Introduction How do we remember our past? A common response to the stories of Strathblane's links to the institution of Black slavery is that our ancestors saw the world differently, a world in which racial stereotypes were deeply embedded, and it is not for us to...
INDEX Introduction The Land Mines The Germans are Coming?! Our Super Seniors The School in Wartime What the Papers Said Verse & Worse! VE Day and Welcome Home The Blairskaith Bomber The white building in the foreground is Sunnyside, which was so badly damaged by...
Stories of the Fallen INDEX James Callander GNR Royal Artillery Daniel Davidson LAC Royal Air Force Andrew M Maclean Lt Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Archibald MacNicol SPR Royal Engineers Gilbert McKay P/O Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Richard RN Pedder Lieut Col...
This collection of vintage postcards has been moved to a new folder to allow everyone to see both sides of the postcards. Pore over the pictures to see how Strathblane, Blanefield and the surrounding area has changed over the years, and read the written greetings....
The club’s own painting of Robert Burns, by local artist Norrie Barclay. Itself a copy of the famous Alexander Nasmyth portrait (above), mysteriously disappeared in the mid-1990s. (National Portrait Gallery) Picture the scene: a snowy January evening at the...
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...
It would be hard to find anyone who has a longer association with education in Strathblane than “Mrs Marshall”, as she is known to generations of pupils. As butcher’s daughter Georgina Campbell, she started at Strathblane School aged four and a half in June 1949 and...
In July 2023 we posted on the local Strathblanefield FACEBOOK group asking people to share their memories of the old school. Here are some of the responses: It’s so nice to create a bit of history about the old school. I was only there my first two years of school...
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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...
Edward Bradshaw Miller-Stirling, Lt Black Watch, aged 26. Harry James Graham Miller-Stirling, Lt Nigeria Regiment, aged 31. Edward and Harry Miller-Stirling are commemorated together on a large headstone in the family plot at Strathblane Cemetery but lie in solitary...
James McLean Love, Private Seaforth Highlanders, aged 43. James spent a year fighting for his country and the next 11 fighting for his life, after being caught in the first German chlorine gas attack of the war.He died of chronic nephritis in February 1927, too late...
Gravestone at Bramshott (St Mary) Churchyard , East Hampshire. Alexander Buchanan Gilchrist, Sergeant/CSM Reserve Canadian Infantry, aged 30. On June 6 1906 Passenger Number 192 boarded the Allan Line’s SS Carthaginian in Glasgow bound for Montreal with the dream of...
Daniel Dugan, Corporal Black Watch, aged 19. Daniel’s Irish-born grandparents had settled in Blanefield in the 1880s. In 1891 the family, including nine children, plus three boarders, are all described as living in a three-roomed dwelling with no running water in New...
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 WW1 PROJECT: 17 ROBERT ROWLEY ORR, CAPTAIN ARGYLL & SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS/ROYAL FLYING CORPS, AGED 30. Captain Robert Baird Rowley Orr Robert's Commonwealth War Grave at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium Painting by Frederick Alsop of...
STRATHBLANE WORLD WAR ONE PROJECT: 11 DANIEL MORRISON, PRIVATE KING’S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERERS, AGED 38 Daniel Morrison Tyne Cot Memorial Daniel Morrison M&B Herald October 1917 Tyne Cot, Zonnebeke, Belgium “Of a quiet and retiring disposition, he put his heart into...
STRATHBLANE WW1 PROJECT: 10 ALEXANDER MITCHELL, PRIVATE CAMERONIANS (SCOTTISH RIFLES), AGED 36. Silk postcards sent by Sandy Mitchell to his wife at Duntreath Alexander Mitchel- family grave Strichen Parish Churchyard, Aberdeenshire Sandra Mitchell, Sandy's...
STRATHBLANE WORLD WAR 1 PROJECT: 9 ALEXANDER LOWE, SAPPER ROYAL ENGINEERS, AGED 25 Alex Lowe's grave Steam train on the Somme 1918 with men ofthe Railway Operating Division Effie Lowe (MOBE) in her QMAAC uniform The lodge at Parklea (now Blanefield House) where Alex...
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: 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...
View from Old Mugdock Road, where a lone cyclist contemplates the grandeur of the Campsies. Edenkill (now Edenkiln) occupied the heart of the community we now call Strathblane and was one of the three villages that comprised the parish, along with Netherton...
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...
“The church is a beautiful building of modern Gothic, reared in 1803.” Rev Hamilton Buchanan, Second Statistical Account of the Parish of Strathblane, 1841. Strathblane Church, 1897 (Photograph courtesy of Angus Graham) Early History The parish of Strathblane is more...
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...
“Often a child made a dramatic recovery on the back of good food, fresh air & loving care” - Margaret McIntyre, who worked at Strathblane Children’s Home Hospital for two periods between 1958 and its closure in 1994. Penelope Ker The rapid...
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...
Extracts from The Campsies and the Land of Lennox by Iain C Lees, describing walks around Strathblane. (Blackie & Sons, Glasgow, 1933) Secrets of the Campsie Fells The rich valley of the Blane, which can be traced to its junction with Strathendrick, is the finest...
Extract from A New Kind of Life by Helen Lillie (Argyll Publishing, 1999) The older people living in the Blane Valley between the wars usually had unmarried daughters at home. And these middle class, middle-aged women spent their days taking care of their mothers'...
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...
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...
This tax roll lists landowners and tenants liable for a 14 shilling tax on each hearth in their property, as well as six parish paupers who were exempt