The Campsie Fells (‘The crooked fairy hills’) lie just a few miles north of Glasgow. They’re the highest and most extensive group of hills that form a more or less continuous range between Dumbarton and Stirling. To the west of the Campsies are the Kilpatrick Hills,...
Blanefield’s charming art gallery is housed in a smithy that is thought to be around 300 years old, though its exact age is unknown. It is certainly one of the very oldest surviving buildings in the parish of Strathblane. It appears on John Grassom’s map of the area...
BALLEWAN Painting of Ballewan House, often known as The Ha', by Connie Simmers BALZEOUN Ballewan is an estate in the Blane Valley that was carved out of the earldom of Lennox. For two centuries it belonged largely to the Craig family, culminating in Milliken Craig...
Local Shops Over the years a surprising number of people have run shops in the community. Some have lasted longer than others, but all have been memorable in their own way. The fortunes of retailers have waxed and waned with the general fortunes of the community....
Though the first Strathblane parish schoolmaster was appointed in 1716, it was many years before the school was housed in a permanent schoolhouse. This was finally built in 1781 at Thorn of Cuilt, at Netherton, which is the area now known as Blanefield. This...
Stained Glass panel from Maryhill Burgh Halls showing bleachfield workers The abundance of water meant that bleaching and water-driven industries were commonplace in the parish in the 18th century and lasted well into the 19th century. By 1870 most of them had closed...
John Douglas Walker, Gunner Royal Garrison Artillery, aged 36 It is easy to imagine the wife and children of Gunner John Douglas Walker celebrating the news of the Armistice of 1918 and joyfully anticipating his return to Blanefield from the Front. It was a Monday...
George Cumming Gardner, Cpl King’s Own Scottish Borderers, aged 26 George Cumming Gardner was born at Muirhouse Farm, Strathblane, on September 6 1889. Having left the village in his youth to live in Craigton, his name finds no place on the Strathblane War Memorial,...
Andrew Fitzpatrick, Quartermaster Sergeant Scottish Rifles, aged 37. Of all the First World War casualties with local connections and who do not feature on Strathblane War Memorial, the case of Quartermaster Sergeant Andrew Fitzpatrick is the most puzzling. Though...
STRATHBLANE WW1 PROJECT: 27 JOHN DILLON, PRIVATE ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS, AGED 24. John's CWGC gravestone in France with a poignant inscription from his family Colonel Otto Elsner with "A" Section of 129th Field Ambulance "somewhere in Flanders" As Elsner names John...
STRATHBLANE WW1 PROJECT: 26 PHILIP BINNIE, SECOND LIEUTENANT SCOTTISH RIFLES, AGED 27. Park Terrace, Strathblane, where the Binnie family had their second home.It was demolished to make way for local authority housing in Park Place. “He spent a short holiday in the...
STRATHBLANE WORLD WAR 1: 23 MICHAEL STEWART, PRIVATE KING’S LIVERPOOL REGIMENT, AGED 29. The glasshouses at Dinneiddwg, the mansion in Mugdock where Michael worked as second gardener Michael joined Lowland Division Cycle Corps but was soon transferred to the Army...
STRATHBLANE WW1 PROJECT: 22 ARCHIBALD (ARCHIE) LAMONT SCOTT, PRIVATE MACHINE GUN CORPS, AGED 27. Machine Gun Corps Archie Scott The Machine Gun Corps Memorial at Hyde Park Corner.The boy David is flanked by real Vickers machine guns encased in bronze. “He was a fine...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 21 JAMES ROBB, TROOPER, LIFE GUARDS (HOUSEHOLD BATTALION), AGED 21. Household Battalion “Having gone into this action 498 men strong, the Household Battalion suffered 348 casualties. 13 officers were also hit. The majority of these...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 20 ROBERT RIGG, CORPORAL GORDON HIGHLANDERS, AGED 21. Robert Rigg's grave In the early 20th century, well-heeled families in the Strathblane area began swapping their horse drawn carriages for motor cars. Some of those, including...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 19 COLIN OGILVIE RANKIN, LANCE CORPORAL HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY, AGED 27. Troops going over the top in 1917 at Arras where Colin was killed on April 25. Postcard ofOld Edenkiln in Dumbrock Road, Strathblane, where Colin grew up and...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 18 WILLIAM PATERSON, PRIVATE ARGYLL & SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS, AGED 27. Above: Williams attestation papers from November 22 1915, when the family was staying in Balfron Memorial to the 51st Highland Division with Gaelic...
STRATHBLANE WW1 PROJECT: 15 JAMES MACINTYRE, PRIVATE SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS, AGED 19. The atlas from his Aunt Rhoda that James took to war The pressed wild rosebud marked "Ardlui June 1916" The calendar tab for September 1916 on which James was marking off his days in...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 14 DONALD MCINTYRE, TROOPER LOVAT SCOUTS, AGED 23. The Blairquhosh Meikle Tree and Donald's childhood home Report of Donald's death in the Southern Reporter. Floors Castle where Donald worked as a gardener. “Both as a civilian and...
STRATHBLANE WW1 PROJECT: 13 JOHN MCCULLOCH, PRIVATE ARGYLL & SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS, AGED 34. Left: Report of John's death in the Milngavie & Bearsden Herald. Immediately beneath there is an item about soldiers' pay being increased to 1s 6d a day after six...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 12 WILFRID BLAKE MOYES, SERGEANT 8th ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT, AGED 30. Wilfrid Moyes 1881 painting by local artist Frederick Alsop with the Manse where Wilfrid grew up in the foreground. Dumgoyne looms in the distance. Wilfrid's...
STRATHBLANE WW1 Project: 8 WILLIAM KER LIEUTENANT HAWKE BATTALION ROYAL NAVAL DIVISION, AGED 24. William Ker William Ker RND 1916 Christmas Card “I crossed the blood red ribbon, that once was no man’s land, I saw a misty daybreak and a creeping minute-hand; And here...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 7 WILLIAM GEORGE EDMONSTONE, LIEUTENANT COLDSTREAM GUARDS, AGED 19. Willie, aged 15, towers over his classmates in Eton's Officer Training Corps his much-loved cousin Enid Dudley Ward The oil painting ofWillie that hangs in...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 6 GEORGE DON, GUNNER ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY, AGED 35. 82 Howitzer , 39th Siege Battery RGA,(George Don) “It was George’s wretched luck that married men under 41 were conscripted into the British Army on May 25 1916, less than...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 5 WILLIAM DEVLYN, PRIVATE HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY, AGED 22. Private William Devlyn, Highland Light Infantry, aged 22 Burnside, Station Road, Blanefield, home of William's mother, Jessie The Mons Star Diary extract from William...
STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 3 JAMES COCHRANE CARTWRIGHT, PRIVATE ARMY SERVICE CORPS, AGED 35, & 4 WILLIAM JOHN CARTWRIGHT, GUNNER ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY, AGED 34. The Derby Scheme recruiting poster James Cartwrights two gravestones in...
According to John Guthrie Smith’s history of Strathblane, “the compact little estate of Carbeth Guthrie” was constructed between 1808 and 1817 by West Indies merchant John Guthrie. Guthrie was a prominent member of Glasgow’s “Sugar Aristocracy”. He had managed an...
"Nothing is now left of Old Netherton save the smithy and the school-house, and its very name seems likely to perish, for the factory originally called Blane Printfield has expanded to such ample proportions, and covered its environs with so many workers' houses that...
RAILWAY MANIA By 8.30 on the morning of Monday 1 July 1867 an excited crowd had gathered in Blanefield near the bottom of the Cuilt Brae to greet the community’s first passenger train. Britain was in the grip of railway mania. The 1861 Blane Valley Railway Act...
6. Netherton cottages including Sunnyside 9. The "Noo Hooses" today The white building in the foreground is Sunnyside which was demolished by a landmine in March 1941 killing four people. During the Second World War Strathblane, in common with many other villages, was...
The Printworks (from John Guthrie Smith 1886. Photograph by John Coubrough) Block printing is the printing of patterns on fabrics using a carved block, usually made from wood. It originated in India around the 5th century BC but did not arrive in Scotland until the...
John Guthrie Smith records that the neat little church and manse belonging to the Free Church stands on the site of the old village of Netherton and the first ordained minister was the Rev George Rennie. Early records indicate that by 1864 there was a sufficient...
Silk postcard sent by gardener Sandy Mitchell, fighting on the Western Front, to his wife Georgina, living in staff quarters at Duntreath. Sandy, a Private in the Scottish Rifles, was killed at Arras in April 1917. He is remembered on Strathblane War Memorial. Boer...
Blane Valley from the Cuilt Brae Until the mid-20th century farming was very much an integral part of the life of the parish of Strathblane. The school log contains frequent references to children skipping school to help with the harvest. The Blanefield printworks...
The parish of Strathblane, some twenty square miles in size, lies in the south-west corner of Stirlingshire. It was at one time part of the county of Dunbarton and as an ecclesiastical parish is still part of Dunbarton Presbytery. It is a very beautiful district. The...
Early Days I was not born in the village but in Salisbury House, Campsie Glen. My dad was a native of Strathblane, being born in Milndavie House. My mum was born at Little Gala near Biggar but came to Ballagan Farm when her father took over the tenancy there in about...
A delightful memoir of a small girl’s life in Strathblane in the 1940s & 50s
On 2 May 1919 the people of Strathblane gathered to honour a local hero. They presented an inscribed gold watch to local gamekeeper James Norval Paul “in recognition of his gallantry”. Around 115,000 non-commissioned men who fought in the First World War were...
For various reasons, a number of men from the parish fell in the First World War yet are not commemorated on the War Memorial. These men are also therefore only briefly mentioned in "A Village Remembers", a book about the men commemorated on Strathblane War Memorial...
Families of some of the men on the memorial A Village Remembers (pdf)Download Contents Foreword by the Wright family Introduction by Anne Balfour (nee Johnstone) Jack Barr, inventor’s son Robert Blair, gardener James Cartwright, joiner William Cartwright, storeman...
The Strathblane Notebooks Life in a Stirlingshire Village before the First World WarBy Alex Urquhart edited by Anne Balfour Quotation from the headstone of Alex Urquhart's parents in Strathblane Cemetery Alex Urquhart (1894-1978) Strathblane Heritage Society...
In response to suggestions from several friends I have sought to give a picture of life in the village during the period 1900-1910, during the whole of which time I was resident in it. It is not intended to be what is generally known as a "history." I wish to...
The poet Thomas Thorpe was born on 9 March, 1829 in Milton, Dunbartonshire, son of a block printer at the local works. When he was five, he moved with his family to Strathblane. One of his earliest childhood memories was being with his sisters in a wood where wild...