This was the home of Marion and Helen Chalmer who in 1494 achieved notoriety by being members of a group of some thirty 'Lollards of Kyle' summoned before James IV and his Council by Robert Blacader, the Archbishop of Glasgow, to answer a number of serious accusations concerning their adherence to Protestant ideas. The group were admonished. Fifty years later, it was to Kyle that George Wishart, the reformer, came in midsummer 1545 to visit lairds sympathetic to his ideas and with their support he was welcomed and preached openly to large numbers of people in Galston, Ayr and Mauchline. In 1556 he was followed by John Knox who chose to preach and celebrate communion rather in private houses in the company of smaller numbers of supporters. One such house was that of James Chalmer, a staunch supporter of the Reformation, who on one occasion had forcefully made his views known to Mary, Queen of Scots. Garden 'Cold Frames'   Gardens in front of Mansion House     His grandson, also James Chalmer, served as a commissioner for the Shire of Ayr in the Scots Parliament. On 9 August 1630, with Sir William Cuninghame of Caprinton and John Stewart, provost of Ayr, he oversaw the trial of Janet Wallace in Ochiltree for witchcraft. The following year he was appointed Sheriff-Principal of Ayr and lived for much of the time in the family's magnificent town-house in the High Street. In 1649 and 1650 he served as lieutenant colonel and second in command of Montgomery's Horse in the Army of the Covenants. Overhead of the main house in the mid 1950's   Click here for previous history Click here for more history