Kilmaurs lies on the Carmel Water, twenty-one miles southwest of Glasgow and just outside Kilmarnock. The hamlet was known as Cunninghame until the thirteenth century. Its early medieval church dedicated to a Saint Maura - probably the source of the name - gave the village its identity, and St Maurs-Glencairn Parish Church traces its origins to 1170. The building was enlarged in 1413 and substantially rebuilt in 1888. Beyond mammoth bones and a famous sword, the village was once known for cutlery, shoe and bonnet workshops, with iron and coal mines in the surrounding countryside. Kilmaurs was famous for its kale, the local crop so prized that one neighbouring village reportedly offered an extravagant price for seeds. The villagers obliged - and then roasted the seeds on a shovel over hot coals before handing them over, ensuring nothing would ever sprout.

Adjoining the parish church stands the Glencairn Aisle, the burial place of the Earls of Glencairn, who carried the courtesy title Lord Kilmaurs and dominated this district for several centuries. In 1786 James, the fourteenth Earl, broke the family's ancient connection to the area by selling the Barony and estate of Kilmaurs, including Kilmaurs Place, to the Marchioness of Titchfield. The Cunningham family had held this land since the twelfth century. A village that had once turned out armed men and skilled tradesmen now watched its overlords sell up and move on. The aisle survives, and the names carved into it remain - a quiet memorial to a family whose rise and decline tracked the medieval and early modern fortunes of Ayrshire itself.

Kilmaurs Tolbooth, locally known as the jougs (also Jugs or Juggs), once housed the council chambers and jail of the burgh of barony. The name comes from the metal collar and chain that still hang from the wall, used to restrain offenders for public humiliation. The village also had stocks. A tower of some description stood here before the present steeple went up in 1800. The Burgh of Barony was established in 1527 with forty tenementers, so an earlier council house almost certainly existed. The jougs themselves were last used in 1820 to hold a housebreaker who turned out to be so small that he had to be stood on a stone block to reach the chain. In 1874 lightning destroyed twelve feet of masonry at the top of the steeple, and rebuilding nearly broke the burgh's finances.

Some stories from a village's past stay with it. In 1844, a professional-class couple from England, Mr and Mrs Barker, took lodgings in Kilmaurs and spent a few weeks enjoying the sights and sounds of Ayrshire. They were recently bankrupt and afraid of the shame and disgrace that poverty would bring. One evening they walked to the Laigh Milton Viaduct - the oldest surviving railway bridge in Scotland - tied themselves together, and jumped into the River Irvine below. The water at that point is only about three feet deep. They were buried in the Kilmaurs churchyard in an unmarked grave. The story is recorded in local chronicles with the care that small communities reserve for outsiders whose pain became, briefly, their own.

Murdock's Bridge - locally called the Penny Bridge - was the first iron bridge built in Ayrshire, crossing the Carmel Water near St Maurs-Glencairn church. It connected pedestrians to Knockentiber and Crosshouse and gave workmen access to the Woodhill limestone quarries and the local archery club's ground. Funded by public subscription, every person in the west of the village paid a penny toward its construction, and the official opening was celebrated with a gala day. The village's stepped Mercat Cross stands in an enclosure behind it, surmounted by a sandstone ball and dated 1830. On market days a holed board was placed on top and used as basic scales for weighing goods. Robert Burns is known to have attended the Cunningham Fair held in Kilmaurs, mentioned in his poem The Jolly Beggars.