Prestwick (EN)

The old Lady of Towntwinning

Prestwick the small town, which today has 14700 inhabitants, is located on the Firth of Clyde in Ayrshire. Prestwicks – The name comes from the Old English for, priest farm, preost means „priest“ and wic means „farm“. So the germ cell of the town was a farm.

Prestwick is Scotland`s oldest Royal Burgh. James IV, King of Scotland, England and Ireland passed through here and another Scottish King was even cured here. Behind St. Ninians Church is a well, by the water of which, according to legend, Robert the Bruce, Scottish king from 1306 -1329, was cured of leprosy.

From the 15th century salt was extracted in Prestwick by evaporating sea water. Even today you can see the building of the „Salt Pan“, built around 1790. Although Prestwick is located by the sea, it has been the center of Scottish aviation since 1930. The airport was for a long time the most important in Scotland. Although the airport itself has lost importance, Prestwick is extremely important for air traffic control nationally and internationally. Around 70% of British airspace and all air traffic over the North Atlantic is monitored from here.

Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns, was born very close to Preswick, in Alloway.

No other country in the world has as many golf courses as Scotland in relation to its population. There are three in Prestwick alone. The most famous is the course of the Prestwick Golf Club, where the first Open Championship took place in 1860.