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Monument Inscription
IN
LOVING MEMORY OF
WILLIAM SMITH
LATE OF STAR AND GARTER
WHO DIED 6TH JULY 1883
AGED 77 YEARS
AND OF ROBERT HIS SON
WHO DIED 30TH AUGUST 1889
AGED 56 YEARS
ALSO MARY DAUGHTER OF ROBERT SMITH
WHO DIED 16TH NOVEMBER 1873
AGED 4 YEARS
HELEN CORBETT SMELLIE
WIFE OF WILLIAM SMITH JUNR
WHO DIED 24TH NOV. 1892 AGED 43 YEARS
JEAN WILSON
WIFE OF THE ABOVE
WILLIAM SMITH SENR
WHO DIED AT STAR AND GARTER
7TH APRIL 1900 AGED 88 YEARS
HIS SISTER MARGARET
DIED 14TH MARCH 1921 AGED 76 YEARS
THE SAID WILLIAM SMITH JUNR
DIED 19TH JANY1924 IN HIS 89TH YEAR
“HERE WE HAVE NO CONTINUING CITY
BUT WE SEEK ONE TO COME”
Family History
Star and Garter Farm seems an odd name for an agricultural establishment but is understandable when realised that its earlier life had been that of a coaching inn. Before the construction of the new road from Glasgow to Kilmarnock in 1832, which now carries the designation A77, the route used by travellers between the aforesaid destinations passed to the front of the farm buildings. The new road effectively took all the trade away from the inn, and it was converted into the steading for the farm and retained the old name of Star and Garter. The farm itself consisted of fifty acres of high but arable land situated halfway between Mearnskirk and Loganswell on the Old Mearns Road.
Initially farmed by Adam Clark, the farm came into the stewardship of a man from Whitburn in West Lothian called William Smith. William had been living in the Mearns Parish for over twenty-five years when he took occupancy of this farm. William had taken Jean Wilson, a Mearns girl, as his bride in 1834 and they produced several children in due course. Both William and his wife had a full and busy life at Star and Garter Farm. The farm became well known for, amongst other things, the production of early potatoes. There was always great competition amongst growers to be first to the markets with these vegetables as they attracted high prices from customers whose winter stocks of last year’s crops were coming to an end. Their son William was designated as a ploughman, an important role on an arable farm.
In time the operation of the farm fell to William Jnr., who in 1873 had married the daughter of the farmer at Lanrigg Farm, Helen Smellie. Named on this memorial are William Snr. and Jean’s oldest son Robert and their granddaughter, Robert’s daughter Mary. Robert had been a grain and hay merchant and for a short time after his daughter’s death had stayed with his brother at the farm.
Another of this couple’s children, daughter Margaret, after her brother William Jnr. became widowed, returned to the farm to act as his housekeeper.
Eventually William Smith had to retire from farming and took up residence in what was described as ‘a lovely cottage’ at the foot of Kirk Lane in the village of Newton. He was thought to have done very well for himself, but was known by contemporaries as a private person who kept himself very much to himself.