On Easter Sundays, over many years, children and adults have gathered on Ardrossan’s Castle Hill to roll Easter eggs and have fun. 

And this Easter Sunday the Castle gate will be unlocked to allow visitors a closer look at the historic building so why not head come to the Hill on Easter Sunday to share a free community event with Ardrossan Castle Heritage Society between noon and 3pm.

On 29 and 30 April and 13 and 14 May, there will be an archaeological dig in and around the ruins of the church from 9am-4pm. 

A survey in August 2016 suggested that there are anomalies under the ground that could be a road, a churchyard wall, a grave or robbing-pit, an interior church wall, a building associated with the churchyard, furnishings or tomb remains and buried gravestones. 

A robbing-pit is an infilled hole left after the removal, perhaps by robbing, of buried building material. Hopefully, the dig will reveal some of the church’s long-hidden secrets.

Following the success of last year’s inaugural Castle Carnival, there will a similar event on the Castle Hill on Saturday, June 17. 

The event will feature archaeology, archery, face painting, horse jousting, muskets, spray painting, stocks and sponges, a pipe band and many other attractions. Admission is free.

In January 1911, an Ardrossan Town Council workman unearthed a 600-year-old stone coffin or sarcophagus in the ruins of the church. 

The Heritage Society has commissioned a full-size replica coffin lid which, for the first time, will be on public display on Easter Sunday in the exact spot it was found 106 years ago.