 - 1799) of Mauchline Parish by Rev Auld (Burns' Daddy Auld) as follows:

"The only loch in the parish, called Loch Brown is about three miles North West from Mauchline. Wild ducks, geese. and sometimes swans resort to it. It covers about 60 acres of ground and would have been drained many years ago, had it not been for the sake of two corn mills which it supplies with water" In 1845 the Rev Tod refers to the loch as being of 60 acres and only surviving as a source of water for two corn mills.

When the mainline railway was extended beyond Kilmarnock in the direction of Dumfries the Railway Company route of choice lay across the loch, and then continued through the Mossgiel or Skeoch Tunnel to Mauchline. The loch lay seven miles from Kilmarnock in a basin lying north of Mossgiel Farm. The neighbouring proprietors at the time were the Duchess of Portland, Mr Claud Alexander of Ballochmyle, and Mr George Douglas. The first train which passed over the drained loch was in 1848, and the schoolmaster at Crosshands took his pupils down to Laidside to see it pass.