“This beautifully
situated little estate lies within a mile of Kirkintilloch, near the
junction of the Bothlin Burn with the Luggie Water, and close to the old
burying-ground, in which stand the ruins of the original parish church,
dedicated to St. Ninian.
“It is with good reason
believed to be the ‘Oxgate' bestowed in the reign of William the Lyon,
by William Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and Lord of Kirkintilloch, on the
Abbey of Cambuskenneth, and confirmed by his grandson John Comyn, with
some additional lands, and thirty cart-loads of peats annually from the
moss of Kirkintilloch. From the retours it appears to have belonged in
the seventeenth century to a family of Fleming.
“The Grays of Chryston
and Condorrat have been owners of the property in this district at least
as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first of the
name who owned Oxgang was a younger son of Gray of Condorrat, who in
1730 acquired it by purchase. His descendant, William Gray of Oxgang,
the maternal grandfather of Sir Charles Stirling, was a well-known
politician in the times before the Reform Bill, when party spirit ran
high, and took a leading part in the Parliamentary elections for
Dumbarton and Lanark shires. He was a Whig of the old school, and a keen
partisan, and amusing stories are yet current of stratagems by which
opposition voters were secreted on the eve of a county contest (and in
these days one or two votes were sufficient to turn the scale), in which
the Laird of Oxgang, who was a freeholder both in Lanark and Dumbarton
shires, was a chief agent. The male line of his family ended with his
son Henry. The estate was sold in 1856 by the children of Captain
Stirling and his wife, Mrs. Ann Henrietta Gray, as heirs of their
grandfather. |