How's the air in Ayr?

June 7, 2021 7:21 AM

Mrs Logophiliac and I are talking about moving north. Ayr (Scotland) looks interesting. How is life in Ayr? Do you have better suggestions?

We are both over 65, no kids, no interest in nightlife. I may still be working from home so good internet is important. Good access to either Glasgow or Edinburgh is also important. A few good bookshops nearby would help also. Part of the idea is to unload our too-big house in southern England and downsize.

posted by Logophiliac to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

I have only one data point, a friend who grew up in Ayr and returns from time to time to visit family there. She thinks it is terribly dull. She's not interested in nightlife but she does like a variety of cuisines and has lived in Hong Kong, Madrid, and Lima.

There's regular train service between Ayr and Glasgow Central (about 1 hour's journey), and to Edinburgh via Glasgow Queen Street (about 2 and a half hours total from Ayr).
posted by brianogilvie at 7:42 AM on June 7, 2021

I've heard good things about Bridge of Allan for rural plus good trains to either Glasgow or Edinburgh.
posted by k3ninho at 8:56 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Not going to threadsit but: not particularly seeking rural. At our age “no further than a taxi ride from a decent hospital” is not a bad mantra.
posted by Logophiliac at 9:51 AM on June 7, 2021

I can't tell you much about Ayr but I've similarly heard it's slightly dull. A few other places you might want to look at -

* Portobello, Dunbar or South Queensferry if you're looking for the sea
* Balerno/Currie/Juniper Green, Eskbank, or Cramond for nicer quieter places just the other side of the Edinburgh bypass
* Bearsden, Bishopbriggs or Lenzie for the same in Glasgow
* Linlithgow - nice small town with good rail links, plus close to Livingston for the hospital!
posted by dudekiller at 10:09 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

I don't live in Ayr, but I live in Glasgow, and I visit the west coast frequently as an everyday explorer.

dudekiller above has some nice suggestions, but most of them are east-ish or on the east coast. They're really good suggestions! There are so many nice places to live in Scotland.

I don't know what it's like to live in Ayr, and I never will, because I'm not tempted to move there exactly. It seems too grey, too busy with visitors, too run-down. If I wanted to move to a large, popular, seaside town in that part of the world I would choose Troon, which seems to me more lively and less depressing. More to do in general. Or Largs!

The Ayrshire coast is a long and lovely part of the world. I would highly recommend you drive along it sometime - in a day or two you could really get a feel for where you might want to live. I recommend you drive along the east coast too.

From the north end of it, here are my opinions on some of the places you might look at. These are just based on my impressions from visiting for a few hours at a time:

Gourock - First proper Ayrshire place you come to driving along the Clyde from Glasgow, after the somewhat depressing post-industrial Port Glasgow and Greenock.

Inverkip - Seems like a very residential place, with lots of new flats, based around a marina. Would be fine to live here and work from home but pretty dull I think.

Wemyss Basy - Where the ferries to Bute leave from. Some nice houses, but I don't think there's much going on here beyond the ferries.

Largs - A proper seaside resort. I would happily live here!

Fairlie - A nice part of the world, good beach. Smaller town.

Portencross/West Kilbride - Some lovely beaches around here and enough of town life to keep you occupied.

Ardrossan/Saltcoats - Ardrossan is where you get the ferry to Arran, but other than that nothing nice about it. I would not live in these places - too run-down.

Irvine - A new town. Great for supermarkets but not lovely to look at.

Troon - A classic seaside resort.

Ayr - Likewise, but somehow more scary.

Dunure - Not far rom Culzean Castle and its impressive estates, I love this small town/village. Would love to live here.

The whole stretch between Dunure and Girvan is fantastic with beaches and scenery. However, I would not live in...

Girvan - Nice views, but a really nondescript grey Scottish town.

Any further south and you're heading to Stranraer, beyond which is more Dumfries and Galloway. That's a part of the world I would really like to live in (not Stranraer itself though)!
posted by cincinnatus c at 12:21 PM on June 7, 2021 [5 favorites]

And obviously there are many places inland too. Too many to mention. If I were to live anywhere in Ayrshire, I might choose Straiton, which is a lovely little village with excellent walks but also not too far from the relative metropolises of Kilmarnock and Ayr.
posted by cincinnatus c at 12:35 PM on June 7, 2021

Ayr does have a good hospital. It's a bit more interesting than the other God's Waiting Room towns on the coast (aka Largs) but it's not super-lively. Being the county town it's got more infrastructure and events, but multiple good bookshops I doubt. Climate is decent: warmish but a fair bit of rain. It's a bit of a haul to Glasgow or Edinburgh by transit. Troon (where my aunt has lived for the last 40 years) might be nicer and has a very slightly shorter train commute, but doesn't have the main hospital that Ayr does.

Having lived near Lenzie and worked in Bishopbriggs, house prices escalate as soon as you get near Lenzie station. Since you can travel to both Glasgow and Edinburgh very quickly, they're at a huge premium. Lenzie's pretty dull, and since HarperCollins was (is?) in the hood, no-one buys books 'cos they can get them cheap from friends. Linlithgow is utterly lovely, but pretty small and is 100% Edinburgh commuters.
posted by scruss at 12:36 PM on June 7, 2021

Dunblane is an hour-ish from Edinburgh by train, but is a very pretty village imo. Peebles is lovely, but it's an hour to Edinburgh by car with no train station. (I would move there if it had a train station).

Maybe don't move anywhere where Larbert Hospital would be your closest one. My families experiences there have not been great, I would not recommend it.
posted by stillnocturnal at 1:02 AM on June 8, 2021

My brother in law very much liked Gullane before moving to Edinburgh for career reasons, and an illustrator I follow had a very happy move to Helensburgh just a few months after her first visit there left her enchanted. My impression of Ayr is that under normal circumstances lots of Glasgow people descend on the beach at the slightest sign of sunny weather, some being antisocial. I think there's also a lot of boy racer types in noisy twin exhaust cars cruising up and down - I have a vague memory there was a web site for them called Ayr Shores.
posted by AuroraSky at 1:39 AM on June 8, 2021

Response by poster: Some food for thought here. We’re planning to visit Ayr next month (COVID permitting), just for a look around.
posted by Logophiliac at 1:32 PM on June 23, 2021