My mother's grandfather, Alexander Wilson, 'The Colonel', bought Bannockburn House in 1883 and held it for over twenty years until he died. One of the items I inherited from my mother was....
....a small oil painting showing the rear of the house, which had a lighter and more pleasing aspect. It shows it as it may have looked after it was built in 1675 and before the Colonel added a....
....rather ugly extension in 1884. At the same time he remodelled the front porch.
Recently the house has been taken over in a community buyout, so it is now being restored by the Bannockburn House Trust - their website is
here.
I was contacted by Hugh McCusker, one of the Trust's members, and was very pleased to pass to him some pictures of items of interest which came from my mother. At a recent gathering of Trust members....
....Hugh displayed them, and he has....
....put a number of the photographs in frames on the mantelpiece in the dining room of the house.
Hugh has also been able to send me pictures of some of the Wilsons. We concluded that this one is Christian Littlejohn Wilson, the Colonel's second daughter.
That the house is being restored by the community is wonderful news, as is one of their aims - to set up a museum which will, amongst other things, celebrate the Wilsons' contribution to the development of tartan weaving in Bannockburn.
Hi! Do you happen to know who painted the pre 19th century painting? or even about when it was done? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteNo, sorry, I don't. And, sadly, the generation which might have known have passed on, though I don't recall my mother, who had the painting, knowing anything about it. Jon
DeleteThank you for the reply. Deeply grateful for you sharing these stories and the opportunity to see a picture of this painting! It has been tremendously helpful in my research about the house's history. There are so many questions to answer!
ReplyDelete