George Crawfurd, in his 1710 book on the Stewart family, wrote on page 74 that the house and lands of Fulwood stood on the bank of the Greif River (Renfrewshire) in 1374. He states that it was the seat of the Semple family “which before that pertained to the Flemings, Earls of Wigtoun”. It seems that Fulwood must have been inherited by Malcolm Fleming on the death of his father Robert, but it is unclear how Robert Fleming acquired the estate.
The first member of the Semple family who is known to have been associated with Fulwood was John 1st Lord Sempill of Fulwood (1380 – after 1445). His association first dates from 1409, so it is likely that he (or his ancestor) acquired it from Thomas Fleming 2nd Earl of Wigtown (who died in 1375) or from Archibald Douglas (to whom Fleming sold the earldom).
No details of the 13th century house have been recorded.
Gillespie Motte C12
Baldwin of Biggar came to Scotland from England in the 1150s at the invitation of King David I who granted him the Barony of Biggar. David was keen to strengthen the defences of his kingdom through the building of castles, so it is likely that Baldwin erected the first castle (now Gillespie Motte) soon after his arrival. He was appointed Sheriff of Lanark in 1162 and probably also built Lanark Castle (20 kilometres west of Biggar).
Gillespie Motte is a large mound standing in parkland near Biggar. This was probably the site of the castle’s tower, with the bailey situated on naturally high land to the north. The mound is now about 6 metres high but would have originally been higher. It is rectangular, measuring about 34 metres by 20 metres and has a circumference of about 145 metres. The name Gillespie dates only from the 1820s.
The fate of the castle is not recorded, but it stands to reason that it was abandoned soon after the Fleming family built Boghall Castle nearby during the 13th or 14th century.
There may have also been another motte and bailey castle nearby. Just south of Boghall is a mound variously named Boghall and Hartree. While its age and purpose are unknown, its position suggest that it was probably not a fort or settlement, so it may have actually been another motte.
Biggar Kirk 1164, 1546
A church has stood at Biggar since the very early days of Christianity in Scotland, perhaps as far back as AD500 or 600. The first stone-built church was built in 1164 and was dedicated to St Nicholas. The list of Ministers starts with Pastor Robert of Bigir in 1164 and continues through to the present day.
Walter, Rector of Biggar, is mentioned in a charter of Malcolm Fleming, 1st Earl of Wigtown, around 1329-46. After this, very little is known about the church for a period of two centuries.
During the reign of James V (1513-42) it received an endowment of 10 pounds yearly from the Tweedie family of Drummelzier as an indulgence for the soul of John 2nd Lord Fleming. This was, no doubt, imposed on John Tweedie as penance for his sin in murdering Fleming in 1523.
John Fleming’s son Malcolm 3rd Lord Fleming conceived the idea of replacing the old church with a new Collegiate church. He obtained approval from the Benedictine Monastery of Kelso in 1540 to endow such a church, confirmed by the Archbishop of Glasgow in 1542. The new church was founded in 1545 and erected on the site of the old building dedicated to the Holy Trinity; the Blessed Virgin Mary; St Nicholas the patron of Biggar; and St Ninian. Malcolm Fleming endowed it to support a provost, 8 canons, 4 boy choristers and 6 poor nuns.
The Reformation brought an end to the Collegiate Churches, so it is now Biggar Parish Church. Numerous significant members of the Fleming family lie buried in Biggar Kirk..
Boghall Castle C13
Boghall was one of the largest and most imposing castles in the south of Scotland, although only the foundations of two D shaped towers survive.
It occupied a strategically important site at the junction of the Tweed and Clyde valleys, an important location since Roman times. Exactly when the first castle was built is unknown, but it was possibly in the 13th century to replace the earlier motte and bailey castle, now known as Gillespie Motte (see above).
Description
In his 1862 book “Biggar and the House of Fleming”, William Hunter provided a detailed description of the castle.
It stood, as its name imports, in the midet of a bog, which in former times was impassable, even on foot, and which contributed greatly to its security. The habitable part of it was on the south; and, as the bog stretched behind it for several hundred yards, it had been deemed unnecessary to surround the back of it with a separate wall for the purposes of defence. An area in front, extending about two hundred yards both in length and breadth, and capable of holding all the grain and cattle in the barony, was enclosed by a square wall, three feet thick and thirty feet high, on the top of which ran a bartizan, and at each corner was flanked by a circular tower, with embrasures and loop-holes for small arms and cannon. The court was entered on the north by a spacious gateway, with two posterns, and above the gateway was a tower for the warder. The whole was surrounded by a broad and deep fosse filled with water, and spanned by a stone bridge opposite the gate. The ground, between the walls and the fosse, was planted with trees, and some very aged ones were standing within the last forty years. The front of the habitable part of the Castle was two storeys in height, with attics, and presented a considerable degree of elegance, the lintels of the doors and the rybots of the windows being formed of carved freestone. In the centre of the staircase, which projected a little from the line of the building, the arms of the Flemings were carved in relief on a large square stone; and at the top of the wall was another stone, with the date 1670, which must have been placed there at the time some repairs were made on the Castle, during the time it was occupied as a residence by Anna Dowager Countess of Wigtown. The lower part of the flanking tower on the south-east was used as a dungeon for the confinement of prisoners, and the upper part, it is understood, served the purposes of a girael, in which the mails ana duties of the vassals and tenants, payable in grain, malt, and me were stored.
He adds “It must, for a long period, have been a principal residence of the Fleming family; but in the latter part of their history, they seem to have given a preference to the House of Cumbernauld, which, at one time, was also a fortified stronghold”.
Host to Royalty
It is likely that members of the royal family stayed at Boghall on many occasions on their frequent progresses through this part of their kingdom. In particular, King Edward II of England stayed there in 1310 and Queen Margaret (wife of James III of Scotland) stayed the night while on her way to the shrine of St. Ninian in Whithorn in 1473. The building was probably rebuilt or extended in about 1492. Mary Queen of Scots stayed there in 1565.
Conflicts
Three years later during the Marian Civil War, Regent Moray came to Boghall with an army and the castle surrendered to him. He refrained from damaging it because Lord Fleming then held Dumbarton Castle against him and he hoped to negotiate. Eighteen months later, however, as negotiations proved fruitless and Dumbarton Castle impregnable, Regent Moray ordered soldiers commanded by James Cunningham to confiscate Lord Fleming’s belongings at Boghall. A year later, Regent Lennox sacked the Fleming houses at both Cumbernauld and Boghall and expelled Lord Fleming's wife Elizabeth Ross and her three infant children. The castle was later restored to the Fleming family.
During the following century the castle was besieged by the Parliamentary forces of Oliver Cromwell.
Ruin
After the 1747 death of the last Earl of Wigtown and the transfer of the Biggar estates to the Maude family (Viscounts Hawarden), the Castle of Boghall was more and more deserted. The new owners had little emotional attachment to Boghall and made few repairs to the buildings which began gradually to fall into ruin. In a view of it given in the ‘Scots Magazine’ for October 1815, it appears by that time to have been entirely dismantled, and many parts of the walls laid in ruins. The remains of the Castle were eventually mined away to fill drains and build dykes.
Comyn Motte C12
Before losing power to Robert Bruce, two branches of the Comyn family (the Lords of Badenoch and the Earls of Buchan) had held large swathes of land in the Highlands secured by about two dozen castles. Clan Comyn had been very powerful, with three successive Lords of Badenoch and Earls of Buchan holding office as Justiciars of Scotia for no fewer than sixty-six years between 1205 and 1304.
One of their strongholds was a motte and bailie castle at Cumbernauld on land that the Comyns had held since at least 1216. It was situated at the east end of Cumbernauld Park, where the motte (mound) is still visible. This building may not have been designed as a residence, because its new owners, the Fleming family, initially lived at Fulwood and later at Biggar, not Cumbernauld.
Cumbernauld Castle 1371
Around 1371, the family built a new castle where Cumbernauld House now stands. This was during the leadership of the 3rd clan chief, Thomas Fleming, and the expense of building it could partly explain the financial difficulties that led to his sale of the earldom of Wigtown and its lands.
The earliest part of the castle was probably a very strong, simple and roughly-built stone tower. It would have been L-shaped, comprising a rectangular block with a wing projecting from one end. A few small timber or stone outbuildings would also have been attached. As time went on, and the power and influence of the family grew, the castle would have been enlarged by the addition of other stone structures, such as the great hall that was used for festive occasions.
Host to Royalty
The Fleming family entertained members of Scotland’s royal family at Cumbernauld Castle on many occasions over subsequent centuries. For example, John 2nd Lord Fleming was married to Eupheme Drummond whose sister Margaret was a mistress to King James IV. The king made frequent visits to Cumbernauld to woo her and they had a daughter, Lady Margaret Stewart. In 1502 both sisters died of food poisoning at Drummond Castle.
Mary Queen of Scots visited the castle more than once and was present in January 1562 when the roof of the great hall collapsed, killing 7 or 8 people. Eight years later, during the Marian Civil War, the castle was sacked by Mathew Stewart, 4thEarl of Lennox, regent for his grandson King James VI.
Cumbernauld Bond
In 1640, with religious fervour raging, eighteen Scottish noblemen met at Cumbernauld to sign the Cumbernauld Bond, by which they pledged to defend the country against extreme Presbyterians. At a political level it was an agreement to oppose the policies of the Earl of Argyll who controlled the dominant political faction in Scotland. When Argyll found out about the bond, he wanted to have them all (including Lord Fleming) tried for treason but relented when they agreed to burn the bond.
Lost to fire
Ten years later the Earl of Wigtown was ordered to garrison Cumbernauld Castle but it was, nevertheless, largely destroyed a year later following a siege by Cromwell’s General Monck. The remnants were burned to the ground during the rebellion of 1715.
Cumbernauld House 1731
John, 6thEarl of Wigtown, built Cumbernauld House on the site of the former castle in 1731. It was designed by William Adam (1689-1748), the foremost architect in Scotland at the time.
In 1746 the retreating Jacobite army was billeted for the night in Cumbernauld village but did not occupy the house. A year later, following the death of the last clan Fleming chief, Charles 7th Earl of Wigtown, the house passed to his niece and heiress, Lady Clementina Fleming. She died on the first day of 1799.
Subsequent owners
Her grandson John 12th Lord Elphinstone laid claim to all the Fleming estates that she had held but this was contested by his brother Charles (who maintained that his brother’s claim was void under the terms of the entail because he held another title). The case was decided in Charles' favour by the House of Lords and he therefore assumed the Fleming arms and surname. His son John eventually succeeded as 14th Lord Elphinstone 1860 but died unmarried in 1861.
His sister Clementina Elphinstone Fleming (a noted pioneer photographer whose collection is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London) married in 1844 Cornwallis Maude, 4th Viscount Hawarden, an Irish peer who succeeded her brother in the property.
The Countess of Hawarden died in 1865 and her son Cornwallis Maude succeeded to the Wigtown estates and consequently assumed the Fleming surname. He visited Biggar and Cumbernauld on 30 April 1867. A subsequent Act of Parliament removed the bar on selling entailed estates, so around 1870 Cumbernauld House was gutted and renovated in preparation for sale. In 1875 he sold it to Mr John William Burns of Kilmahew for 160,000 pounds, thus sadly terminating the continuous connection between Cumbernauld and his Fleming ancestors since 1306.
Current usage
The Burns family sold the estate to the government for the development of Cumbernauld new town in 1955. The house was subdivided into apartments in recent years.
Roman Fort 142 AD
Around 142 AD the Romans built a row of forts across Scotland, nowadays known as "The Antonine Wall". It was designed as a barrier between Roman civilization (south of the wall) and wilder territory to the north that the Romas had failed to conquer. For a short period, it replaced the more southerly "Hadrian's Wall". About a third of the way along the wall (from the west) was a fort known as Caerpentaloch "the fort at the head of the ridge," from the Brythonic word caer (fort); and the Scottish Gaelic words cinn (at the head of) and tulaich (hill). This name later transmogrified into “Kirkintilloch”.
The Antonine wall was abandoned only eight years after completion, when the Roman legions withdrew to Hadrian's Wall in 162 AD.
Kirkintilloch Castle C12
A castle was built in the 12th century by the Comyn family, probably on the site where the old Roman fort had been built a thousand years earlier. Traces of the castle’s motte can still be seen in the town’s Peel Park. The park’s name derives from the old Scottish word peel signifying “a place of strength”.
During the Scottish wars of independence, the castle changed hands several times. In 1305 an English garrison that was stationed there was dispatched to arrest William Wallace and escorted him to Dumbarton Castle. Later that year the garrison sent a petition to King Edward I of England complaining of non-payment of wages.
A year later the castle was besieged by Bishop Robert Wishart, an ardent supporter of Robert the Bruce. He constructed siege engines from timber that he had been given for use in constructing a roof for Glasgow Cathedral! The siege failed and the bishop was rebuked by Pope Clement V at the instigation of the English King. His strong response, “it is better to fight for Robert the Bruce in Scotland than against the Saracens in the Holy Land”, called attention to the Catholic church’s hypocrisy in having initiated the Crusades, a series of religious wars waged from 1095 to 1291.
Despite the bishop’s failure to take the castle, his side prevailed: the Comyn’s were vanquished and the new Scottish King Robert I granted their former stronghold at Kirkintilloch to Robert Fleming.
Kirkintilloch Castle had probably been badly damaged during the war and was now unserviceable. Robert Fleming, his son Malcolm and great-grandson Thomas preferred to build a new castle at nearby Cumbernauld rather than to rebuild it.
Ramparts of Kirkintilloch Castle survived into the 18th century before the stone was quarried for reuse. Traces of the motte can still be seen in Peel Park which has been designated as a scheduled monument of national importance for its collection of historic features. The motte is rectangular, measuring 30 by 17 metres (98 by 56 ft), with a ditch to its south and east sides.
Kirkintilloch chapels and churches
When Robert Fleming was granted the estate, it also included St Ninian’s church near Kirkintilloch (that had been built by the Comyns around 1140). His successors Malcolm Fleming and his son David (5th and 6th clan chiefs) established a chapel to the Virgin Mary in the town itself before 1379 and endowed it with land at nearby Drumtablay.
In 1399 King Robert II confirmed a charter of the chapels of Kirkintilloch and the lands at Drumtablay on David Fleming. Both chapels remained in Fleming hands 150 years later when their successor, Malcolm 3rd Lord Fleming was killed at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547. By the advent of the Reformation however, the old 1140 chapel had been abandoned and the 1379 chapel had also fallen into disuse and soon became roofless and ruinous.
Auld Kirk Museum
In 1621 the people of the Cumbernauld district petitioned Parliament to have Lenzie barony made into two parishes. In order to achieve this, another church was built at Kirkintilloch in 1644 and made into a separate parish. It was replaced by a new church in 1914 while the 1644 church building now serves as the Auld Kirk Museum.
Cumbernauld Old Parish Church
Around 1650 the parishioners built a new church on the foundations of the 1379 church of the Virgin Mary. A North Aisle wing was added in 1659. Now set in the historic conservation village of Cumbernauld, it continues to serve as the Cumbernauld Old Parish Church.