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A very early, but dubious, reference to the name Ryburn comes from Bewcastle in Cumbria, England, just north of Hadrians Wall. In the church grounds there is a famous cross dating from the late 7th century. On the north side is an inscription in Anglo-Saxon runes. In 1685, when the inscription was presumably less eroded than now, Bishop Nicholson ventured one translation as "Ryeburn, Cemeterium, or Cadaverum Sepulchrum". In 1251, a Norman-sounding "'William de Ryeburne" was fined by the Abbot of Byland apropos an alder wood at Scackleton, North Yorkshire. He probably came from the Ryburn Valley in West Yorkshire, and was unlikely to have been related to the later Ayrshire Ryburns. The first Ryburns I know with a fair degree of certainty to have been my ancestors lived in Scotland in medieval times. My ancestors there acquired land formerly owned by the Knights Templar, in an area just north of Dunlop Village in Ayrshire. The property was known as 'Temple Ryburn'. So far, the earliest reference to an Ayrshire Ryburn was in 1496, when a Robert Ryburn witnessed an 'Instrument of Sasine given by a noble knight, Sir Adam Mure, of Caldwell'. Did you
know that a John
Ryburn, 1530, is in 'Foxe's Book
of Martyrs', or that two other John
Ryburns 'of
that ilk' were involved in two separate feuding
murders in Ayrshire in the late
1500s. The second victim was the Earl of Eglinton!
John
the elder, Laird of Ryburn, was himself murdered in 1571.
In 1603 a 'Johne
Ryburne' was outlawed on what looks like a trumped-up charge
of adultery and child murder. He
fled to Ireland. The old Ryburn
Manor and lands near Dunlop were
sold by Neil
Ryburn in
1638, and in the 1650s another John Ryburn, probably Neil's son,
moved to the
Kintyre Peninsula, near Campbeltown,
to join the First
Marquis of Argyll's 'Plantation' Scheme. There
followed many generations of Kintyre
Ryburns. PS: The 1886 photo in the heading (click photo to enlarge) is the family of my great grandfather, Robert McNair Ryburn, who migrated to New Zealand from Cambeltown, Scotland, in 1859. Last updated 26 February, 2012 |
![]() The four sides of the base of the Bewcastle Cross. Inset is the runic inscription "Ryeburn, Cemeterium".
. ![]() Hapland
Farmhouse, near Dunlop, Ayrshire, 2007. Stepping
stones across the River Ryburn near |