22 July 2012 – Glenholm

I'm writing this looking out the window at a bleak view up the valley with clouds hanging down over the tops of the hills and the wind whipping waves across the rye grass field next to the cottage.

To catch up, the German town of Gorlitz was delightful with 3 squares lined with old buildings and an old tower all in spruce condition. The matching town on the other bank of the river in Poland (they had been the same town before WWII) was dowdy and less well kept.

The main square in Gorlitz

Once we left Gorlitz we headed onto the autobahn for an overnight stay at Fulda (chosen as it was in easy distance of Frankfurt airport). The hotel we had booked there, the Knussknacker, had a theme of toy soldiers – based on the Nutcracker story. There were peanuts in a dish in the bedroom and dishes of nuts with various type of nutcrackers scattered around the bar and lounge, and the public rooms had arrays of the toy soldiers on every available ledge and window sill, almost every one unique in size, expression and/or attachments – carrying bugles, staffs, drums.....

The autobahn is an interesting experience – driving at 150kph in the slow lane while the occasional car zips past at 200+. It is amazing how fast these speedsters appear in the mirror while you are passing a truck.

Anyway we spent the next day returning the car, flying to Edinburgh and driving down to our accommodation at Glenholm. This is a remote valley in Peebleshire which is the ancestral home of my branch of the Bertrams and we had found a cottage to rent for a few days while looking at the family gravestones, etc. We arrived around 7:00 to find the cottage is part of a group of buildings making up the Glenholm Centre, a wildlife project and tearooms based around the old school and right next to the Glenholm graveyard. The centre is on Cardon farm with 1000 acres along both sides of the valley. Deciding to find something to eat we headed to the nearest town to find that the Bistro kitchen had closed for the night. A quick trip across country to the next town at Biggar, via a road that had given G willies on the way down due to the narrowness and deep puddles stretching across the width, found us a good restaurant in one of the pubs. Heading back around 9:30 it was still very light.

The next day was spent looking around the graveyard, driving up to the end of the valley, finding the church at Stobo and identifying the graves of my great-great-great-grandfather, his son and his wife which are directly outside the church door.

The family gravestones at Stobo

The first mentioned ancestor had been the head gamekeeper at the local estate and had the job of supervising the construction of Stobo Castle, an imposing country house, around 1800. We headed up to the castle which has been turned into an exclusive health resort and parked among the Porsches and Jaguars. Rolling up to reception in our tatty travelling clothes we asked if we could have a look around – no problem they said, as long as we didn't take photos inside. The entrance is very imposing with double staircases heading up and down and all beautifully decorated on a grand scale. We wandered down towards the back of the house among swarms of young women wearing uniform fluffy white bathrobes that seemed to migrate en-masse in every direction. The staff were immaculately turned out and the whole atmosphere was quite surreal. It was almost like a gathering of some druidical clan. We quickly retreated outside and took photos of the house and the immaculate grounds. The front lawn even had an H marked in a different coloured grass to mark the helipad.

Stobo Castle

We then spent a day heading west to Renfrewshire to catch up with the Dunlop family traces. A start was made in Neilston to find the first cotton mill built in Scotland by James Dunlop & Sons, but the locals had no idea of the history of the area, though there was a community centre set up by 3 women to bring the community together through information sharing which did have a map of the area. With the information gathered and a few good guesses we found the mill site including the mill pond, but the mill itself seems to be have been demolished and turned into a pleasant housing estate.

We carried on to the town of Dunlop. On the way I saw a castellated tower that I recognised as the Caldwell Tower which had been the subject of an extreme make-over project on TV. As Gillian is a Caldwell we headed over to see if we could get a better view of the tower and immediately came across the Caldwell Golf Club and Caldwell Lodge – a pleasant surprise for G to make an accidental homecoming.

Caldwell Tower

At Dunlop (my mother's maiden name) we spent some time searching for the (possibly) ancestral home of Dunlop House without luck. Stopping at the Dunlop Kirk we wandered around the graveyard and found a few Dunlop graves and also a Caldwell or two.

I then stopped in the middle of a one lane road to ask a passer-by directions to the house which were given rapidly as the traffic was building up in both directions. We still didn't get it right and stopped again to ask a couple who were walking past. They spent some time insisting that as I had Dunlop connections, however tenuous, I had come HOME and were also able to give us more info about the house which has been under renovation for years into exclusive apartments with a hiatus due to the economic conditions. Previously it had been owned by the local council and used as a home for the handicapped. We carried on to find the imposing gates and gatehouse of the estate and carried on up the drive through pleasant countryside for a kilometre and came round a corner to find an amazingly imposing 4 storey mansion standing in apparent isolation. There are construction barriers around the house and the windows are boarded up with plywood, but the exterior is in fine condition and made Gillian exclaim “I want to own this!”. We walked around the outside and peered into one room. The interior has been gutted, but there is still the remains of a fine fireplace.

Dunlop House

We also had been told of a local farm that produces cheese under the Dunlop brand. We found the farm a few miles down the raod and sampled the cheeses – all delicious. We ended up buying a “nearly mature” cheddar (traditional Ayrshire Dunlop), a “Crowdie” (a slighty crumbly cream cheese with a pleasant flavour and a round of “Aiket”, similar to camembert. A good amount of cheese for only £7 (=$NZ14) which I regarded as an exceptionally cheap price.

Today we attended church at the Stobo Kirk and then had lunch with the minister and his wife. He had a history of the parish and I was able to find a couple of references to the Bertram family, the first being in relation to a change of land ownership in 1541 in Rachan, just down the road.

Before church I walked up the road from the cottage to have a close look at the local golf course named Pitch and Putt. This is a project of the farm owner who personally mows the greens and occasionally the fairways which are hewn out of the long grass that covers the valley floor. The main limitation seems to be the lack of parking as the road is a single lane and there is only off-road space for 3 cars at the links. The hazards are challenging – a wide stream, several deep ditches, areas of rough that would hide a ball for eternity and greens that are minute and irregular in slope. Great fun.

Gillian found a gravestone in the graveyard beside the cottage which refers to 4 people, 3 of them Bertrams, that we have no records for. They died between 1858-1913 and don't fit the dates or history we know about, but I suspect that there were several branches of the family in the area so it is not surprising.

The weather apparently had been very wet prior to our arrival in Scotland with flooded pasture and a lot of water on the roads, but the last few days has generally been dry and mild (“Brass monkey weather” says G from under a heavy long coat and thermal underwear).