Hugh Bruce would be aged 12 when he was Highly Commended for his entry of a Common Rabbit in the Cessnock Show of 1903. The show grounds would have been about one mile from Hugh’s home in Maxwood Rows. Not too far to walk with a caged rabbit, even in a thunderstorm? Cessnock Castle is a 15th-century keep greatly enlarged into a baronial mansion, about 1 mile (1.6 km) south east of Galston, East Ayrshire, Scotland, and 0.75 miles (1.21 km) south of the River Irvine. The earliest record of this property shows that a building existed in 1296. The Campbells first owned the property, and it was owned thereafter by the families of Dick, Wallace, and Scott, before being acquired by the De Fresnes in 1946. Mary, Queen of Scots resorted here after the defeat of Langside. It was also visited by George Wishart, John Knox and Robert Burns.