Neil Shaw

Does the name Neil Shaw mean anything to you?  Perhaps it does if you play golf?  There is a hole on the Lundin Golf Club course named 'Neil Shaw' - a name that stands out among the names of the other holes on the course.  Most holes have unsurprising names, referring to physical features (eg 'Bents', 'Burn' and 'High') or neighbouring properties (eg 'Aithernie', 'Sunnybraes' and 'Silverburn').  So who was Neil Shaw and why name a golf hole after him?

The Neil Shaw in question was born in November 1828 on the island of Islay, in the Parish of Bowmore/Kilarrow.  To give some background, Islay had been bought in 1726 by Daniel Campbell of Shawfield.  Campbell has been mentioned in this blog before. It was he who commissioned one of Scotland's first Palladian buildings, Shawfield Mansion, considered to be the likely template for Largo House.  His legacy of agricultural improvements and the introduction of flax cultivation and mills would change the island of Islay forever.  Campbell's grandson initiated the construction of Bowmore village in 1770, including the parish church where Neil Shaw would be both baptised and married.

Neil Shaw married Euphemia Logan in 1852 and the first of their (at least eleven) children was born on Islay.  However, these were hard times on the island, with the hardship of the potato famine had begun to hit some years earlier. The Campbell owners went bankrupt and administrators carried out some land clearances. In 1853 the estates of Islay were split up and sold off. By 1855 Neil Shaw and his family were in Largo Parish.  The record of the birth of their third child James places the family at 'Lundie Muirton' and records Neil's occupation as a forester.  Muirton can be seen on the 1854 map below, to the south east of Blacketyside.  The 1861 census places the Shaw family (now with five children) at one of the houses on Blacketyside Farm (noting that the house has 8 rooms with one or more windows).

By the 1871 census the growing Shaw family have moved into the newly built 'Lundie Lodge'.  This house was built on the site of a ruin, marked on the above 1854 map as 'Wright's Castle'. According to 'Scotland's Places', this old property was a dwelling house two stories high with a garden and three acres of land attached, occupied latterly by Miss Dick, which was given the name "Wrights Castle" many years previously by an eccentric occupier. The later map from 1890 below, shows the new lodge house sitting on the main road opposite the entrance to Silverburn and with a track running from it up towards Lundin House. At the 1881 census, Neil is recorded as 'Wood Forester', living at the same house, although it was at that time referred to as 'Lundie Cottage'.  Two of his sons at the same address are also noted as foresters. 

A decade later, in 1891, there is no trace of the Shaws in the area and James Bruce was now in the position of forester living at Lundin Lodge.  Still in 1901, James Bruce (now age 70) was living in the house and carrying out the role of forester.  So happened to Neil Shaw and his family?  To answer that question and to give a fuller explanation of why the Shaw family ended up in Lundin Estate after leaving Islay, we need to examine another individual - George Todd Chiene. More on him in the next post.  

Anyway, the name of Neil Shaw, who had acted as forester on Lundin Estate for three decades, lives on both in the name of the 13th hole on the golf course and in the local name for the wooded area alongside this part of the course.  For many decades after the Shaws left, the woods between Silverburn and Sunnybraes were referred to as 'Neil Shaw's Woods'.  If you know anything more of Neil Shaw - please comment.