Balshagray Farm, Jordanhill, Glasgow

The three eldest children of Lachlan Cameron and Sarah McErlane – Jimmie Cameron (1919-1988), Henry Cameron (b. 1920) and Annie Cameron (1922-2013) were all born in Balshagray Farm in Jordanhill, Glasgow. 

According to Stuart MacLean’s website ‘Jordanhill Local History’ the farm was ‘on the north side of Mitre Road, west of Orleans Avenue.   A section of the original steading wall can still be seen at 38 Mitre Road. A date stone for 1829, saved from the old building when it was demolished, is incorporated into the boundary wall between two houses directly opposite the site, at numbers 39 and 41.’ http://www.wsmclean.com/bygones.htm

The farm’s full name was High Balshagray Farm – here it is in a map from 1860 https://maps.nls.uk/view/index.cfm?id=74953120#zoom=4&lat=9781&lon=3869&layers=BT

Lachlan and Sarah lived there with their growing family until at least 1922, when my mother, Annie, was born. They must have moved there not long after they got married in 1918.

For a brief time, Lachlan’s sister Ann (1862-1919) and her husband Myles Ward (1862-?) lived at the farm with them. By 1919 the Wards had moved to Gibson Street, in the West End – Ann died there, a victim of the flu pandemic. Interesting to note the Highlands (Cameron) / Irish connection – Sarah not so long away from Co. Derry; Myles came from Co. Fermanagh.

I wonder if this could be Lachlan or Myles in this postcard – the farm was demolished in 1928, not so long after the Camerons had departed to go back to Balloch.

https://glasgowpunter.blogspot.com/2014/11/walking-through-partick-past-and-present.html