By William Findlay
The building later occupied by the Wheatsheaf Inn (like most of the buildings in the Square) was built around 1800, shortly after the graveyard around the church had been cleared and most of the remains had been removed to the new cemetery in the Barrhill. The building was originally a house of two storeys, as were most of the surrounding structures. By 1875 they were still houses and some of them had been owned by the late George Findlay, a farmer at Broomfield in Auchinleck Parish. His son George Findlay, a joiner, occupied one of the houses.
By 1885 the Wheatsheaf Inn had been established. It occupied the lower floor with its main entrance in the Square, the upper floor was converted into a flat with its entrance in Bank Lane. George Findlay owned the property, but the landlord of the Inn was Hugh Robertson. George Findlay died in 1887 and his eldest son, also George Findlay, who was a mechanical engineer, inherited the property. By 1895 George Findlay had become owner and landlord, possibly in conjunction with his mother (Sarah Findlay, nee Hamilton), and remained as such until at least 1925.
George Findlay seems to have left Ayrshire before his death – date unknown. The 1961 Cumnock Chronicle booklet ‘Cumnock Banks and Bankers, Shops and Occupants’ names Mr James Black as Landlord and Mr John Cree as his predecessor. The Wheatsheaf Inn had been renamed the Snug Inn, and is now incorporated into the neighbouring Sun Inn.
Notes:-
1. The youngest brother of the third George Findlay, William Findlay, was killed in the First World War. Information on him, other members of his family and men and women who served in the war from Cumnock are available on the History Group’s WW1 Cumnock Soldiers Blog – you can search for him and others at the right hand side of the page.
2. The Cumnock Bank and Bankers, Shops and Occupants booklet is available for download HERE