Kilmory Causeway - cats or careless driving?

A dreich trip back from Glasgow was enlivened by the stories Big Jim put out over the address system. As we rolled past the ancient Clock Lodge outside Kilmory he told us one version of the story of the strange causeway, still visible at low tide across the head of Loch Gilp. According to Jim a former inhabitant of the tower was suspected of kidnapping the Lochgilphead cats and carrying them off for some wizardly purposes, as a result of which he was shunned in the town. To avoid the catcalls of residents he acquired a wooden sledge so that his horse could drag him to Ardrishaig.

Jim’s story is improbable, not least because a couple of tides would have sufficed to erase the tracks of the largest sledge and the story belongs to the century before last. Apart from this why should Lochgilphead be stuffed with ailurophiles while the residents of Ardrishaig, just a couple of miles away, cared nothing for their felines?

What follows is just what I’ve discovered so far and by no means complete, but worth recording as part of our social history. Any comments helping to complete the story will be welcome.

Our story begins on 15 June 1826 when Sir John Powlett Orde, the hereditary second baronet and son of Admiral Sir John Orde, married Eliza Woollery Campbell, then in her early twenties and daughter of the laird of Kilmory.

Admiral Sir John was a prickly chap who readily fell out with colleagues, including John Jervis, Lord St Vincent and Horatio Lord Nelson. In 1805 he was ordered to strike his flag, despite which in the curious ways of the Admiralty he continued to be promoted, ending up as Admiral of the White in 1810, by which time he had secured a shore job as member of Parliament for Yarmouth, which he kept for life.

The second baronet was born at Portman Square, St Marylbone on 9 June 1803, followed the usual path of the English upper class with an education at Eton and inherited his father’s title in 1824 while still a student at Oxford. His marriage to Eliza put him in charge of her affairs, as in those days the husband became the legal guardian of his wife. Three children followed in quick succession and sadly Eliza died during or shortly after the birth of the third, Eliza Margaret in June 1829.

Meantime Eliza’s father had died in 1828 leaving her not only his substantial estate in Kilmory but also a plantation in Jamaica, all of which passed to Sir John on Eliza’s death. This windfall meant that the young widower could now live well on the wealth created for him by literal slaves in Jamaica and virtual ones in Argyll. He was soon rich enough to buy another estate at Lochmaddy. It’s difficult to imagine the gulf that must have existed between Sir John on the one hand and the wretched folk who supplied his wealth, divisions not just of wealth, but culture, religion and language.    

In 1832 Sir John married a second wife, Beatrice Edwards of Harrow, had the original Campbell house knocked down and commissioned the English architect Joseph Gordon Davis to design him an enormous palace befitting his social status. The result was Kilmory Castle, today the headquarters of Argyll & Bute Council. It is described by Frank Arneil Walker  as an

“impressive, residential fortress…ugly and agglomerative…designed with undeniable bravura….No doubt battlemented towers and vaulted halls afforded some symbolic reassurance to a parvenu gentry whose wealth had no historic relationship with the land but had accrued from trade or industry.”

We can add that Kilmory is haunted by a green lady – Eliza’s ghost perhaps?

And a report from the Strathclyde Building Preservation Trust in 2008 noted about Sir John Orde

“An innovator and inventor, curragh racer and scourge of local fishermen, from the time he took on Kilmory he worked to convert it into a smooth running estate embracing up to date farming methods and indeed moving farming forward. He took an active interest in local democracy, sitting on the Police board and taking part in early local government in the area but remained unpopular with local people. His workforce on the estate, which was large and diverse, was well paid but fiercely regimented and his amalgamation of several tenanted farms to put together the Home Farm, meant the removal of tenants at best to waged labour on the farm and at worst to eviction from the land.”

That is the background to what follows, based on local legend and looking more likely than the business with the cats. It seems that one day Sir John was driving through Lochgilphead when some boys held on to the back of his carriage. He struck at them with his whip to drive them off, causing one of them to fall off and die under the wheels. This caused such a lot of resentment that Sir John could not go through the town without suffering abuse. He decided to have a causeway constructed across the head of the loch, for which the Clock Lodge was constructed as a gatehouse.

This expensive, entirely selfish project had the no doubt intended by-product of obstructing navigation rights, there being at the time a fishing fleet of small boats operating from the public pier half a mile above the causeway, which had been built in 1831. There was a massive public outcry which eventually resulted in Sir John being compelled to breach a space in his new construction to allow free passage.

The date of the incident isn’t clear, but there are suggestions that the Lodge is newer than the castle, perhaps dating from the 1850s. It has been on the market for some years and it will be a brave person who takes it on.

PS 21 December

May help to explain the comments below

700 Years ago this Day

On 24 January  1313 King Robert Bruce granted in favour of Sir Dugald Campbell, Laird of Menstrie, Clackmannanshire, born at Lochow (Lochawe) 1259 or 1262 and son of Sir Cailean Mor a charter of the lands taken from the MacDougalls consisting of Kilcongen (Kilchoan), Degnish, Auchinaclosh (Kilninver) , Auchinsaule (Kilninver), Caddiltoune Ardmaddy), Garpynging (Kilninver), Ardincaple (Ardencaple), Ragray (Kilninver), Kilninver, Esgeallan (Kilninver), Clachanseilach (Clachan Seil), Leternacrosh (Kilninver), Scamadil (Scammadale), Kilveran (Kilninver), Letternamuck (Kilninver) and the isle of Toresay (Torsa), in exchange for providing a twenty six-oared galley equipped with men and victuals.

Seven hundred years later the following exchange took place between Eoghan o’ the Lang Skiff and Choinnich Sgarbheach, the Sage of Doune:

Eoghan: I don't know what the MacDougalls had done to deserve having their lands taken away and Sir Dugald had a few years earlier backed King Edward against the Bruce. It all goes to show the Campbells usually come up smelling sweet. Glad (in a way) that my great great great Grannie was one.

Choinnich: It was in the Pass of Brander that the MacDougalls learned a lesson taught by Robert the Great, with young Colin Campbell at his shoulder, to the effect that EDW I was a bad person.  That is what they did and some people in Argyll have yet to forgive.  Now, while it is the case that the Campbells, as signatories of The True Solemn Oath and Covenant, found themselves opposed to the heirs of Marjorie Bruce (who would have done far better to marry young Colin of Argyll rather than Walter Stewart), and thus sided with a wee bit Gairman Lairdie, the MacDougalls appear to have escaped without a blemish on their estates, although their character is well known throughout Argyll.  Now I find myself asking, 'What is this about taking lands off the MacDougalls?  There is surely only MacCallum Mhor that has the power to do such a thing, and himself short on the powers that were once his to command.  If it is not Cleann Caimbeul that is doing this thing then it has no businness to be done for we alone can do such a thing and end up smelling of roses, even if they be the Floo'ers o' Edinbro.  Stand proud in your Campbell heritage, my kinsman.

Eoghan: Ach, ye have an answer to evrytheeng, ma pretty Freen!

The charter was granted less than 50 years after the conflict between the emerging Scottish kingdom and Norway was resolved at the Treaty of Perth in 1266, which was prefigured by the Battle of Largs in 1263. The early Scottish kings were finding it a hard job coming to grips with the people of the islands, who retained fond memories of the autonomy previously enjoyed and of course were themselves partly of Norse ancestry. The Bruce operated a policy of consolidating his grip on the main land by building castles and installing suitable tough guys to control the unruly Gaels.

It’s interesting to see the notorious political flexibility of the well-named Campbells (literally Cam Beal – crooked mouth, not of course referring to a physical attribute) to the fore so early in the history of our nation.

Sea power was vital to ruling the islands in the pre-road period. Providing a galley of 26 oars was a major endeavour justifying the grant of a huge tract of land, although one can imagine that retaining control would also take some effort. There would have been a big tribe of angry MacDougalls to contend with for a start.

I’ve tried to identify the various estates involved, extending from Loch Awe in the East to the North shore of Loch Melfort on the South along to Degnish Point, then the West boundary running up the middle of Seil Sound to Clachan Seil, but including Torsa Island with the Castle of the Dogs and a North boundary running somewhere to the North of present-day Kilninver along to Loch Awe again.

The anomaly is the inclusion of Ardincaple at the North end of the Isle of Seil. Literally Ard na gCapull, the “point of the horses” this may refer not to real horses but to the black rocky reefs and breaking waves off the point, resembling in the mind of the poetic Gael wild horses. Ardincaple is the site of Ardfad Castle, the seat of the MacDougalls and awarding this to the Campbells would have been a serious provocation, especially as the remainder of the island seems not to have been included. Perhaps that was granted to another of the Campbell knights.

Regarding the actual galley one can assume that there would have been thirteen thwarts or benches, two oarsmen on each and “rooms” of about a metre in length, suggesting a hull length of at least seventeen metres, fifty six feet, if we allow a couple of metres at each end. The image at the top of this post has seventeen oar ports, thirty four oars, and the biggest galleys seem to have been forty oared, but there’s a lack of archaeological evidence and it’s always possible that once the charter had been granted the galley didn’t actually materialise.