Page 50 - Fenning_Scoland

1681 -The 'Aire~Manuscript Town Mark

@

' . '

' '

17t11 January 1681. Letter from Kilmarnock to Rotterdam via Edinburgh and
London. It would have been charged 7d Sterling paid, being 2d (2s Scots)
Kilmarnock to Edinburgh and 5d Edinburgh to London. Pre-payment was required
for all letters to Holland. The letter is endorsed

'p(e)r post, post payed to Londone'.

Subsequently, probably at the Edinburgh Letter Office, the rate from Edinburgh to
London 'Sd' was added after the endorsement.

The Post Office also added the 'Aire' town mark. If the letter had been put into
the post at Ayr this mark may have been applied there. However, the letter may
have entered the post at Kilmarnock (the post office there is believed to have
opened in September 1662), as the post-boy from Ayr to Edinburgh passed
through Kilmarnock. If so, it would suggest that the 'Aire' mark was added in
Edinburgh for internal accounting purposes to identify that the letter had arrived in
the Ayr post-bag.

-

The 'X/' in red was the charge in stuivers applied on the Continent and paid by
the recipient in Rotterdam.