Helensburgh Heritage
Helensburgh Heritage Trust
THE TWO big mansions at Finnart overlooking Loch Long, with first-class views of the rugged landscape known as Argyll's Bowling Green and beyond, were within shouting distance of each other.
By no means identical twins, they did have a lot in common, and both had interesting residents.
A MANSION called Arddarroch is in use as offices in the middle of the Finnart Ocean Terminal on Loch Longside . . . and one of its early owners was in the centre of a huge row over landscape pollution.
It has a magnificent backdrop of the rugged Argyll's Bowling Green and the Arrochar Alpss, but now has the trappings of modern industry all around.
IT BEGAN as a mystery and ended as a mystery . . . but there were some fascinating discoveries in between.
The starting point was the desire by a group of local people to have a memorial for those who lost their lives in the Battle of Glen Fruin on February 6 1603, and they wanted to confirm a long-held local belief that a burial mound in the glen was where dead Colquhoun clansmen were buried.
IT HAS not been possible to find out where the original of the burgh charter is held, if indeed it still exists.
Sir Malcolm Colquhoun does not have it, and many years ago the Luss Estates papers were given to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow; they do not have it either.
THE SALE and recent modernising renovation and expansion of the Old Milligs Tollhouse at the top of Sinclair Street in Helensburgh as a private residence brought focus to a fascinating class of buildings.
They actually hold a unique place in the story of local roads in this area.
HIS is a name well known in Glasgow . . . because of a decision he made at his Coulport home.
Visitors to the Botanic Gardens beside the city’s Great Western Road marvel at the huge Kibble Palace greenhouse, but it was first erected on the shores of Loch Long.
FIFTY YEARS ago, in the early hours of Monday January 15 1968, Hurricane Low Q hit Helensburgh and Garelochside and caused unbelievable damage.
It was the second major hurricane of the 20th century to hit the area, and it is still vividly remembered by countless local people who were unable to sleep through it.