By Bruce Davies with research assistance from Jenny Seeman
In October 2023 I traveled to Newton Stewart, Scotland, to spend time with a descendant of Robert and Joan Dunsmuir. This gentleman, who was already a donor to The Castle Society, asked me to come over to look at his large collection of family furnishings, artwork, and documents. He hoped that some items would be of interest to the Castle when he and his wife no longer needed them. It took a few days for me to examine and photograph the contents of their country house.
Before returning to Victoria, I travelled to Kilmarnock in the hope of locating and photographing Robert Dunsmuir’s birthplace in nearby Hurlford. I wanted to include a photograph of the house in a soon to be published book by Jim Wolf titled “Reconstructing Craigdarroch: The Story of The Castle’s Design and Construction”.
Robert Dunsmuir’s British Columbia death registration records that he was born at “Burleith, Kilmarnock, Scotland”. He was born in 1825. An 1832 map of the area created by William Johnson, Land Surveyor, depicts “Barleith” farm about 700 metres south of “Whirelford” (now known as Hurlford). The 1858 Ordnance Survey map depicts Barleith farm with one adjoining coal pit about 70 metres to the west, and another smaller pit about 50 metres to the south. The driveway to the house connects to Mauchline Road (now known mostly as B7073) about 700 metres south of Hurlford village. The 1858 map also shows a small cluster of buildings named “Little Barleith” where the farmhouse drive meets Mauchline Road. The 1858 map also shows a second farmhouse named Barleith about 400 metres to the northeast. The Ordnance Survey name books indicate that this second Barleith was also known as “East Barleith” and “Drumley Hill”. Because the 1832 map made when our Robert Dunsmuir was only 7 years old shows only one farmhouse named Barleith, it has to be the house that Robert Dunsmuir was born in. “East Barleith” and “Drumley Hill” did not exist in 1832.
Parking my rental car on Mauchline Road, I walked up the long rising driveway to the house, which sits on a hill. There was a wooden sign hanging at the front door reading “Barleith” (Figs.1 & 2). To my dismay, there was no answer at the door. Seeing that it was still a working farm, I walked around the back to a large new dairy barn. I heard some children playing, and so I called out. Soon their friendly mother Lindsey Griffiths appeared, and she summoned her father-in-law, Graham Armstrong, owner of the farm. In short order, I found myself being served tea and cookies in the parlour of the sturdy slate-roofed two-story stone house.
Fig. 1 Barleith, birthplace of Robert Dunsmuir, built 1776. B. Davies photo, October 20, 2023.
Fig. 2 L to R: Graham Armstrong, Andrew Armstrong, Bruce Davies. Lindsey Griffiths photo, October 20, 2023.
The next day, Mr. Armstrong’s son, Andrew Armstrong, lifted me up to the house’s second-floor cornice using the front shovel of their farm tractor. Here I was able to photograph the date of the house’s construction, which had been carved into the stone skewputt (gable end) at the northeast corner of the house: 1776! (Figs. 3 & 4)
Fig. 3: Bruce Davies photographing the date on the skewputt at Barleith, Lindsey Griffiths photo, October 20, 2023.
Fig. 4 The date “1776” carved into the northeast skewputt of Barleith. B. Davies photo, Oct. 20, 2023.
The Armstrong family has been farming at Barleith for over 25 years. Mr. Armstrong did not know when Barleith’s adjoining coal pits closed. He said that today the local government authority requires him to obtain permits before digging or building on his property due to the extensive network of abandoned coal mine shafts there.
The Armstrongs knew nothing about their farm’s connection to Robert Dunsmuir and Canada’s Craigdarroch Castle. However, Graham remarked that the owner of “Craigdarroch Farm”, situated about 12 miles away, used to winter his sheep at Barleith in the 1980s (Fig. 5). I wondered how far back in time it was that this practice stretched. Were Craigdarroch’s sheep wintering here when our Robert was living at Barleith? Did it inspire his choice of name for his Canadian Castle?
Fig. 5 Barleith from the air, circa 1975. The two barn wings on either side of the house were added during the last half of the 19th Century. Barleith has been primarily a dairy farm for many years, but sheep occupy neighbouring pastures. Photographer unknown.
When our Robert Dunsmuir was growing up at Barleith, he would have seen the coal pits beside his house in full operation, and in keeping with the practice back then, he would have seen children descending into the pit to work with their fathers. In the 1842, the Children’s Employment Commission issued Thomas Tancredi’s Report on the Employment of Children in the Mines and Collieries and Iron Works in the West of Scotland, and on the State, Condition and Treatment of Such Children and Young Persons. He described interviews revealing that Ayrshire children as young as 8 worked underground. Because his father and grandfather were Coal Masters, I doubt that our Robert worked in the coal pits at that tender age, but I suspect that he did chores on the family farm. When he opened his own mine near Nanaimo, Robert created a farm beside it.
The ”Little Barleith” mentioned previously, still exists. The second farmhouse named Barleith was demolished after WW2 to make way for government-subsidized housing.
Robert Dunsmuir’s parents died in 1832 when Robert was just 7 years old. He and his younger sister Jean may have been taken in by their father’s sister Jean and her husband Boyd Gilmour. They also could have gone to live with Robert’s father’s younger brother, Allan Dunsmuir, who was also a Coal Master, living in a Hurlford house named Braehead Cottage, which is still standing. (Fig. 6) Allan had a son named Robert Dunsmuir – who was our Robert’s first cousin.
Fig. 6. Braehead Cottage, 17 Cessnock Road, Hurlford. This was the home of Allan Dunsmuir, our Robert Dunsmuir’s uncle (his father’s brother). Robert Dunsmuir and his younger sister Jean might have lived here after the death of their parents in 1832. B. Davies photo, October 19, 2023.
About 1 ½ kilometers west of Hurlford is Riccarton Parish Church, where Robert and Joan Dunsmuir married in 1847 (Figs. 7 & 8). Across the road is the church graveyard where Robert’s parents and grandparents are buried side by side. Their stone monuments are weathered and covered in moss, but are still legible (Fig. 9).
Fig. 7 Riccarton Parish Church, 21 Old Street, Kilmarnock. The church sits on “The Hill of Judgement”. The church was built between 1823 and 1825. For centuries before that, villagers gathered here to see justice administered. B. Davies photo, October 18, 2023.
Fig. 8 Riccarton Parish Church interior. The stained glass windows date from the early 20th Century. Access to the church and adjoining graveyard was made possible by former congregation member Eleanor McCallum. B. Davies photo, October 18, 2023.
Fig. 9 (Left) The grave of Robert Dunsmuir’s parents and two infant sisters; (Right) The grave of Robert Dunsmuir’s paternal grandparents and two infant aunts. B. Davies photo, October 18, 2023.
Riccarton Parish Church was for sale when I was visiting. The Church of Scotland was inviting offers over 160,000 GBP. It was in regular use until COVID came to town. After the crisis, the congregation joined with another, and moved into the other congregation’s church building.
We will likely never know where our Robert Dunsmuir was mining coal when he decided to follow his aunt and uncle Boyd Gilmour to remote “Vancouver’s Island”. I have a feeling that he was working for his uncle Allan Dunsmuir, who as we know, had a son named Robert who was likely his heir. When Allan died in 1847, Robert was 22 years old. Robert may have thought that it would be a struggle for him to reach a station in life equal to that of his uncle, father, and grandfather. He had probably inherited money from his father and decided to see what he could do with it on Vancouver’s Island. As we know from Terry Reksten’s wonderful book, The Dunsmuir Saga, Robert and Joan Dunsmuir had about one week to decide whether to join the Gilmours on their six-month journey to Fort Rupert.
I used my last hours in Kilmarnock to poke around the Burns Monument Centre, a superb research facility in Kay Park. While looking through the December 19, 1850, issue of the Kilmarnock Journal & Ayrshire Advertiser, this jumped out:
“PRESENTATION – Mr. Boyd Gilmour, late oversman in one of the Portland Iron Company’s pits, was presented, on the evening of Monday, the 9th inst., with a valuable double-barreled gun, and a revolving pistol, by the men connected with the Portland Iron Works, and those of Messrs. Sturrock and Gilmour, coalmasters. This expression of esteem was elicited by his being about to leave the country probably for many years, he having been engaged by the Hudson’s Bay Company to proceed with a party of miners from Hurlford to explore Vancouver’s Island for coal. Accordingly, on Monday, a large party assembled in Mr. Richard Dunn’s inn at Hurlford, and partook of a very substantial supper. Mr. David MacNaughton was called on to preside. Mr. Robert Cowan, of Portland Iron Works, discharged the duties of croupier. Among those present on the occasion were Mr. Robert Walker, manager of the Portland Iron Works; Mr. Landels, civil engineer, Edinburgh; Mr. Alan Gilmour, & c. Supper being over, and the cloth removed, after the usual loyal and constitutional toasts, the Chairman rose, and in a very appropriate speech, presented the gun and pistol as a mark of respect of the subscribers. The Chairman alluded to the important improvements which their guest had achieved by establishing a miner’s library on just and liberal principles and to his uniform, quiet and peaceful demeanor, his desire to imbue his fellow workmen with a love of rational enjoyments; and concluded with expressing a fervent hope that, in the distant region of the globe to which he was on the eve of departure, he would be actuated by the same elevated desires, and be equally successful in improving others there, and in advancing his own happiness. Mr. Gilmour’s reply was feeling and appropriate. He had taken the step which bore him so far from his native land with a view to his wellbeing and the wellbeing of those of those who depended on him, and he confided that under the guidance of Providence so it would turn out. He entered into some brief explanation of the nature, climate, and productions of the island to which he was going, and concluded by thanking them for the valuable testimony of their esteem which he had just received. The night was spent most happily. On the morning, the band of emigrants were ready to start, by the first train, from the Hurlford Station, for London. They were accompanied by their wives and children. The scene was affecting. It was evident from the leave-takings that though all of them struggled to maintain a calm exterior, that it was an attempt merely. Some of them apparently durst not trust themselves to speak, and those who did so betrayed their emotion in their tremulous accents. As the train started, tears suffused in the eyes of the females, and, waving an adieu, their native village was soon hid from their eyes. From a letter received since their departure, it appears that they reached London at five o’clock on Wednesday morning, although they had stopped about four hours in Carlisle. On Friday, they embarked at Gravesend, on a voyage of not less than 15,000 miles, to regions where half the convex globe will intervene between them and their native land.”
