Early Spring Sunset Lochwinnoch

The name probably originates as the Loch of St Wynnin, a Saint who seems to have passed this way in the 500s and whose name is also attached to Kilwinning, or Church of St Wynnin, rather nearer the coast. The name Wynnin seems to be an early form of Finian.


Lochwinnoch itself first grew up around a church established here by the monks of Paisley Abbey in the 1200s. It was still primarily an agricultural village when a new church was built, perhaps on the site of the old, in 1729. This church too has passed out of use, but its west gable end and clock remain standing on rising ground at the north east end of today's village. This is now known as Auld Simon and when the rest of the church was demolished it was preserved at the insistence of local weavers.