Spier's parklands and the Cholera pit
In 1834 Cholera broke out in Beith. The response was that 'clothes were burned, bedding fumigated, stairs and closes whitewashed, a nurse who was a veteran of the Dalry outbreak was engaged and a ban placed on entertainments at funerals.' There were 100 cases in September 1834, 205 people were eventually affected with 105 deaths. Another precaution was that all routes to the town were controlled by soldiers who prevented anyone entering or leaving.
Some of the people were buried in the Parish Churchyard, but others were buried in an unmarked mass grave in a field, close to what later (1888) became Spier's School, on the little common south-west of where the Geilsland Road meets the Powgree Burn.
Follow us on: