Other families/individuals in Cowal

Fletchers of Dunans

Dunans was owned by the Fletchers, a Jacobite family, since the early18th century with many stories about one of Archibald Fletchers associates, Rob Roy. The A listed bridge dates from 1815 when Thomas Telford designed and built it for the Fletchers to celebrate the battle of Waterloo. In 1864 Angus, the twelfth chief, remodelled and added to the house. The castle was sold in 1999, becoming a hotel but was gutted by fire in 2001. In 2003 the present owners bought it and have implemented restoration and heritage projects.
www.dunans.org
web.archive.org/web/20041012010259/www.spaceless.com/fletcher/flet4.htm

Nobles of Ardkinglas

Ardkinglas is one of Cowal’s great houses, an Arts and Crafts house built for Sir Andrew and Margery Noble in 1907 by the highly renowned architect Robert Lorimer who also designed fittings and furniture for the house. Born in Greenock, in 1854 Sir Andrew married Margery Campbell daughter of Archibald Campbell of Quebec.
The grounds contain ruins of previous residences of the Campbells of Ardkinglas, dating from 1396 when Ardkinglas became the home of a new Campbell line, Sir Colin Campbell (brother of Duncan, first Lord Campbell) granting it to his third son Caileen Oig. It passed to the Callander of Craigforth family through marriage, and was sold in 1905 to the Nobles. Today it is still the private home of their descendants.
Ardkinglas Estate encompasses the upper four miles of Loch Fyne and the full length of Glen Fyne with Ardkinglas House sited on the east side of the loch. Ardkinglas Woodland Garden is nearby.
Clachan, at the head of the loch, is home to the Ardkinglas Tree Shop and Cafe and to Loch Fyne Oysters' restaurant, smokery and shop, as well as Here We Are, an information and community resource centre.
www.ardkinglas.com

James Duncan of Benmore

Benmore House was built in 1862, with later additions including an enormous glass roofed gallery (now demolished) by sugar refiner and art collector James Duncan who bought the estate in 1870 from an American, Piers Patrick, at the same time purchasing the Kilmun and Bernice estates. An inventor and innovator, Duncan also became an authority on sugar beet cultivation and the extraction of essences from coffee beans.
Duncan suffered financial difficulties and was forced to sell off mos of his large painting collection as well as the estate in 1889.
A monument to James Duncan stands at Graham’s Point, Kilmun.
Benmore House is now an outdoor centre for Edinburgh City Council.
www.benmorecentre.co.uk

The Youngers of Benmore

In 1889 W J Younger of the Edinburgh brewing company, bought the Benmore estate from James Duncan who suffered financial difficulties in the mid 1880s. His son H G Younger gifted the estate it to the nation in 1928.
Benmore is now one of the group of gardens comprising the National Botanic Gardens of Scotland. The Younger family still maintain a considerable interest in the garden.
www.rbge.org.uk/the-gardens/benmore

Kirkman Finlay

Castle Toward was built by Kirkman Finlay in1821. His father James Finlay had founded James Finlay & Co, manufacturers and exporters of cotton goods. Under Kirkman Finlay the firm expanded to become the largest textile concern in Scotland. He was Lord Provost of Glasgow from 1812 to 1815 and again in 1818, and was MP for the Clyde Burghs between 1812 and 1818, and Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1819.
In 1833 Finlay was the first merchant to import tea directly from Calcutta to Glasgow following the end of the East India Company's monopoly on trade with British India. During the 1820s Finlay ran an emigration society which at one time had 158 members. Your ancestor may have been one of those on Kirkman Finlay’s list who sailed from Cowal’s shores.
By the early 1920s Castle Toward belonged to a member of the Paisley threadmaking family, Major Andrew Coats who had served with the Yeomanry and was a member of the 6th Batallion in South Africa in 1900-01.
Castle Toward is now an outdoor centre - www.actualrealitycentres.com

James Coats Jr

Dunselma Castle was the sailing lodge of James Coats, one of the members of the famous Paisley threadmaking family. In 1860 he took over from his uncle, Andrew Coats, in America, where the market was being developed, building a works at Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1870. An eccentric and later something of a recluse, the love of his life was sailing. Dunselma Castle with its panoramic views of the Firth allowed him to keep an eye on the races, his passion. He owned four sailing yachts some of which are commemorated in the stained glass window of Dunselma Castle.
The castle is still privately owned but its position of prominence means it can easily be seen from the outside.

Macraes of Ballimore

Ballimore House is one of the great houses of Cowal, designed in the 1830s by the Glasgow architect David Hamilton, regarded as the ‘father of Glasgow’s architecture’. Thomas Mawson, who also laid out the rock garden at Mount Stuart in Bute, was commissioned by Lieutenant Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap to lay out the grounds. Mawson is regarded as the landscape architect who perfected the woodland garden with Ballimore considered one of his most successful, but least known, achievements. Today, Ballimore is the private home of Baroness van Lynden.
Historically the MacRaes are hereditary constables of Eilean Donan Castle. Mrs Marigold MacRae is president of the Clan MacRae and her daughter Baroness Miranda Van Lynden of Ballimore is head of the MacRaes of Conchra with Eilean Donan Castle owned by the Conchra Charitable Trust.
www.eileandonancastle.com/visitor-information/conchra-charitable-trust.htm

David Napier

Both David Napier and his cousin Robert Napier are regarded as the fathers of Clyde shipbuilding. From Campbell of Monzie David bought land in Cowal, at Glenshellish and at Kilmun where he built a pier, an inn, four houses now known locally as the tea caddies, and a house for himself, Finnartmore. Napier opened up a route from Kilmun to Strachur, then onwards to Inveraray and the Highlands by boat and steam coach.
His cousin Robert was instrumental in founding the British and North American Royal Mail Steampacket Company, which later became The Cunard Steam Ship Company Ltd, with its main shareholder, Samuel Cunard, a Canadian businessman and shipowner from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War Scottish paddle steamers built by Napier and others became highly sought after by the Confederate States to break the Union blockade for which their shallow draft and high speed made them ideal.
The inn built by Napier is still operating - www.thepieratkilmun.co.uk