KILWINNING, a market-town in Cunningham district, Ayrshire, Scotland, is situated on the right bank of the Garnock, 26 miles south-west of Glasgow by rail. The houses are neat, but somewhat straggling. The chief buildings are the parish church (with a handsome detached Gothic tower erected in 1815 in place of an older one, 103 feet high, which fell in 1814), the Free church, and the board school. The greatest interest of the place centres in its ruined abbey, originally one of the richest in Scot land. Founded about 1140 by Hugh de Morville, lord of Cunningham, it was dedicated to St Winning, who lived on the spot during the 8th century, and has given his name to the town. This beautiful specimen of Early English was destroyed in 1561; and its lands were granted to the earl of Eglinton and others. Kilwinning is the traditional birthplace of Scottish freemasonry; and Kilwinning lodge, said to have been founded by the foreign architects and masons who came to build the abbey, is still looked up to as the mother-lodge in Scotland. The royal company of archers of Kilwinning—dating, it is said, as far back as 1488—used till recently to meet annually to shoot at the papingo, or popinjay, in the manner described in Scott’s Old Mortality ; and in 1881 an attempt has been made to revive the custom. The former industry in weaving shawls and lighter fabrics has quite died out. The large iron, coal, and fire-clay works in the neighbourhood employ most of the working inhabitants. A woollen-mill, with sixty hands, but capable of employing three hundred, was opened in 1881. The population of the parish in 1881 was 7037; of the town, 3469. About a mile from Kilwinning is Eglinton Castle, the principal seat of the earl of Eglinton, where the famous Eglinton tournament was held in ...