A Viewpark community group has clinched a deal to buy a historic estate after a 19-year fight to save it, writes Mike McQuaid.
Campaigners have purchased 160 acres of woodland and fields with the help of a £435,000 grant from the Scottish Land Fund.
It follows years of protests against the loss of green space and means the land will be protected from further industrial development.
Viewpark Conservation Group spearheaded the bid to save the remaining part of Douglas Support Estate, also known as Viewpark Glen.
The glen is popular with walkers, cyclists and anglers, but the group wants to make it more accessible to schools and other groups.
And the cherished piece of Lanarkshire greenspace is part of an historic estate with associations to the Covenanters.
The expansion of nearby Strathclyde Business Park into the glen prompted a massive public protest in 2004 which resulted in a successful petition to the Scottish Parliament to halt development.
More recently the estate has been eroded by an extension of the M8.
The Scottish Land Fund indicated last year that the six-figure grant would be available and now the group has raised the additional £22,000 needed to clinch the deal.
A ceremony to mark the achievement was held on Sunday (July 12), with a piper leading group members and supporters on a short procession.
This was followed by a formal turf cutting.
Grace McNeill, group chairperson, said: “We have a big project in front of us to turn this into a beautiful landscape and keep it greenbelt.
“But even with the problems caused by Covid-19, we plan to steam ahead and will do the best we can. Anyone who wants to volunteer to help us will be made most welcome.”
Grace and husband Tam began efforts to save the glen 19 years ago. They live in the area and were dismayed at the amount of ground being lost to industrial development.
She added: “We soon realised that if the area was to be saved the community would have to buy it.
“Then legislation allowing communities to buy land was introduced by the Government.
“The Blythswood Trust indicated it would sell the land to us if we got the funding together and they have been true to their word.
“We’d like to thank them for that and thank everyone else who has helped us achieve this.”
The estate dates back to the 17th century and the foundations of Rosehall House are still visible.
Evidence of activity dating back to Roman times has been found in the estate. Ambitious plans include converting a disused farmhouse to a visitor and interpretation centre.
A Covenanter army had camped at the Haggs estate – which included the Viewpark Glen land – as well as Shawhead Muir and Old Monkland Kirk in the days before the Battle of Bothwell Bridge on June 22, 1679.
The army’s commander Robert Hamilton was based at Haggs house, later to be named Rosehall and then Douglas Support.
Jardine’s Book of Martyr’s states that Haggs house stood two miles north west from Bothwell Church.
The book quotes a description of the house dated around 1700: ‘It is a very handsome house with a prodigious planting and parks. It now belongs to Sir James Hamilton of Rosehall.’
Notes by a Dr Gilbert Bell, dated 2010, contained in a reprinted Ordnance Survey map ‘North Calder and Douglas Support 1896’ states that the Douglas Support house ‘appears to be a grand sprawling mansion set amid what one imagines to be delightful policies with a splendid long drive leading to the house.’ The house was known as Haggs until 1710 when Archibald Hamilton, who bought the property in 1703, decided to change its name to Rosehall.
Dr Bell adds: ‘He had become a baronet and was MP for Lanarkshire so he no doubt thought being Hamilton of Rosehall sounded better than being Hamilton of Haggs.’
Rosehall was named Douglas Support in the late 18th century following a family legal wrangle.
When the Duke of Douglas died in 1761 there was no direct descendant to inherit the estate and a legal battle between the Duke’s widow Duchess Peggy and the Duke of Hamilton began.
Duchess Peggy supported the probable son of late Duke’s sister, Archibald Stewart, as the rightful heir.
The case was, however, lost at the Court of Session, but on appeal to the House of Lords Stewart won. He did not become Duke of Douglas, but did inherit the Douglas Estates and became Lord Douglas of Douglas.
When Duchess Peggy died in 1774 she left funds so that her own nephew Archibald Douglas could have an estate of his own. This property’s name was changed from Rosehall to Douglas Support to show her support for the Douglas cause.
The Rev Sholto Douglas Campbell-Douglas (Lord Blythswood) inherited the estate in the late 1860s. When he died in 1908 his brother Major General Barrington Bulkley Douglas Campbell-Douglas succeeded to the title and estates.
That year the Douglas Support Estate mansion was destroyed by fire and rebuilt. However, the rebuilt building had to be demolished.
There was a network of mineshafts within the estate – and a mineshaft which ran under the mansionhouse had caused its foundations to sink.
It was later abandoned and demolished in 1939.
