As you know, my charity The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety has bought the Barony St. John buildings in Ardrossan. We plan to convert the hall building into a Centre for our charity and the community, offering not only personal safety training but also first aid, martial arts, dance and exercise classes and possibly even a social hub for various groups. The church building is a much bigger project and we hope to eventually turn into an events centre including The William Wallace Visitor Centre which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

My young children were down visiting me from Ardross in the Highlands and I thought I’d amuse them by getting them to hunt for anything old in the church. We had been told by members of the Church of Scotland that everything had been taken out and so I knew it would take my children ages, if at all, to discover anything.

Imagine my surprise as they kept coming back with another old, mould covered book after another - bibles, hymn books, newsletters, church pamphlets - over 20 in all.

After initially thinking that some historical, church-related finds would look great on display but that this was unlikely as CofS had removed them all, it seems “someone” has put in a good word for us - in the form of several Good Books.

My children even informed me that they had found some little locked cupboards attached to some of the pews (obviously parishioners had their own seats and decided to install their own little cupboard to keep their bible in - some even chose to lock it - and as they passed on, their bibles were left behind.)

So, here are a few of the bibles with some names and signatures on them - if any readers know who they may be or think they may be related to the original owners, please get in touch with me.

The first says “Amelia Mackay, St. Andrews, Barrie Terrace, Ardrossan”, the second is signed “MacGregor” with the address and telephone number embossed “Red Gables, Ardrossan, Tel. 693” - harking back to the days when you called the operator and simply asked for “Ardrossan 693” and the third says Mrs Christine Coyle (Mossgiel),.Parkhouse Road. Pew 39.

But the two bibles that really peaked my interest are these two;

The first is inscribed and reads “Balston, Sea View’s House, Saltcoats. May 1877” – that’s almost 140 years old! And the second is not signed but is obviously very old with a date of publication being shown as 1830 – now that is old. 186 years old to be exact. Wow!

If anyone has any information on these finds, please get in touch - in the meantime, we are considering how to eventually display them.

Next time, I’ll update you about our progress with Phase One of our renovation work at the Barony St. John and tell you about a wonderful old sermon we found from 1893 but if you would like to read more ‘behind the scenes’ news about our discoveries and the renovation work in the Barony St. John buildings, check out my blog at www.ardrossman.wordpress.com or if you would like to know about our charity, please feel free to peruse our website www.ScotCPS.org.uk or look us up on Facebook.

Goodbye for now.