BARROWFIELD HOUSE

I once thought Bonnie Prince Charlie might have stayed in my grandmother’s house.

You think I’m crackers, don’t you?

Well it’s almost true.

The above is Barrowfield House.

My grandmother was born and brought up in Barrowfield House in Bridgeton which had been bought by her father probably towards the end of the 19th century. But it must have been Mark 2 Barrowfield House built in the 18th or 19th century to replace this one. Unfortunately it was demolished long ago and I don’t think there’s even a photograph left of it although there is one somewhere of my grandmother and her older brother and her dog (a German Shepherd called Clyde) in the grounds which backed on to the River Clyde.

Anyway, the original Barrowfield House was acquired in the late 17th century by a John Walkinshaw. a supporter of the Jacobite cause and a Stuart envoy to Vienna. He had a daughter, Clementina Walkinshaw who met up with Bonnie Prince Charlie and they had a child Charlotte who was eventually legitimised and given the name The Duchess of Albany. Charlotte nursed him when he died.

Robert Burns, who thought Charlotte should have been crowned Queen of Scotland, wrote a poem about her:

The Bonnie Lass Of Albany

By Robert Burns

My heart is wae, and unco wae,
To think upon the raging sea
That roars between her gardens green,
An’ the bonnie Lass of Albany.

This lovely maid’s of royal blood,
That ruled Albion’s kingdoms three,
But oh, alas! for her bonnie face,
They’ve wrang’d the Lass of Albany.

In the rolling tide of spreading Clyde,
There sits an isle of high degree,
And a town of fame whose princely name,
Should grace the Lass of Albany.

But there’s a youth, a witless youth,
That fills the place where she should be;
We’ll send him o’er his native shore,
And bring our ain sweet Albany.

Alas the day, and woe the day,
A false usurper wan the gree,
Who now commands the towers and lands -
The royal right of Albany.

We’ll daily pray, we’ll nightly pray,
On bended knees most fervently,
That the time may come, with pipe an’ drum,
We’ll welcome hame fair Albany.