Stroan House - Glentrool Forester�s House near Loch Trool.

Date Added: 12 October 2020 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1963 Picture No: 4898

The images are courtesy of Joan Park, Perth whose father, Hamish, was a forester at that time based in Glentrool Forest and moved to Stroan in 1963. The house was previously the property of the Earl of Galloway and used by a succession of farming tenants.

Joan recalls her childhood there:

“I was 6 when we moved out of the village to stay at the Stroan in the Glen, close to Loch Trool. Before coming into FC ownership it had been a fairly large sheep farm. The house was made of typical Galloway granite. Despite its isolation and with no one near for a six year old to play with I just loved it. I spent many hours on my own roaming the woods and hills......and building dams in the nearby Torr Lane burn! A magnificent childhood.....I learned so much about the seasons and nature. Never without my wellies and a stick.....there were many adders about! Dad built an amazing tree house in a huge tree near the house. Sited between the four big boughs. You climbed up a ladder into it through a hole in the floor. I used to love sitting in it listening to the wind rustling the leaves and creaking the branches.

Very similar and not too far away was the Caldons farmhouse that came into forestry ownership for the wardens of the campsite. Molly and Hugh McMillan and their daughter Catherine lived there in the 1960s”.

Any details of other forestry residents of Stroan House would be very welcome.

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Groups: Buildings in Forests, Forestry Areas

9 Comments

My husband and I bought this house from the Forestry Commission in the early 1980’s. We lived very happily there for 4years until my husband became unwell. We renovated the house, We added a well in the garden at the back of the house and a large pond between the barn and the house. Dr Margaret lived in the bungalow below Stroan House. We were friends with the folks who lived in the forest commission village in Bargrennan. I have an old black and white photograph given to me by Dr Margaret which might be of interest to you. If you would like to contact me to chat please do so . My name is Mrs Barbara Lee , on bmlee@fastmail.fm. It was so lovely to see my old home, regards, Barbara Lee. Incidentally I am now back in Cornwall and will probably never see Stroan House again! Take care. Comment left on 25 May 2021 at 18:32 by Barbara Lee

Hi Barbara�.yes the Stroan was such a special place. We stayed there for 6 years. I loved it. The head teacher at the village school called me Joan from the Stroan! Our neighbours Dr Margaret and her sister Dr Nell were such amazing ladies. First Church of Scotland Galloway medical missionaries in India. Dr Margaret introduced us in later years to probably the next owners of Stroan to follow you�Derek and Una Bromelow who became our friends. They sadly are no longer with us but the house still belongs to their daughter Anne and her family. Would be interested to see the black and white photo. I have a small 1960s aerial b/w photo of the Stroan from our time there. Joan. Comment left on 28 May 2021 at 21:10 by Joan Park

my biological father lived in a house with his two sisters in the forest near glentrool,his second name was Campbell,who was a teacher,,i would love any info,,,thanks,,,ian Comment left on 30 July 2021 at 11:38 by ian mccrae

i noticed your name,Joan!,,i can rember you very well!,,i was in the picture you were in!,,,im number 37,,,i remember you lived in the :posh : houses,! i think,we lived in no,12,?,i also rember william rennie ,their family lived next door ,i think.....i posted a message earier im doing some research trying to find my father mr,campbell,,i know he was a school teacher ,but he wasnt at glentrool!,,,,i can still rember a lot about glentrool and the school,after all these years,,,,(and the adders and midges .!},,,,,,hope your well thankyou ...ian
Comment left on 30 July 2021 at 18:50 by ian mccrae

Hi Ian, good to hear you are still standing! Happy Glentrool days. Posh house? Haha.
Sorry, unable to give you any info on Mr Campbell. Good luck with your search. Comment left on 31 July 2021 at 15:15 by Joan Park

hi joan,,,thankyou for your reply.im glad your still standing.,too! lol,!,,hope to find info on in the near future,,,,,,once again,,thankyou Comment left on 31 July 2021 at 18:54 by ian mccrae

My great-great-great-grandparents, Janet (nee Wilson ) and Jim Burns lived at the Stroan for about 50 years from the mid 1850s until Jim’s retirement, when they moved into Newton Stewart. Jim was a skilled shepherd employed by a Mr Kennedy of Moniave. I believe the farm was leased by Kennedy and came with the job. Janet and Jim earned little and didn’t own much. They raised four sons, including my g-g-grandfather Alexander Burns (b 1855). Alexander and his brothers Robert, Duncan and John attended the school at Bargrennan. John sadly did not survive into adulthood, dying of TB at the Stroan, aged 16. Mr Kennedy spotted Alexander’s potential and supported his education to continue beyond the village school. He became an accountant working in banks and moved eventually to South America, where he met my g-g-grandmother who was of Scottish and Portuguese descent. Their son James Burns, my great-grandfather, grew up between London and present-day Uruguay and in the 1960s wrote of his visits to the family in Galloway. Janet’s brothers, John and Willie, and her sister Maggie, all lived and worked on the hill-farm at Culsharg. Robert’s son James later herded at Palgowan. They are all buried at Bargrennan church. Janet, a small person with flashing black eyes, loved her home at the Stroan very much. My great-grandfather wrote of the coach tours that would pull up on the road below the house to admire views of the loch and were supplied with sandwiches from the Stroan kitchen. In old age, Janet and Jim rode to church on a cart with chairs lashed to it, a small gesture towards comfort in what was surely a demanding life of relentless hard work. Janet was not impressed with the mythologising of the shepherds’ way of life by writers such as SR Crocket, which she regarded as “not truthful”! She was not beyond sentiment though; she wept on leaving the Stroan to move into town, and did not survive very long there. Jim died an old man at Corriefeckloch, where his son Robert was the shepherd in charge. It is wonderful to read the recollections here of life at the Stroan and Glentrool. When my Granny told me as a child, that her own grandfather walked three miles and back to school, bootless in the summers, I thought it was an exaggeration. It is only in recent years that I have visited the area and the houses my forbears occupied and imagined the beauty and the severity of their lives there. Comment left on 20 July 2022 at 23:03 by Louise Carolin

We lived there for a few months in 1962 when Dad got a job at the Forest Office in Minnigaff - have happy memories of staying there and going to the local primary school. There was one quite amusing incident - Mum had found our dog investigating a snake so she grapped a chopper and cut it in half. When the postman next came she asked what it was - and the answer was 'an adder'! Feisty woman was Mum Comment left on 01 February 2023 at 18:40 by Margaret Knight

I'm the current owner of Corriefeckloch or Corrafeckloch one many spellings of the name over the years , we bought the property in late 2015 and renovated it, and had the pleasure of meeting Margaret a couple of years ago, we would love to hear and learn more on the history of the property from any local historians. We have seen in the census the property was a residence in the16th century and the settlement goes back to the 14th century. Would love to build a portfolio of the history of the property and its residence. Comment left on 25 September 2023 at 16:46 by Keith

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