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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Dunbartonshire => Topic started by: normatrees on Wednesday 27 May 09 15:15 BST (UK)
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Does anyone know if the old schoolhouse at Kirkintilloch still exists. My GG grandmother Janet Dinwoodie, died there in 1929. The address on the death cert is hard to read. It says..The Old Schoolhouse, then what appears to be 'Gailshore', Kirkintilloch. Does anyone know of anywhere in that area that sounds at all like Gailshore!
cheers
Norma
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Hi Norma
There are some entries coming up in the 1901 census for 'Gartshore Old School House' Kirkintilloch.
Monica :)
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Thanks for that. How do you look up addresses in the census? I didn't know you could do that!
n
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You can on Ancestry's Scottish census indexes - not SP unfortuantely :-\
Monica
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Thanks. Will remember that for next time I have access to Ancestry (very intermitant!)
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Hi Norma,
there isn't a lot online about this building but it still exists as a private house. it is on the B8048 Kirkintilloch/Waterside Road beside Easterton Farm. you could google for a satellite image using postcode G66 3TG. it is viewable on the old maps website in the same location 1864. william patrick library might have some more information or photographs of it. I drive past it every saturday when I take my daughter to swimming lessons.
Good Luck
Duncan
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Hi Duncan,
Thank you so much for your interest. By chance I got a reply, via the museum, from their very helpful archivist at the WP library!
It is indeed the right place, part of the Gartshore Estate, then owned by Alexander Whitelaw, so mystery solved.
Thanks again for your help.
Norma
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Hi Norma,
I have sent you a pm on this
;D
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For several years during the 1970's and 80's The Old Schoolhouse was our home. We bought it from the Whitelaw estate. At that time it the widow of the old gamekeeper was living in it. I understand it had been the tied house of the gamekeepers since its use as a school.
The house and school were one building but each had separate entrances front and back, a wall dividing the two. The gamekeepers had lived in the residential side of the house and the enormous school room was used only for storage. We created an internal door between the two, added electricity and it became our living area and art studio. The internal door opened into the children's cloakroom, tall and narrow with dozens of stags heads hanging above the coat hooks.
The schoolroom itself was a magnificent room, 30 feet long and a 15ft high ceiling. Windows on three walls were almost as tall and had the beautiful blown glass that refracted the outside woodland beautifully, working wooden shutters folded to the side of them. The original wood stove was there (which we donated to either Glasgow Green or a local museum. The wooden stage where the schoolmaster's desk sat was still there and used by our own daughter to dance on. At the back was another porch and toilet with a back door that led outside. A few yards away beautiful stone steps led up into a native bluebell wood oak, elm hazel and beech.
Within the woods was a little quarry where the whinstone to build the house had been excavated and over the years it had been used to deposit the years of rubbish from all the occupants. There was no rubbish collection in those days. The stepped walls of the quarry were covered with native trees and bluebells and with the help of the neighbouring farmer we cleared it to reveal a beautiful dell. It's possible we may have handled things from your grand mother's time. There were many broken things, and some whole, I still have a little lustre glass vase I found there.
The residential house had two downstairs rooms, a kitchen and bathroom and front and back hallway. The front hall was charming, the floor was stone flagged and the first step of the stairway was also stone, the rail was an ornamental cast iron which had been painted. (We took it back to it's original state). The stairway curved around with a skylight above, and there were two bedrooms upstairs. The smallest had a skylight which was lovely on clear nights, I imagine a child or maid's room?
I do have a few photos and also some aerial pics but it would be easiest to contact directly through e mail or fb as I'm unsure of how to use this site. My e mail is (*)
Best wishes.
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Hi Tanya
Welcome to RootsChat :)
As you can see, I have taken off your personal email. A couple more posts here on the main boards and you can use the Private Message service to exchange personal details.
Just wanted to comment on what a wonderful picture you have painted of the Old Schoolhouse and your time there. Sounds as you were happy there :)
Monica
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Thanks for letting me know about the e mail. Yes we were very happy there. I remembered it was in use as a school until sometime in the 1930's, suggesting the gg grandmother could have been either the last schoolmistress or widow of the last schoolmaster. There was an old horse chestnut in the garden that must have dated back until that time, the native arum lily (lords and ladies grew there. Also a very old laurel tree contemporary with the estate gardens that once had an "army of gardeners'.
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Norma who started this post was last online in June. She should get notification of these posts and hopefully come back online soon ;)
Monica
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Yes I'm back!
Tanya thank you so much for your wonderfully evocative description. I felt like I was there!
Also if Monica is reading this - it's great to have notification as I do tend to forget to look otherwise.
Back to the Old Schoolhouse - my GG grandmother, Janet Dinwoodie was a farmer's wife and now widowed was living with one of her sons, a gamekeeper (William Dinwoodie).
She and her husband John came from the Moffat area in Dumfriesshire, moved to a farm in Kilberry Argyle. they had 7 children then John died aged 42 when their youngest son was just 4 months.
She was still at the farm in 1881 with her son John presumably running it. She and John then lived in Govan at a dairy until his death aged 27 (of typhoid).
After that she lived with 2 of her gamekeeper sons ending up in the Old Schoolhouse. She died in 1929 aged 94!
I like to think that, after such a harsh life, her last years there were peaceful ones with family and grandchildren around her...
So your description ties it all up nicely.....
I did get in touch with the local library (in an earlier post I've called it the WP library but now can't, for the life of me remember what it stands for!) and they sent me a copy of the Valuation Roll with William Dinwoodie as tenant (£7 pa).
If you have photos of the outside of the house I would interested in seeing them.
Thanks again
Norma
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Hi Norma,
We should exchange e mails which I understand we have to do in a private message. Give me a few weeks to gather up the photos which are mostly family pics, with the house in the background. You can also see an aerial picture of it if you go on google earth.
When we bought it an elderly widow of the gamekeeper was living alone in it, she was leaving to live with her family, and the estate was selling the property.
Some remnants of the original furniture were left, most interesting for your story was the old gun cupboard used by the game keepers, a table with two locking drawers that still had bullets in and a lovely old set of narrow, upright drawers, that contained a few tools. The desk and the drawers belonged to the school teachers but were being used by game keepers. We still have these things so I'll photograph them, the drawers are perfect for art materials. But these would be things familiar to your gg grandmother, all of them from the 1800's.
When I was gardening an old garden chair was unearthed, about 6 inches below the surface. It was teak and looked very old, maybe she sat in it. We oiled it and I remember the local farmer seeing it and wanting to buy it. We used it for decades and only just this summer it has collapsed, but I do have a photo of it!
Best wishes, Tanya.
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Norma, you are back!
When you are both ready, just click on the small green scroll under your user names on the l/h side to access the PM system (works very much like all message systems, with in and outbox).
Good luck with everything.
Just one thing, please post at least one photo here so we can all see the Old Schoolhouse ;D
Monica
PS: I can help with posting the photo on here if needed...
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I think I understand now and certainly will but we're in the middle of house moving just now so things are a bit hectic. Thanks for the offer of help. Tanya
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Well, after all these years I have just rediscovered this post!
I don't think we went any further re the photos but I would still be interested if you are still using this forum...
cheers
Norma