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ACCORDING to the Old
Statistical Account of Culross, compiled in the end of the last century, a
marked decrease in the population of the parish took place between 1755 and
1791, and for this several reasons are assigned. As regards the landward
portion, it is asserted that the cause is to be looked for in the
improvements in agriculture which had rendered a smaller number of labourers
necessary for the cultivation of the soil, in the increased size of the
farms, and in the fact of many of the heritors having taken the management
of the land into their own hands. For the decrease of the population of the
town of Culross the following, among other reasons, is stated: “The loss or
decay of several branches of manufacture formerly carried on there,
particularly girdlemaking and shoemaking: the former is now supplanted by
the Carron Works; the latter was first checked by the last American war,
which put a stop for a while to the export trade, and by this discouragement
it has gradually fallen into decay.”
The general depopulation of
the rural districts had, not many years before this period, engaged largely
the attention both of statesmen and philanthropists; ' and Oliver Goldsmith
had, by the exquisite description in his “ Deserted Village,” invested the
subject with the halo of his poetical genius. The truth of the allegation
could not indeed well be gainsaid, and as a truth it has only been more
certainly and firmly established by the lapse of more than a century. But
whilst the poet or the inveterate bewailer of bygone usages may be permitted
to regret the diminished numbers of the rural inhabitants, as well as the
still more notable changes in their modes of life, it must be always
remembered that in the advance of culture and civilisation such a revolution
becomes almost inevitable. As commerce extends and develops itself, the
large towns which form its natural centres gradually increase, and absorb a
large portion of the country population, which would otherwise have
vegetated on a scanty supply and insufficient resources; whilst amongst
those who remain, the increase in wages and the price of agricultural
produce secures for them a participation in the advantages diffused by the
general spread of material prosperity. In the enormous increase which has
taken place in the population of the United Kingdom generally, it is mainly
in the cities and large towns that this is to be found, whilst the number of
inhabitants in the villages and open country has commonly diminished. Of
late, indeed, there has been a tendency in the great cities to swallow up
the country by the extension of suburbs, and the erection of streets and
villas round railway stations, from which an easy access is obtained to and
from the capital. Thus London threatens ere long to incorporate Middlesex,
and Glasgow may almost be said to reach to Loch Lomond.
The same urging causes which
produce the depopulation of the country and the ever-increasing growth of
the large towns, transfer thither from the small burghs the trade
manufactures and sources of subsistence. Skilled artisans carry their labour
to a better market, commodities are procured both better and cheaper from
the cities, and the immensely increased facilities for locomotion lead to
travelling about, and the effacement, more or less complete, of the
characteristic types of a locality. Centralisation becomes the great feature
of social and commercial activity, and the smaller and more isolated
establishments of human industry are overshadowed and extinguished by the
mightier institutions resulting from the combination of wealth and labour.
In addition to those
depressing influences, which she shared with many other rural communities,
Culross was affected by some special circumstances which were peculiar to
herself. The coal in her district— at least the strata lying next the
surface—had been wellnigh exhausted, and the attempts to obtain a further
supply had only been productive of labour and expense. The salt-pans, once
fifty in number, which had studded the sea-shore, were now reduced to a few,
partly in consequence of the diminished supply of coal, partly of the
increasing use of rock-salt and the general decline of commercial activity;
and greatest of all, the girdlemaking monopoly had both been declared
untenable by the higher courts of law, and the manufacture rendered
unremunerative by the establishment in the Carse of Falkirk of the famous
Carron Works, where all sorts of household implements, girdles included,
were produced at a cheaper rate, though certainly of an inferior quality to
those made of wrought-iron.
With the departure of trade
and manufactures, and the progressive tendency of society towards levelling
all eccentricities of character and peculiarities of place and class, the “
annals of the parish ” become in Culross, as elsewhere, of a very prosaic
and uninteresting description. This applies equally to the kirk-session and
the burgh records; and these being now foreclosed, there remains little, in
the absence of any remarkable incidents in connection with the great centres
of public interest, that can afford entertainment or instruction to the
reader.
In the case of Tulliallan the
conditions were somewhat different from those of Culross. Since the days of
Sir George Bruce there had been carried on here an extensive trade in the
working of coal and manufacture of salt; and the latter industry seems to
have continued longer, though at its period of greatest prosperity it must
be regarded as belonging chiefly to the parish of Culross, which previous to
1659 comprised the principal part of the salt-making territory, as well as
of the ground on which the modem town of Kincardine is built. We are
informed that at one time there were thirty-five salt-pans in the parish of
Tulliallan, a number which about the middle of the last century had
decreased to twenty-one. All have now disappeared, the present town of
Kincardine being built in great measure on the ashes resulting from the
operations at the so-called West Pans; whilst those of the New Pans, about
half a mile to the east, go to form a prominent grassy ridge.
Meantime, whilst the coal and
salt trades were declining, another important industry was springing up in
Tulliallan. The shipping and coasting trade, which in ancient times had been
little exercised on the Forth above Culross and Borrowstounness, moved
latterly higher up, and established themselves with great success at
Grangemouth, Alloa, and Kincardine. With regard to the first of these
places, it owed its existence originally to the formation of the Forth and
Clyde Cana], which has here its eastern outlet, —a favourable situation
which, combined with the proximity of the Carron Works, has maintained the
ever-increasing prosperity of Grangemouth up to the present day. The same
cause, and also, it is said, the exorbitant dues exacted at the port of
Leith, may have contributed to the rise and prosperous career of the others.
Speaking of Kincardine, the Old Statistical Account says:—
“In the beginning of this
[the eighteenth] century there were no shipping of any consequence belonging
to it. They had only five boats, from 10 to 20 tons burden. These were
employed in carrying salt to Leith, and importing from thence wood and iron
for the use of the pans and in the lime trade. They went no further. But
after some ship-carpenters had come to settle in it, the spirit for
shipbuilding prevailed so much, that in 1740 they had 30 vessels, from 15 to
60 tons burden, amounting to 860 tons. In 1745 several of these were
employed in Government service. When the coal was working and the salt-pans
going, they had abundance of exports; but since they were given up, they
have had none. Yet this did not destroy their spirit for trade and
shipbuilding, for they had the address and good sense to become carriers to
other ports. . . . Vessels of 200 and 300 tons have been built here for the
West Indian trade and the Greenland fishery. In 1786 there were nine vessels
upon the stocks at one time, and the number then belonging to the place was
91, and their tonnage 5461, which is about 200 tons more than what belongs
to Alloa and the whole precincts of that port at present, and more than half
of the tonnage of Leith in that year.”
The prosperity above
indicated as a port and shipbuilding station continued long afterwards to be
enjoyed by Kincardine. About 1830 the number of shipowners in the place was
calculated at upwards of fifty; whilst in proof of the extent to which the
inhabitants devoted themselves to this branch of trade, it is only necessary
to consult the tombstones in the churchyard at Tulliallan—to judge from
which, one would conclude that almost no other profession was known. But
times are now changed; and though a good many seafaring people are connected
with the place, they are almost all emeriti; scarcely a vessel is to be seen
in the harbour, and not one has been built for many years.
One other industry may be
mentioned from which in bygone days both Culross and Tulliallan derived
considerable reputation, and which till very recently employed a large
number of persons in both parishes. I refer to the extensive freestone
quarries at Long-annet and Blair, the latter of which has only very lately,
and it is to be hoped also only temporarily, been closed. Both supply an
excellent quality of building-stone, which has long been celebrated, and
exported not only to distant parts of Scotland, but likewise to foreign
places. Longannet quarry, on the sea-shore, about a mile below Kincardine,
enjoys the most ancient renown, but for many years has been wholly
abandoned. It formerly belonged to the Earls of Kincardine, and in the
latter half of the seventeenth century a negotiation was opened with the
proprietor by the Jews of Amsterdam, for the purpose of procuring from
thence a supply of stones for building their synagogue. Circumstances
prevented the arrangement being carried out; but a well-authenticated
tradition prevails that the town-house and other buildings in Amsterdam were
built of stones from Longannet quarry. At a later period it supplied
material for the erection of the Royal Exchange, the Infirmary, and the
Register Office in Edinburgh, besides that of many buildings in its own
neighbourhood. Blair quarry, about two miles above Culross, has been no less
famous. Like Longannet, it produces a beautiful white sandstone, soft and
easy to work, and at the same time possessing the property of hardening in
the open air and retaining its original whiteness unsullied. Drury Lane
Theatre; St Mary’s Church, Edinburgh; and more recently, acres of buildings
adjoining Bruntsfield Links, in the Scottish capital, have been built from
this quarry.
The history of the two
parishes for more than a century now past, resolves itself mainly into that
of some of the leading county families. The earlier history of several of
these has already been given, and I accordingly proceed to supplement and
continue the accounts where necessary and desirable.
During the last century,
almost exactly from beginning to end, Culross Abbey and the lands
immediately adjoining, remained the property of the Cochranes of Ochiltree,
who in 1758 succeeded to the earldom of Dundonald. The title was first
bestowed on Sir William Cochrane of Cowdon, in the county of Renfrew, who,
having been first created a peer by Charles I. in 1647, under the
designation of Lord Cochrane of Dundonald, was in 1669 elevated by Charles
II. to the dignity of earl. He died in 1686; and as his eldest son William
Lord Cochrane predeceased him, he was succeeded in the title by his grandson
John, who was the father of William and John Cochrane, third and fourth
Earls of Dundonald, succeeding respectively in 1690 and 1705.
The second son of the first
Earl of Dundonald was the Hon. Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree; and a
daughter, Lady Jean Cochrane, was the wife of the famous John Graham of
Claverhouse, afterwards Viscount Dundee.
The Hon. Sir John Cochrane
above mentioned was a zealous Whig and Presbyterian; and having been obliged
to take refuge in Holland in consequence of his negotiations with the Duke
of Monmouth, he returned from thence with the Earl of Argyll in his
ill-fated expedition to Scotland in 1685. On the dispersion of Argyll’s
forces, Sir John Cochrane had an encounter with the king’s troops, in which
Captain Cleland was killed; and having afterwards taken refuge with his
uncle, Gavin Cochrane of Craig-muir, whose wife was a sister of the Captain,
she denounced in revenge her nephew to the authorities. He was conducted to
Edinburgh, bound and bareheaded, and only escaped death by his father, Lord
Dundonald, purchasing his pardon with a considerable sum of money. Sir John
subsequently managed to make his peace with James II., who sent him down to
Scotland in 1687 to negotiate with the Presbyterians regarding the
relaxation of the penal laws, a measure really and solely conceived by James
in the interest of the Roman Catholics. Something in Sir John’s character
and procedure is not quite satisfactory here. His forfeiture, however, had
not yet been rescinded, and was not till after the Revolution. Little
further is recorded of him. He married Margaret Strickland, daughter of Sir
William Strickland of Boynton, Yorkshire, one of Cromwell’s Lords of
Parliament, and was the father of William Cochrane of Ochiltree, who, as
already mentioned, married Lady Mary Bruce, eldest daughter of Alexander,
second Earl of Kincardine.
William and Lady Mary
Cochrane had a large family of nine sons and four daughters. Of these
William, the eldest, predeceased his father, who was accordingly succeeded
in the estate of Ochiltree, on his decease in 1728, by his second son
Charles, who, moreover, inherited from his mother the estate of Culross
Abbey. He died there, unmarried, in 1752, and was succeeded both in the
Ochiltree and Culross estates, first by his brother James, and afterwards by
his brother Thomas Cochrane, who in 1758 supceeded to the earldom of
Dundonald.
We must now go back for a
little to the elder branch of the family, which we have already traced down
to the accession of John, fourth Earl of Dundonald, in 1705. He was
succeeded in 1720 by his son William as fifth Earl, who died unmarried in
1725, and was succeeded in his turn by his cousin Thomas Cochrane, son of
William Cochrane of Kil-maronock, who was second son of William Lord
Cochrane, and brother of John, second Earl of Dundonald.
This Thomas Cochrane of
Kilmaronock succeeded as sixth Earl of Dundonald, and transmitted the title
to his eldest son William, who succeeded as seventh Earl of Dundonald, and
was killed at the siege of Louisbourg, in America, in 1758. On this event
emerging, the title devolved on his kinsman Thomas Cochrane of Culross,
already mentioned, the seventh son of William and Lady Mary Cochrane, and
the grandson of the old Presbyterian leader Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree,
second son of the first Earl of Dundonald.
Thomas Cochrane of Culross
and Ochiltree succeeded his kinsman Earl William as eighth Earl of Dundonald,
and died at his seat of La Mancha, in Peeblesshire, in 1778. By his second
wife, Miss Jean Stuart of Torrence, Lanarkshire, he was the father of
Archibald, the ninth Earl, so celebrated for his scientific attainments, and
the father* of the still more renowned Lord Cochrane, afterwards tenth Earl
of Dundonald.
Earl Archibald was the last
of his family who held the Culross estate. Of great scientific abilities,
and an active and acute but speculative disposition, he was sadly deficient
in prudence, and ruined himself by the multifarious and profitless schemes
in which he engaged. One special object that occupied his energies—the
manufacture of coal-tar—has immortalised him, and ought fairly to be
attributed to him as his own peculiar invention. For this he took out a
patent, which might have been the means of making his fortune had it been
properly managed, but his want of business capacity made all his scientific
genius practically useless. A work for extracting the tar was erected by him
at the western extremity of Low Valleyfield, and traces of the gateway and
other buildings connected with it are still to be seen. His son, Lord
Dundonald, the celebrated naval hero, better known as Lord Cochrane, claims
in his Autobiography the merit for his father of having first discovered the
illuminating powers of coal-gas. In the course of his experiments at his
factory at Culross, he noticed the inflammable nature of the vapour rising
during the distillation of the tar, and he accordingly fitted a gun-barrel
to the pipe leading from the condenser. On applying a light to the extremity
of this, a blaze of flame more vivid than that evoked by St Serf from the
hazel-branch burst forth, and cast an illumination that was visible from the
opposite shore at Borrowstounness. Some time afterwards, when Lord Dundonald
and his son were travelling to London, they paid a visit to the celebrated
James Watt, then engaged in conducting the works for the construction of
steam-engines at Soho, near Birmingham. One of his assistants was Mr
Murdoch, who afterwards attained a reputation scarcely inferior to that of
his master, as the first to make use of coal-gas as an illuminating agent.
During the visit, the incident at the tar-work at Culross was frequently
discussed, and there can be little doubt that Mr Murdoch derived on this
occasion the information which he afterwards turned to practical account.
The mining operations which
Lord Dundonald engaged in were very extensive, comprising not only the
working of the coal on the Culross estate, but likewise of that on the
adjoining lands of Valleyfield and Kincardine. He also obtained a lease of
the coal in the burgh territory of Culross, on the easy terms of an annual
payment of five pounds, as soon as he should actually commence operations.
The results of his workings are still very manifest in the remains of
numerous pit-shafts, now long since closed, but which meet the eye in great
frequency all over the property. The “Ding Dang” and “ Jenny Paip ” pits are
still well remembered; the ground around St Mungo’s and the Abbey orchard
still sounds hollow to the tread, from the numerous underground passages by
which it is honeycombed; and many sits or depressions have taken place in
the surface, both in and around the town of Culross, causing no little
alarm. His lordship is, indeed, accused of setting very little store by the
rights or convenience of his neighbours; and some curious tales, not
redounding much to his credit, are related in connection with this
circumstance. Among others of his encroachments, he is reputed to have
carried his mining operations beneath the ground of the very church and
manse; and Mr Holland, the clergyman, and his wife, are said to have had
their slumbers disturbed by the din of pickaxes in the subterraneous
workings beneath the matrimonial couch. The heritors had at last to
interfere to interdict Lord Dundonald from undermining the property of the
church, and a stoppage was put to the perpetration of any further such
pranks. Then another highhanded act is recorded of him, in connection with a
row of small houses in the Petty Common, about half-way between St Mungo’s
and the foot of the Newgate. The tenements with their gardens behind
approaching rather unpleasantly near the Abbey orchard, and thus rendering
themselves an eyesore to his lordship, he was very anxious to have them
removed, and had tried negotiations with the occupiers for that end, but was
encountered by an obstinate refusal to come to terms. Bent on effecting his
purpose, he is said, according to an account generally received in this
quarter as authentic, to have caused his overseer one Sunday morning to
descend the shaft of a pit, which is still pointed out, at a little distance
from the houses in question, and to pull out the props by which the roof of
the underground workings was supported. According to my informant, some of
the luckless inhabitants of the Petty Common cottages had just stepped out
to their yairds on a lovely Sabbath morning in early summer, to “ snuff the
caller air ” before church-time, and note the progress visible in the leek
and onion beds. To their horror they felt the ground giving way beneath
their feet, and their consternation was completed by the gradual subsidence
of their habitations to the depth of two or three feet, though without any
loss of life or bodily injuries. My informant, a venerable old lady, who
died about twenty years ago, at an age above ninety, added, further, that
this partial destruction had not the effect which Lord Dundonald expected,
and the people of the Petty Common, notwithstanding this partial experience
of an earthquake, continued to occupy their shattered dwellings. The Culross
Marches day approached, and all left their houses to see the show and take
part in the festive proceedings. In their absence, Lord Dundonald caused the
roofs of their cottages to be covered.
The date at which this great
mass of buildings, including the original south front of the monastery, was
removed, cannot now be ascertained, but it doubtless took place when the
present bend at the top of the Newgate was constructed, connecting that
thoroughfare with the continuation of the main street leading northward up
the hill from Culross. This bend or turn passes right through, from east to
west, the site of the pile of buildings shown in Slezer1 s view. The
principal object in this demolition and diversion was of course the
enlargement of the Abbey garden, and securing the privacy of the mansion by
shutting up the public road, which passed the latter in such inconvenient
proximity. But lest I should be doing an injustice to the proprietors of the
Abbey in thus ascribing to them exclusively the destruction of such
extensive remains of antiquity, it is only fair to state that the monastery
ruins, like so many others both in Scotland and elsewhere, seem to have been
regarded as a general quarry, which might be legitimately used whenever
opportunity offered or occasion required. Many walls, dikes, and buildings
about Culross bear evidence, in the fine-hewn stones which they display, of
the spoliation of the old monastery to supply these materials.
The buildings of the
monastery must both have covered the lower manse-garden, and likewise
descended beyond it into the garden of the Park.
By the assistance of their
maternal grandmother, Mrs Gilchrist, tutors were at last procured for the
young Cochranes. One of these, a French Roman Catholic named M. Durand,
occasioned a tremendous scandal in the parish by firing off a gun one Sunday
to scare the magpies, which were then very numerous about Culross, and made
sad havoc of the cherries in the Abbey garden. The kirk-session, it is said,
threatened to make a case of it, and were only induced to desist on the
friendly interposition of Lord Dundonald.
The melancholy end became at
last inevitable. The Culross estate had, in the end of last century, to be
sold on behalf of Lord Dundonald’s creditors, and was ultimately disposed of
in two halves; one of these going to Sir Robert Preston, who had just
succeeded his brother Sir Charles as the proprietor of Valleyfield—and the
other to Admiral Lord Keith, who had recently purchased the barony of
Tulliallan from Mr Erskine of Cardross. As Sir Robert Preston was first
cousin of Archibald, Earl of Dundonald, whose fortunes had thus come to so
disastrous a wreck, and has long been himself a household word in Culross,
it may not be out of place that I should now take up the history of his
family from the point to which it was last brought down in my narrative.
As already mentioned, Sir
George Preston, fourth Baronet of Valleyfield, married Anne, daughter of
William and Lady Mary Cochrane, by whom he had five sons and two daughters.
All his sons predeceased him except two, Charles and Robert, who succeeded
in order to the estate as fifth and sixth Baronets. Sir Charles Preston, who
had been a captain in the 26th Regiment, died comparatively a young man and
unmarried. His brother Sir Robert, who succeeded him in the end of the last
century, had entered the East India Company’s service, and been captain of
the Asia. He accumulated an immense fortune, partly obtained by his own
industry as a trader, partly inherited from a Captain Foulis, who made him
his heir, and partly brought him by his wife, Miss Brown, the daughter of a
wealthy London merchant. He was also indebted for no inconsiderable portion
of his riches to his successful speculations in the Funds, in which it was
said he was greatly aided by his political connections with William Pitt and
his party. George Rose, Pitt’s secretary, was also the intimate friend of
Sir Robert Preston of Valleyfield. A curious circumstance in reference to
their friendship connects him and Culross indirectly with the well-known
annual institution of the Ministerial fish-dinner at Greenwich.
Sir Robert was for a period
M.P. for Dover, and both his parliamentary duties and financial transactions
led, during his earlier years, to his residing a long time in England. He
had a favourite retreat, which he called his “ fishing cottage,” on the
shores of Dagenham Reach, in Essex. Here he used to entertain his Mends, and
none was more frequent in his visits or more welcome than Mr George
(afterwards Sir George) Rose, who on one occasion brought down with him his
ministerial patron William Pitt. The Premier was greatly delighted with his
entertainment, and readily accepted an invitation at parting to return the
following year and enjoy himself in such congenial society. For several
years Mr Pitt, accompanied by Rose, made regularly every season a visit to
Dagenham Reach. The time occupied in going there was in these days
considerable, and it was suggested by Sir Robert, and willingly acceded to
by the Minister, that the three friends should in future have their annual
dinner nearer London. As the three were all members of the Trinity House, it
was resolved to have their “outing” at Greenwich. An addition was now made
to their party in the persons of Lord Camden and Mr Long, afterwards Lord
Farnborough. Sir Robert Preston continued, as at Dagenham Reach, to act as
host; but as other political magnates were successively invited, it was at
last suggested, by Lord Camden that the tavern bill should no longer be
defrayed exclusively by the Baronet. It was arranged, however, that he
should still issue the invitations for the dinner, and he moreover insisted
on furnishing to it a buck and champagne as a special contribution. To the
end of his life he continued to do so, the time for meeting being usually
after Trinity Monday, shortly after the rising of Parliament. Ere many years
had elapsed from its first establishment, the gathering had comprised most
of the Cabinet ministers, and assumed almost entirely a political
complexion, the long continuance in power of the Tory party, with which Sir
Robert was associated, having prevented any inconvenient interruption of his
relations with the institution. The meeting had now become a stereotyped
affair, and, under the appellation of the “ fish dinner,” has survived to
the present day. It may not also be uninteresting to many of my readers to
know that a nephew of Sir George Rose, Sir Robert Preston’s friend, has in
our own day gained considerable reputation under the norm, de plume of “
Arthur Sketchley,” and as the editor of the innumerable disquisitions of the
garrulous “Mrs Brown.”
It only remains to be added,
in reference to the above, that Sir Robert Preston took care that a memorial
of the symposia at Dagenham Reach should be preserved at Culross. At the
east end of the burgh, by the sea-shore, opposite the present ruin of Lord
Bruce’s Hospital, there used to be, in the memory of one or two persons
still living, several saltpans, which were supplied with sea-water from a
huge reservoir or bucket-pat by means of a pumping apparatus. After
purchasing the Culross estate from the creditors of his cousin Lord
Dundonald, Sir Robert set to converting the bucket-pat into a large
salt-water pond, which might be filled and emptied at flow and ebb tide,
whilst on its bank he constructed a small “ fishing cottage,” after the
model of the one at Dagenham Reach in which he had unconsciously originated
the institution of the Ministerial Whitebait dinners. I am not aware whether
he gave any entertainments here of a similar character, but it was his
favourite haunt or lounge of a forenoon, down to a short period previous to
his death. Here he held his levees, transacted his business, and listened to
any applications or petitions, which, in consequence of his connection with
the East India Company and the Trinity House, were presented to him in
considerable abundance, with the view of obtaining the benefit of his
patronage.
Here, too, Captain S-, a
veteran naval commander, residing in Low Valleyfield, used to come and read
the newspapers to him in his latter days, when his sight began to fail. In
return, the Captain had the entrSe to the Valleyfield hospitalities, and, as
I have heard his widow (the same old lady who gave me the account of Lord
Dundonald) say, “Mony a gude dinner he got.”
Sir Robert was a thorough
gourmand, and his gourmandise does not appear to have been of a very
delicate or refined character; it resembled, indeed, more the coarse and
barbaric magnificence of Apicius or Lucullus than the elegant sybaritism of
Dr Kitchener or Dr V^ron. Profusion there was of meat and drink, but there
was little variety or ingenuity in the cuisine. His Christmas-pie, which
took eight men to cany, and remained during the festive season on his
sideboard as a pikce de resistance, was the talk of the country-side, and
its wonders were magnified by popular report. He himself used to keep
turtles in the salt-water pond at the fishing-cottage, and men were
regularly employed to go out into the Firth with nets and bring in supplies
of fish. A vigorous constitution and unbounded powers of digestion must have
been his fortune through life, to have enjoyed its good things so keenly,
and at the same time preserved his health unimpaired to the patriarchal age
of ninety-five years.
In playing the grand seigneur
Sir Robert was an adept; and to do him justice, he exhibited all the
princeliness and generous liberality which might be supposed to become such
a character. He kept open house at Valleyfield, and, like the old country
gentleman—
“Whilst he feasted all the
great,
He ne’er forgot the small.”
No countryman or messenger of
any kind that happened to come to his house was ever sent empty away; and no
broken meats were allowed to reappear at his table, but were distributed in
liberal doles to the poor bodies. The buildings, offices, park-gates, walls,
&c., on his estate, all attest to this day the magnificent scale on which he
acted; and he was also a liberal promoter of objects of public utility. He
repaired and remodelled Culross Church, almost entirely at his own
expense—though, as we shall see, he displayed little taste in his
renovations; and he also exhibited a sad degree of vandalism in authorising
the destruction of a large portion of the ruins of the monastery. In another
matter, too, he showed commendable activity and an interest in antiquarian
research, when he caused the examination to be made that resulted, as
already recorded, in the discovery of the heart of Lord Edward Bruce, the
unfortunate duellist. Some further particulars regarding the relic will be
found in the following chapter.
One undertaking of Sir
Robert’s proved rather disastrous as a pecuniary speculation, but has
probably tended as much as any other circumstance to immortalise his name,
which is not likely to be ever forgotten as long as Preston Island, with its
picturesque congeries of old buildings, rises as a landmark from the surface
of the Firth of Forth. I have already referred to it in the opening chapter
as bisecting the chord which joins the two extremities of the arc that
constitutes the beautiful Bay of Culross. Previous to Sir Robert’s accession
to the Valleyfield estate, this islet was nothing more than a plateau formed
at the eastern extremity of the Craigmore or great range of rocks that
crosses the entrance of Culross Bay, and extends some distance up the Forth
in a direction parallel to the shore. The seams of coal which were so
extensively developed on the mainland were here cropping out at the surface,
and a tempting opportunity seemed to be afforded of both emulating the fame
of Sir George Bruce in his celebrated moat, and also of realising a vast
profit. Preston Island, with the adjacent rocks, being situated on the
foreshore, and within low-water mark, were an appanage, it may be observed,
to Sir Robert’s paternal estate of Valleyfield, Having conceived the idea of
working the coal here, he carried out the project with all the magnificence
that was so much his characteristic. A pit was sunk on the plateau, an
engine-house with suitable gear and appliances erected, dwellings built for
the colliers, and as there was no fresh water on the island, a supply was
conveyed from the shore by means of pipes laid beneath the bottom of the
sea. A range of salt-pans was also, at a subsequent period, erected; but
here we are rather anticipating matters. The mining operations commenced and
were carried on for several years with great activity. At last a fearful
explosion of fire-damp took place, in which several men lost their lives;
and so affected, it is said, was Sir Robert by this tragic occurrence, that
it led him to conceive the idea of abandoning the undertaking altogether. It
had not indeed been a profitable one for him hitherto; and when he gave it
up finally, he found that the speculation had involved him in a loss of at
least £30,000. More fortunate, however, than many others who have signalised
themselves by their “follies,” his means were amply sufficient to leave him
still, after so great a loss, in possession of an immense fortune.
After the coal-workings were
abandoned on the island, the locality was still utilised for the manufacture
of salt, and several long obelisk-like chimneys were added to the buildings
with which the little space had already been crowned. One man, with his
family, was tacksman or lessee of the salt-pans on the island, as I can
remember, at the distance now of more than forty years; and the habits of
this little community were said to partake a good deal of the gipsy fashion
in their wild and isolated life. They were regarded as a sort of pariahs by
the more civilised inhabitants of the adjoining shore; and I well remember
hearing mentioned, as one of the concomitants of their wild existence, what
to the Scottish mind has generally been a very dreadful circumstance—the
feet that their children could not read. They, however, at last quitted the
place, from what cause I know not, and were succeeded by another tacksman,
whose life, too, was a curious one. In his young days he is said to have
been extremely penurious, and by dint of scraping and saving had amassed the
sum of £500, with which he now commenced the trade of salt-making. He might
have succeeded sufficiently well in this vocation had he not added to his
legitimate occupation the perilous one of an unlicensed distiller of
whisky—an adventure for which, indeed, the island, by its situation,
afforded tempting facilities. “ Very gude drink he made,” old Hannah, the
saltwife, used to remark. Doubtless many a comfortable cup she had partaken
of in her professional visits to the island for the purchase of the
commodity she travelled in. “ Very gude whisky it was; and they would ne’er
hae fund it oot had it no been for the difference in the reek.”
This dissimilarity in the
smoke arising from the different descriptions of fuel used in the respective
manufactures of salt and whisky, had probably attracted the attention of the
excise officers; and I have also heard that one or two men who had been
employed to convey over in carts from the mainland a clandestine supply of
malt, had turned informers, either designedly or in the way of gossip. Be
this as it may, the smuggling tacksman got a hint of the descent intended to
be made on him by the authorities, and saved himself by a precipitate
flight. He disappeared from the neighbourhood for many years; but latterly,
after the prosecution against him had become only a remembrance, he returned
to the parish of Culross, and died a few years ago in straitened
circumstances in Newmills. All the money that he had saved perished in this
adventure, and the island has never been inhabited since his departure. It
now stands, with its buildings, a lonely though very picturesque landmark,
which, I understand, being inserted as such in the Admiralty charts of the
Firth of Forth, cannot now be dismantled or removed. To a stranger, indeed,
it has all the appearance of an old cathedral or monastery rising from the
surface of the water; and the traveller, in approaching Culross, might be
almost deluded into the idea that in the old buildings on Preston Island he
beholds the ruins of its abbey.
In 1830, Sir Walter Scott
paid a visit to Valleyfield and Culross, the only one that he seems ever to
have made to this part of the country. He had been on his annual excursion
to Blair-Adam, in Kinross-shire, the seat of his friend the Right Honourable
William Adam, Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court. In explanation of a
reference made in the following extract from Sir Walter’s diary, it may be
stated that the vandalism which was so conspicuous a feature in Sir Robert
Preston’s character had manifested itself most prominently in his disposal
of the fine old mansion of Culross Abbey, which had become his property with
the rest of the estate. Apparently he had conceived the idea of
obliterating, if possible, every monument that told of a more distinguished
family in the parish than that of the Prestons. Some one, too, it is said,
remarked to him one day that ‘the Abbey was a finer mansion than
Valleyfield. His jealousy was roused into action, and he forthwith proceeded
to make a ruin of the grand old habitation of the Bruces and Cochranes. The
roof was taken off, the window-frames and doors removed, and the whole
building gutted and dismantled. The gallery on the first floor was converted
into an aviary, and covered with a roof of tiles. A similar spirit of
demolition was shown by him in his degradation of the old family-mansion of
Blairhall, the estate of which he had purchased from the Ronaldson-Dickson
family, who had succeeded in possession the Stewarts, cadets of the Bute
family. But in his latter years he resolved to restore Culross Abbey as a
dower-house for Lady Preston, in the probable event, as it was deemed, of
her surviving him—an expectation, however, which proved fallacious. The work
of reparation had just commenced about the period of Sir Walter Scott’s
visit to Valleyfield.
“June 19 [1830].
“After breakfast to Culross,
where the veteran Sir Robert Preston showed us his curiosities. Life has
done as much for him as most people. In his ninety-second year he has an
ample fortune, a sound understanding, not the least decay of eyes, ears, or
taste, is as big as two men, and eats like three. Yet he, too, experiences
the singtda prcedantur, and has lost something since I last saw him. If his
appearance renders old age tolerable, it does not make it desirable. But I
fear, when death comes, we shall be xmwilling, for all that, to part with
our bundle of sticks. Sif Robert amuses himself with repairing the old House
of Culross, built by the Lord Bruce. What it is destined for is not very
evident. It is too near his own mansion of Valleyfield to be useful as a
residence, if indeed it could be formed into a comfortable modem house. But
it is rather like a banqueting-house. Well, he follows his own fancy. We had
a sumptuous cold dinner. Sir Adam grieves it was not hot—so little can war
and want break a man to circumstances. The beauty of Culross consists in
magnificent terraces rising on the sea-beach and commanding the opposite
shore of Lothian. The house is repairing in the style of James VI. There are
some fine relics of the old monastery, with large Saxon arches. At
Anstruther I saw with pleasure the painting by Raeburn of my old friend Adam
Holland, Esq., who was in the external circumstances, but not in frolic or
fancy, my prototype for Paul Pleydell.”
Sir Walter’s powers had by
this time begun to fail, and there are one or two inaccuracies and omissions
in the above. I have received an account of the visit in question from one
of Mr Holland’s sons who accompanied the party to Valleyfield. He informs me
that the company from Blair-Adam, including Sir Adam Fergusson, breakfasted
at Lus-car, near Camock, the seat of his father, Adam Holland, Esq. of Gask,
who himself was a son of the Rev. Mr Holland, minister of the first charge
of Culross. Mr Adam Rolland was a W.S., and also a colleague of Sir Walter
Scott as one of the principal Clerks of Session. “Anstruther” is here
clearly a mistake for Luscar, a place to which we have already had occasion
to refer as the seat of the Covenanter Stobow captured by Captain Creichton.
Mr Rolland says, moreover, that whilst Sir Walter was exceedingly genial and
pleasant in his father’s house, this pleasant condition was much disturbed
by the sulky and dissatisfied manner of Sir Robert Preston, who hated as
much a luncheon or cold collation as Sir Adam Fergusson, but apparently had
considered it incumbent on him to furnish such a refection to his guests. It
may also be mentioned that the 19 th of June 1830 was the Saturday before
the Culross Sacrament, which is celebrated on the third Sunday of June, and
is, or rather used to be, preceded by a religious service on the Saturday
afternoons. In consequence of this, when Sir Walter visited the ruins of the
monastery, he was unable to see the interior of the church.
As Sir Robert Preston had no
children, and only three nieces, who were also childless, it became a matter
of considerable speculation as to how he might ultimately devise the huge
fortune and estates that he possessed. His paternal estate of "Valleyfield,
indeed, was guarded by a strict entail; but he regarded with hostile
feelings the family of Mr Clarke of Comrie, in whom this inheritance was '
vested as descendants of his sister, Mrs Mary Preston or Wellwood, wife of
Robert Wellwood of Garvock. Lord Dundonald, the unfortunate projector, who
died at Paris in 1831, was Sir Robert’s first cousin; and though there had
been various causes of dissension between the families, it is nevertheless
averred that Sir Robert intended to make the celebrated Lord Cochrane, Earl
Archibald’s eldest son, his heir. Unfortunately for the latter, he gave, it
is said, mortal offence to the testy old Baronet by sending an excuse for
not coming down from England to the funeral of Lady Preston. Setting aside
then all his relatives, with the exception of the three nieces above
referred to, he devised the whole of the estates belonging exclusively to
himself, to be enjoyed first successively by his nieces, and then, on the
death of the last survivor, to vest in the Elgin family, by whom they have
been enjoyed since 1864. In terms of Sir Robert’s bequest, and also in
accordance with a family compact, this large inheritance is now the property
of the Hon. Robert Preston Bruce, M.P. for Fifeshire, and immediate younger
brother of the present Earl of Elgin. As regards the estate of Valleyfield
proper, this now belongs to R. Clarke Campbell Preston, Esq., son of the
Rev. W. Clarke Preston, who succeeded to the estate under the original
entail, on the death in 1864 of Lady Hay, last surviving niece of Sir Robert
Preston. The baronetcy, on the death of the latter in 1834, had become
extinct as regarded the male descendants of Sir George Preston, the first
Baronet by the deed of creation of Charles I. in 1637. It then passed, in
terms of the patent, to the representative of Robert Preston, Lord of
Session, younger brother of Sir George, the first Baronet, and ancestor of
the Prestons of Gorton. The title was accordingly now taken up by Mr Preston
of Lutton, in the county of Lincolnshire, as seventh Baronet of Valleyfield.
He was succeeded by his son Sir Robert, and he again by his brother Sir
Henry Preston.
Some notice is due to the
first of Sir Robert Preston’s nieces, who succeeded him both in the
ancestral estate of Valleyfield and as liferentrix of his other estates.
This was Miss Anne Campbell Preston, daughter of Colonel Patrick Preston,
Sir Robert’s eldest brother, and heiress through her mother of the estate of
Femton or Ferntower, in the neighbourhood of Crieff. She married, in 1809,
Sir David Baird, the hero of Seringapatam, who afterwards lost his arm by a
cannon-ball at Corunna. He employed himself, while at Alexandria in the
beginning of the century, in the attempt to place Cleopatra’s Needle on
board ship and transport it to England—a project which failed at the time,
but has in our own time been attended with complete success. Lady Baird was
a woman of considerable vigour and originality of character. For her
husband, Sir David, who died in 1829, Lady Baird cherished an immense
reverence, and erected a granite obelisk to his memory on an eminence on her
estate, at a cost of £15,000. She also paid 1500 guineas to Sir David Wilkie
for his picture of Sir David Baird finding Tippoo Saib’s body. Unfortunately
for herself, she was animated by a strong litigious spirit, which was
constantly embroiling her in lawsuits, the principal objects of her
animosity being her uncle’s trustees. A great part of her substance was
spent in this unprofitable manner; and though doubtless she possessed many
good qualities, her memory is preserved about Culross as of one who, in the
old Scottish phrase, was a “ dour and stour wife.” She was succeeded first
by her sister Miss Preston, and afterwards by her cousin Lady Hay, widow of
Sir John Hay of King’s Meadows, Peeblesshire. On the demise of the latter,
as already mentioned, in 1864, the Valleyfield estate went to the Rev. W.
Clarke Preston—and the other property of Sir Robert, including Blairhall and
the Culross estate, to the Elgin family.
It may be remarked here that
the greater part of the parish of Culross is now possessed by the
descendants of the great Sir George Bruce. The only exceptions are the
estate of Blair Castle, recently purchased by C. H. Miller, Esq., from the
last representative of the Dundases of Blair; that of Comrie, belonging to
A. V. Smith Sligo, Esq. of Inzievar, and formerly belonging to Mr Clarke,
grandfather of Mr R. Clarke Campbell Preston; a portion of the estate of
Tulliallan, belonging to Lady W. G. Osborne Elphinstone; the small estate of
Dunimarle or Castlehill, formerly belonging to the ancient family of Blaw;
and one or two small properties immediately adjoining the town of Culross.
The heritors of the parish who are thus descended are the Hon. R. P. Bruce,
descended lineally from Robert Bruce of Broomhall, Sir George’s younger son;
John J. Dalgleish, Esq. of West Grange and Balgownie, whose maternal
grandmother, Mrs Johnston of Sands, was younger daughter of Captain Wellwood
of Garvock, whose mother was a sister of Sir Robert Preston, and
granddaughter through her mother— Lady Mary Cochrane—of Alexander, second
Earl of Kincardine; Laurence Johnston, Esq. of Sands, who stands to Sir
George Bruce in the same degree of relationship as Mr Dalgleish; and R.
Clarke Campbell Preston, Esq. of Valleyfield, who also stands in the same
degree through his paternal grandmother, Mrs Clarke of Comrie, elder
daughter of Captain Wellwood and sister of Mrs Johnston.
The baronies of Tulliallan
and Kincardine, which were acquired by the Black Colonel in the beginning of
the last century, were inherited by his only surviving son, John Erskine of
Camock, the celebrated Scottish jurist. By his first marriage with Miss
Melvill of Bargawie, John Erskine was the father of Dr Erskine, the
clergyman, and to him he bequeathed the original estates of the family, with
the exception of those in the parish of Tulliallan.
These last, with the estate
of Cardross in Menteith, which he had purchased himself at a judicial sale,
he left to James Erskine, the eldest son of his second marriage with Miss
Stirling of Keir. James Erskine of Cardross married Lady Christian Bruce,
second daughter of William, eighth Earl of Kincardine, and was the father of
David Erskine, who married the daughter of John, eleventh Lord Elphin-stone.
A younger brother of Lord Elphinstone, the Hon. George Keith Elphinstone,
afterwards raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Keith, purchased the
estate of Tulliallan from David Erskine of Cardross.
Lord Keith had distinguished
himself greatly as a naval commander, and attained the rank of admiral. By
his mother, Lady Clementina Fleming or Elphinstone, daughter of John, sixth
Earl of Wigton, he was nearly related to the celebrated brothers Keith—the
Earl Marischal and Marshal Keith — his maternal grandmother, Lady Mary
Keith, Countess of Wigton, being the sister of these renowned brothers. This
last-named lady was heir of line to the Earl Marischal, whose title had been
forfeited for his accession to the rebellion of 1715; but the claim to the
forfeited honour passed to Alexander Keith of Ravelston, near Edinburgh, as
nearest male representative, and descended from William, third Earl
Marischal, who died about 1530. The title has never, however, been revived
or advanced since the death of George, tenth Earl Marischal, at Potsdam, in
Prussia, in 1778, twenty years after that of his brother, Marshal Keith, at
the battle of Hochkirchen.
Lord Keith married, first,
Miss Mercer of Aldie, and had by her one daughter, the Hon. Margaret Mercer
Elphinstone, who succeeded him in the peerage as Baroness or Lady Keith. She
married a French nobleman, Auguste Charles Joseph, Comte de Flahault de la
Billardrie, and had by him four daughters, the eldest of whom married Lord
Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne. The Keith peerage is now
extinct, being limited to the first Baron and the heirs-male of his body,
whom failing to his daughter Margaret and the heirs-male of her body. Lady
Keith died in 1867.
By his second wife, Heather
Maria, Dr Johnson’s “Queenie,” and the eldest daughter of the philosopher’s
great friends Mr and Mrs Thrale of Streat-ham, Lord Keith had only one
daughter, the Hon. Georgiana Augusta Henrietta, who married, first, the Hon.
Augustus John Villiers, son of the Earl of Jersey; and secondly, Lord
William Godolphin Osborne, brother of the eighth and uncle of the present
Duke of Leeds. She now possesses, under the title of Lady W. G. Osborne
Elphinstone, the estate of Tulliallan, Lord Keith having devised it to his
two daughters successively, and afterwards to the representative of his
elder daughter. The property will thus ultimately vest in the Lansdowne
family.
The history of the two
parishes may now be said to have been brought down from the earliest times
to the present day. It is now my province to describe their existing
monuments, so as to illustrate and complete that history. |
