Skip to content

Menu

  • Home
  • Our Story
    • Annual Reports
    • Newsletters
  • Our Centre
    • About Us
    • Aquarium
    • Post Office
    • S J Noble Trust
    • Icelandic Student
    • Shop
  • About Cairndow
    • Our Houses Their Stories
    • Cairndow Hotel
    • Kilmorich School
    • Kilmorich Church
    • Cairndow Hall
    • Ardkinglas Estate
    • Weddings
    • Tinkers Heart
    • Cairndow Sports Clubs
    • Clachan Grave Yard
    • Fish Farming Industry
  • Historical Projects
    • Holidays In Cairndow
    • Sheepdog Trials
    • WWI Memorial
    • SWRI
    • Gazetteer – Glen Fyne Website
    • Photo Collection
    • Shepherding in Cairndow
    • To See Ourselves As Others See Us
    • Mothers’ Messages
    • 1950s Hydro Schemes
    • Rest And Be Thankful
  • Community Initiatives
    • The Path
    • Community Action Plan
    • Post Office
    • E-bikes
    • Council Service Point
    • Argyll College
    • Walking Map
  • Renewable Energy
    • How It Began
    • Our Power
    • Ballure Woodland
    • Merk Hydro
    • Renewable Energy Exhibition
Menu
  • Home
  • Our Story
    • Annual Reports
    • Newsletters
  • Our Centre
    • About Us
    • Aquarium
    • Post Office
    • S J Noble Trust
    • Icelandic Student
    • Shop
  • About Cairndow
    • Our Houses Their Stories
    • Cairndow Hotel
    • Kilmorich School
    • Kilmorich Church
    • Cairndow Hall
    • Ardkinglas Estate
    • Weddings
    • Tinkers Heart
    • Cairndow Sports Clubs
    • Clachan Grave Yard
    • Fish Farming Industry
  • Historical Projects
    • Holidays In Cairndow
    • Sheepdog Trials
    • WWI Memorial
    • SWRI
    • Gazetteer – Glen Fyne Website
    • Photo Collection
    • Shepherding in Cairndow
    • To See Ourselves As Others See Us
    • Mothers’ Messages
    • 1950s Hydro Schemes
    • Rest And Be Thankful
  • Community Initiatives
    • The Path
    • Community Action Plan
    • Post Office
    • E-bikes
    • Council Service Point
    • Argyll College
    • Walking Map
  • Renewable Energy
    • How It Began
    • Our Power
    • Ballure Woodland
    • Merk Hydro
    • Renewable Energy Exhibition

The Here We Are Story - past, present and future

AE-000 - Ardkinglas Estate

Sir Andrew Noble bought the 45,000 acre Ardkinglas Estate, for £62,000 in 1905, as a sporting estate.  It was the whole of the Parish of Kilmorich and covered all of the land around the head of Loch Fyne from Dunderave to St. Catherines, and all of Glen Fyne and Glen Kinglas.

He commissioned the architect Sir Robert Lorimer to build a mansion house, to be called Ardkinglas, for his family and friends, largely as a holiday place.

Lillias Noble laying the top stone of Ardkinglas House

The old established Scottish families had owned large tracts of land with fine houses for centuries.  But it was Queen Victoria and particularly Prince Albert who in the mid 19th century, with the purchase of Balmoral, began a trend for Victorians and Edwardians.  With many variations and diminutions, it continued well into the 20th Century and even into the 21st.  The well to do owners and family and friends would come only for lengthy holidays for the summer months, into the autumn and perhaps for Christmas.  These estates were universally sustained by the family’s finance from elsewhere –like breweries, banks and manufacturing.

The largest area of the extensive acres would be hillground providing rough grazing for cattle, sheep and or deer – in various proportions according to terrain and owner’s priorities and the prices or subsidies at the time.  Near the Big House there would be – a byre for dairy cattle, stables, cart shed, garage, lofts and sheds, along with dwelling houses for the employees.  Some of the household staff, cooks, kitchenmaids and housemaids, lived in servants quarters in the mansion house, some nearby.  Many of the important household staff travelled with the family from London for the season (often romance flourished with maids and the estate joiners, gardeners or keepers). There were extensive gardens, a kitchen garden, and flower gardens, a park at the front or the back of the mansion house with ornamental trees.  Further afield there were well tended policies extending a mile or two from the Big House.  At the drive gates there was a small lodge, where the gatekeeper lived, often an elderly retired employee. 

On the estates the mansion house, or the Big House, as it was usually referred to, was the fulcrum point for the community.  Ardkinglas Estate’s heyday may have been in the 1950s with 30 people employed on each of the farm, forestry and the estate; with employees’ families living in estate ‘tied’ houses.  

In 1966 the original ‘Ardkinglas Estate’ was divided between the brothers John and Michael Noble into the Ardkinglas Estate and the Cairndow Estate.  Johnny Noble, founder of Loch Fyne Oysters ltd, inherited from his father John in 1972.  He encouraged local industry and let out locations to a salmon hatchery, a salmon processing station, a gravel quarry, and promoted Loch Fyne Oysters entertaining journalists and restaurateurs at Ardkinglas House.

Morag Crawford, Gretta Cameron, Johnny Noble, Lorna McGillivray, Andy Lane, Arlene MacDonald

David Sumsion, Johnny’s nephew and a great, great grandson of Sir Andrew inherited the Ardkinglas section of the estate, now some 12,000 acres. In the changed world of farming and estate life there are only 3 or 4 direct employees.

David and his family live in the house, and host chamber music concerts and weddings. He has encouraged new build of houses, to address the need for affordable housing for local employees, because recent development has meant there are jobs for local young people but a lack of housing. 

A comment from a relatively new arrival in Cairndow (ie some 20 years !) said:-

“The Estate is a significant but easily unnoticed part of life in the village. It provides a sort of glue to the experience of living in Cairndow – the source of countless stories, ranging from the eccentricities of the previous laird John Noble, to talks of salmon poaching on the Fyne and Kinglas rivers.”

Tags:Ardkinglas Estateintroduction
Project:Ardkinglas Estate

1001 - Ardkinglas House (1940-1949)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Ardkinglas House

1004 - Ardkinglas House (1950-1960)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Ardkinglas House

1005 - Ardkinglas House (1920-1929)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Ardkinglas House

1007 - Ardkinglas House (1920-1930)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Ardkinglas House

1008 - The Caspian

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

The Caspian Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Caspian, Ardkinglas, Boats

1009 - Ardkinglas House (1907)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Ardkinglas House, Construction

1010 - Ardkinglas House (1907)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Ardkinglas House, Construction

1012 - Pier Ardkinglas House (1910)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Pier Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Pier Ardkinglas House 1910, Bathing Hut, Pier

1014 - Wall Garden, Ardkinglas (1930-1939)

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Wall Garden, Ardkinglas Physical Description: Black And White Photograph Subject: Wall Garden, Ardkinglas

1021 - Ardkinglas House

  • Ardkinglas Estate, Photo Collection

Ardkinglas House Physical Description: Colour Photograph Subject: Ardkinglas House, Construction

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 48
  • Next »

Advanced Search

Recent Posts

  • (no title)
  • (no title)
  • (no title)
  • Afternoon Tea, note change of date
  • Johnny Noble In today’s Daily Mail

Explore further

7633 - CSC-Oban Highland Games - Cairndow Winner (1959)

KS16-046 - School Memories (1966)

7632 - CSC-CC Cairndow Curling Club (1890)

Here We Are

Clachan between

Loch Fyne Oysters and

The Tree Shop
Cairndow
Argyll
PA26 8BL

Tel: 01499 600 350
mail@hereweare-uk.com

 

Centre Opening Hours

Monday to Friday 
Saturday and Sunday 

10am – 3pm
11am – 4pm Weekends from Easter to end Oct.

Privacy Policy
Copyright & Content Policy
Terms of use
Follow Us
Facebook Envelope
English logo - Colour CMYK

Login | 

Copyright © Here We Are 2022