Flowerdale Gairloch

Flowerdale Gairloch

ID: QZP40_CARD_0550 DESCRIPTION: Flowerdale, Gairloch. This lovely glen, just inland from Gairloch's harbour at Charlestown, is where the Mackenzies of Gairloch have their family seat, Flowerdale House. A newer road and bridge by-pass the old bridge in this photograph and the house on the other side is now an inn. A walk from here passes Flowerdale House and then carries on through the glen, which is rich in plant and animal life, and up the river, Abhainn Ghlas, to a waterfall. The original house at Gairloch was called Tigh Dige or Moat House. It was in a hollow below the present mansion and had a moat and drawbridge. The present house was built in 1738 for Sir Alexander Mackenzie and was the first in the district to have a slated roof. The house was then named "Tigh Digh nam gorm Leac" - Moat House of the blue slates. It was extended in 1904 by Andrew Maitland & Sons In 1745 the captain of a man-of-war, searching for Prince Charlie, invited the laird on board. The laird declined as he has was dining with guests on top of a high rock, Creag a Chait (the Cat's Rock), behind Tigh Dige but asked the captain to join them. The reply was a broadside to the house, the canon ball lodging in the gable end. Fraser of Foyers, fleeing after Culloden, was hidden for some time in a secret recess in the house. In September 1921 the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, was staying at Flowerdale House when he heard that Ireland had rejected the King and Empire. He called the cabinet at Inverness, the one and only time it met outside London. Osgood Mackenzie (1842-1922), Hector's descendant, writing in 1922, states that tourists seeing the profusion of wild flowers in the lovely Baile Mor (Big Town or Village) Glen suggested it should be named Flowerdale but that during his life the house was only ever called Tigh Dige and the place Am Baile Mor. PLACENAME: Gairloch DISTRICT: Gairloch OLD COUNTY/PARISH: ROSS: Gairloch PERIOD: 1910s SOURCE: Highland Libraries COLLECTION: Highland Libraries' Postcard Collection Asset ID: 32476 KEYWORDS: