Bourtreehill House
Bourtreehill House is the ruin of a country house in the Scottish administration unit North Ayrshire . The wooded hill, a special feature of the property, is now a landmark in the north of what is now the residential area of Bourtreehill . "Bour Tree" is an Ayrshire name for the black elder , which is often found in older and biodiverse woodland.
estate
About 1.6 km from the city of Irvine , the remaining land around the former Bourtreehill House is an overgrown, light forest on top of a relatively low hill. The property, which has its origins in the Middle Ages , with a number of ruins, ancient Littered with trees and overgrown avenues and once home to contemporaries of Robert Burns , William Wallace and Lord Byron , it has a hidden and mysterious history. It is clear that it was once cared for by a competent gardener: the details of the gardens can still be seen today, albeit overgrown; many of them date back to the middle of the 18th century.
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Three old, currently unidentified ruins stand deep in the woods of the original property. At the beginning of the 1980s, two arches stood side by side in the northeastern part. We know from them that they somehow served the incoming and outgoing traffic. The oldest driveway and the associated driveway once led the visitor to the twin arches. Unfortunately, only one of the two arches has survived, while the other has been vandalized more and more over the past 20 years.
One can easily follow the boundaries of the original, medieval property. They were only slightly changed when the modern residential area of North Bourtreehill was built. Many of the houses are on the old estate, but they have been designed to match the rolling land with its forests. The new residential area has been described as "biomorphic". Annick Water flows through the area and is another natural element of North Bourtreehill.
Railway lines ran through the land around the property. A track bed from the beginning of the 19th century can still be followed south of Bourtreehill today. The attentive visitor will also find some particularly old railway sleepers.
history
Feudal times
The barony was one of the previous holdings of the Colt family . Shortly after the Battle of Bannockburn , King Robert the Bruce received Bourtreehill from the Colt family. It is known that Robert the Steward , later King Robert II , loaned Bourtreehill to a certain Alan de Blair . Roger de Blair was given the barony of Robert the Bruce. In typical feudal fashion, the payment for this was only a symbolic price. This was a valuable barony, partly on the parish of Irvine and partly on that of Dreghorn .
16th Century
The Montgomery family papers in the Scottish National Archives contain records from 1505 or parts of Bourtreehill showing that the property belonged to a Lynn family referred to elsewhere as the Lords of Lynn in nearby Dalry . For 1556 the family papers of the Montgomery show "John Lyn of that Ilk and Lord of Bourtreehill". The Hunters' family papers, published by the Scottish Record Society , contain various references from the 16th and 17th centuries to Bourtreehill in connection with the Lynns, who the Lynns refer to as "from this place". Finally, the Lynns in Bourtreehill are also mentioned in a will from 1608.
17th and 18th centuries
On February 18, 1606, two Merk Land and half Bourtreehill fell to Robert Montgomery of Skelmorlie , according to a contract in the Scottish National Archives . The house was built in 1682.
In 1685 and 1696 the barony belonged to the Skelmorlies , from whom it was bought by Peter Montgomery , a Glasgow merchant . His son, James Montgomery , sold the property to Robert Hamilton before 1748 . Robert Hamilton was born on January 5, 1698, the eldest son of Hugh Hamilton of Clongall , a merchant in Ayr . He and his younger brother John , ancestor of the Hamiltons of Sundrum , lived long in Jamaica , where they owned the Pemberton Valley estate and amassed considerable wealth. Robert Hamilton died on June 4, 1773 at the age of 75. Kilbirnie Place was destroyed by fire during renovation work in the early morning of May 1, 1757 and was never rebuilt. The 19th Earl of Crawford , his underage daughter Jean (later Countess of Eglinton ) and the domestic servants had little time to escape. The family then moved to Bourtreehouse. Lady Crawford was the eldest daughter and heir to Robert Hamilton. In 1776, the Countess of Crawford was given as the owner of Bourtreehill House on plate 45 of G. Taylors and A. Skinners Survey and Maps of the Roads of North Britain or Scotland .
19th century
Robert Hamilton succeeded his eldest daughter, Countess Crawford, as the owner of Bourtreehill House, who died on October 6, 1809. Her sister, Dame Margaret Hamilton Cathcart , widow of Sir John Cathcart from Carelton († 1785) succeeded her. She died in 1817 and the property fell to her nephew, the Earl of Eglinton .
In 1840 the house was rebuilt on behalf of Hugh Montgomerie and probably received a bay window and an entrance hall.
Alexander Guthrie of Mount in Kilmarnock bought Bourtreehill House in 1847 and in 1852 it fell to his daughter Christina . Christina married the Hon. D. A. F. Browne , who became Lord Oranmore and Browne in the high nobility of Ireland . In 1879 the country house was badly damaged by fire and restored according to plans by the architect R. S. Ingram .
20th century
During the Enlightenment period , some of the most important people in the area lived in Bourtreehill. The Baron Oranmore and Browne was the grandfather of Tara Browne . In the 18th century, the Earl of Crawford, whose house in Kilbirnie burned to the ground and just barely saved his wife and daughter, moved to Bourtreehill House. This magnificent house was demolished in the 1960s.
It is the unfortunate truth that Bourtreehill House is still causing confusion with its medieval setting. What many Bourtreehill residents today do not know is that the property is much older than the Bourtreehill we know today. The founding date is still unknown today and the centuries have seen an abundance of wealth and powerful, influential people.
Politicians, writers and kings owned the property, rented it or visited it. It is also noteworthy that many of these influential historical figures were women, especially during the Middle Ages and later in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Bourtreehill House fell into disrepair and was demolished in the 1970s. Only fragments of the coach house and the outbuildings remained.
The gardener from Mr. Hamilton of Bourtreehill
The owner of Bourtreehill House in 1754 was a certain Robert Hamilton . His two daughters married the Earls of Crawford and Eglinton, respectively, with the latter family inheriting the entire estate. The Earl of Crawford, who lived in Kilbirnie, brought his new wife into his house, but a terrible fire burned it down to the ground. The Earl of Crawford and his family, saved from the fire, sought refuge with his father-in-law, Robert Hamilton. He gave his property to the now homeless family and moved himself to another property nearby that he had acquired for this purpose. The Crawfords moved into Bourtreehill House in 1757. The earl's domestic servant had come to the new domicile with his family to continue his duties. He later published his work under the name Memoirs of an 18th Century Footman (German: Memoirs of a domestic worker from the 18th century). At the time, the gardener, who was still employed by Robert Hamilton, was directly responsible for the landscaping and garden decorations of the house, remains of which are still visible today.
This gardener was also mentioned in the Letters of Gilbert Burns , a collection of letters written by Robert Burns' brother . Andrew Urquhart's grave can still be seen in the Irvine cemetery today.
- Views of the Bourtreehill Estate (2007)
Ruins of outbuildings
Ruins of outbuildings
Ruins of outbuildings
An old entrance gate to Bourtreehill House
Down the old country road to Annick Water
The track bed of the old railway line to the coal mine in Perceton
Annick Water
Individual evidence
- ↑ James Paterson: History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton. V. - III - Cunninghame. J. Stillie, Edinburgh 1863-1866. Pp. 274-275.
- ↑ a b c d James Paterson: History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton. V. - III - Cunninghame. J. Stillie, Edinburgh 1863-1866.
- ^ A b c d Michael C. Davis: The Castles and Mansions of Ayrshire . Self-published 1991. p. 186.
- ↑ James Paterson: History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton. V. - III - Cunninghame. J. Stillie, Edinburgh 1863-1866. Pp. 286-287.
- ↑ a b c James D. Dobie, JS Dobie (editor): Cunninghame, Topographized by Timothy Pont 1604-1608, with Continuations and Illustrative Notices . John Tweed, Glasgow 1876. p. 233.
Web links
- History, Heritage and Archeology in Canmore . Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.
- Roy Military Survey of Scotland 1747-52.
- Roger Griffith: The old Towerlands Colliery Tram Road, Irvine - Dreghorn . YouTube.
Coordinates: 55 ° 37 ′ 19.5 " N , 4 ° 37 ′ 53" W.