THE lands of Kelvinside, which are now being rapidly built upon, are finely situated on the wooded banks of the Kelvin, opposite the Botanic Gardens, and along the Garscube highway. The ancient name was "Bankhead," and the property constituted part of the estate of Ruchill (formerly "Rough-hill"), which belonged, about a century and a half ago, to James Peadie, merchant, and Provost of Glasgow in 1727. He had five daughters, one of whom, wife of William Maxwell, younger of Calderwood, had Bankhead conveyed to her, and in 1749 sold it to Thomas Dunmore, merchant in Glasgow, one of the old Virginia Dons. In the year following, Mr. Dunmore built the mansion photographed, and originated the ornamental woods which add so much to the picturesque character of the locality. At the same period he changed the name from Bankhead to "Kelvinside." Twenty-seven years later, Mr. Dunmore conveyed the house and lands to his son Robert, who had espoused the only daughter of John Napier of Ballikinrain.
In 1785 Robert Dunmore sold Kelvinside to Dr. Thomas Lithan of the East India Company's Service, in the Bengal presidency, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Mowbray, merchant, Leith. Dr. Lithan died in 1807, and, under his deed of settlement, Kelvinside became her property.
The second husband of this lady was Archibald Cuthill, writer in Glasgow, then a widower. He entered the Faculty of Procurators in 1789, and after this marriage assumed the additional surname of Lithan, so that he was commonly known as Mr. Lithan Cuthill of Kelvinside. During a number of years his professional partner was the late Mr. James Monteath, who entered the Faculty in 1812, the firm being Cuthill & Monteath. About 1821, this respectable firm amalgamated with Mr. Thomas Graham, an old and equally respectable lawyer, who had been in the Faculty since 1793, and the firm became Graham, Cuthill & Monteath. Their chambers were in Miller Street, east side, in Mr. Graham's property. (1) Mr. Graham subsequently assumed as his partner, in 1803, Mr. Mathew Montgomerie, and the firm became Graham & Montgomerie, and afterwards, when Mr. John Park Fleming in a few years joined it, Montgomerie & Fleming.
In 1839 the trustees of Mrs. Cuthill sold Kelvinside to Mr. Montgomerie and his partner, Mr. Fleming.
Mr. Montgomerie resided in the house of Kelvinside many years. He was a native of Irvine, and completed his professional training in Glasgow with Mr. Thomas Graham above referred to. Mr. Montgomerie, who was not a member of Faculty, entered into partnership, as already shown, with Mr. Fleming, a member of 1812, which connexion continued till the death of the former, at the mansion of Kelvinside on 17th June 1868, aged eighty-five. (2) Mr. Fleming died on 20th July of the following year, at the age of seventy-nine.
Since their deaths the mansion house of Kelvinside and ninety acres of the estate were sold to the late Mr. John E. Walker, who feued out part of them, and this portion of Kelvinside belongs to his heirs.
The remaining and larger part of the estate of Kelvinside, viz., that lying along both sides of the Great Western Road, from the Botanic Gardens gate westwards, to the railway bridge that carries the Stobcross branch of the North British Railway across that road, still belongs to the representatives of Messrs. Montgomerie and Fleming, and is being laid off in crescents and terraces, and will no doubt form, when completed, a very fine residential suburb, and a great ornament to the city.
LIEUTENANT GEORGE SPEAKING'S ADVENTURE IN A COAL PIT.
Kelvinside and Woodside, on both sides of the Kelvin, are full of old coal pits and old coal workings, which occasionally make themselves unpleasantly known now to the owners of houses built above. One of these old coal pits, which had been abandoned and overgrown more than 100 years ago, was in the oak wood that grew till the other day on the left bank of the Kelvin, a little west of the City Bank's Bridge. Into this pit Lieutenant George Spearing fell, when netting in the wood "on Wednesday, the 13th September, 1769, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon" (as he minutely records), and there he remained till Wednesday the 20th. The pit was "exactly seventeen yards deep," but, though much bruised by the fall, the Lieutenant had no bones broken. He had no food, and only such water as he could gather, when it rained, in the hollow of a bone that he found in the pit. This water he had to dispute with a swarm of frogs and toads and slugs, but he "thought it the sweetest water he had ever tasted," and he longed for it ever after as David, in the cave of Adullam, longed for the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate. Within 100 yards was the North Woodside Mill with the miller's house still nearer (both rebuilt since then), and the poor prisoner could hear the men's voices, and the horses tramp, and the cackle of the ducks and hens. But the wind blew his way, and his cries were unheard. On the Saturday he heard the voices of some boys in the woods, and shouted with all his might. They actually heard him, but they had some foolish story in their heads of a wild man being in the wood, and they ran away. Some men sent to search for him came the length of the miller's house, and there turned. But he never lost heart nor spirit : a robin red-breast, perched on a bough above, sang to him every morning, and he said the company of this little bird and his trust in providence kept him up, till on the seventh day he heard voices in the wood, and, calling out, was discovered and rescued, and conveyed to the miller's house. He would have been none the worse, but there they put hot bricks and poultices to his poor numb feet, and they brought on gangrene, and one leg had to be taken off, and he swam for his life. But he recovered at last, and lived to be the father of nine children.
The story is almost forgotten now, but it is given at full length in the Lieutenant's own words in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1793. It may also be found in Hugh Macdonald's "Rambles Round Glasgow," and in "Glasgow Past and Present," where there is also the account of a woman having, four years later, fallen into the same place, and been relieved three days after, not a hap'orth the worse. This terrible pit has only been filled up within the last few years. It was in that portion of the oak wood still standing west of Doune Terrace, and was known as the "Sodger's Pit." This oak wood was an addition to the Kelvinside estate, having been originally part of the lands of Woodside.
(1) Mr. Cuthill died in France, in October 1853 at the age of ninety. Mr. Graham was possessed of very fascinating manners, which caused him to be known in society under the sobriquet of "Lord Chesterfield." He was very tall and handsome.
(2) Mathew Montgomery and John Park Fleming were thus partners for over fifty years, a rare instance of a partnership subsisting without change of any kind for such a long period.
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