From Shooting Lodge to Holiday House

Prehistory

Long before any recorded ownership, the land was home to Mesolithic hunter-gatherers moving seasonally through an open, lightly wooded landscape of hazel, alder and birch. Neolithic farmers came next, clearing the woods to till the ground, and Bronze Age communities settled the uplands in earnest, building the hut-circles, cairns and field systems still visible today. By the Iron Age the land had become largely treeless moorland, grazed rather than ploughed, a landscape that has endured through to the sheep pasture and Sitka spruce plantations of the estate today.

1541 & 1550

The Earl of Cassillis gifts land, including Barnvannoch and Sanage by name, to Thomas Kennedy of Bargany. These lands had already been fought over by two Kennedy branches for fifty years, won by Bargany from the Kennedys of Carnlok in 1492 and never redeemed. The Cassillis gift likely confirmed a hold Bargany already had, sealing an alliance after the Earl married into the Bargany family. Cassillis backed further Bargany moves against Carnlok as late as the 1570s.

1684 & 1685

The estate’s lands are caught up in the “Killing Times”. Thomas Richard of Strabracken is captured by Lieutenant-Colonel Buchan’s soldiers for harbouring rebels, banished to Jamaica and sold into servitude, dying on his way home once his term is served. Local tradition places the Covenanting preacher Alexander Peden nearby at “Nick of the Liberty”, possibly linked to the raid.

1794

Dalnigap passes to Mrs Susanna Hay, daughter of Sir Thomas Hay, Baronet of Park, wife of J. Dalrymple-Hay.

1801 & 1806

Sir Hew Dalrymple-Hamilton succeeds his great-uncle to the Lagafater estate; the Earl of Cassillis confirms the writs in 1806.

1822

Sir Hew Dalrymple-Hamilton sells part of the Ballantrae estate, including Lagafater, to the trustees of John, Earl of Stair.

1826

Dame Susanna Hay dies; Dalnigap passes to her son, Sir James Dalrymple-Hay.

1847

The trustees sell Lagafater to Robert Steuart of Carfin for £10,500.

1859

Robert Steuart sells Lagafater to Sir George de la Poer Beresford for £17,900.

1859

Sir James Dalrymple-Hay sells Dalnigap to his son, then Captain John Charles Dalrymple-Hay, for £2,100.

1863

Trustees of Sir George de la Poer Beresford sell Lagafater to William White Miller for £20,000.

1869 & 1876

Rear Admiral Sir John Charles Dalrymple-Hay gives Dalnigap to his son, James Francis Dalrymple-Hay, and it is given back in 1876.

1887

William White Miller sells Lagafater to the British Linen Company.

1889-1892

Dalnigap changes hands three times in quick succession - sold to Mrs A. T. K. V. Newcomen (or Vancamps), then to Patrick Campbell of Belmont, before William White Miller acquires it in 1892, each time for around £5,500.

1894

British Linen Company sells Lagafater back to William White Miller.

1910

William White Miller sells both properties by public roup (auction) to Cedric Randall Boult.

1916

Deed of deposition in favour of Miss Olive I. E. Boult (24 February).

1980

Dr N. A. A. Spicer succeeds to the estate by will, on the death of Miss Boult (25 July).