Sea dog’s home
Historic villa was owned by captain from the golden age of steam
IF houses could talk, the tales told in this Victorian villa would surely shiver your timbers. Looking majestically down Holy Loch, it is the former home of Captain Duncan MacNeill, who played a leading role in the golden age of the Clyde paddle steamers. The later years of the 19th Century, when The Cromlech was built at Sandbank, near Dunoon, Argyll, was a period famous for the fierce competition between boat owners on the west coast.
Perhaps Captain MacNeill was always going to be involved in drama. His steamer, the Diana Vernon, was named after one of Sir Walter Scott’s characters. He also captained The Waverley, which is good for an outrageous story.
MacNeill was a friend of the young Robert Louis Stevenson, whose father was a technical employee of the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners.
Captain MacNeill’s brush with fame came on September 15, 1886, when his ship was involved in a collision with the Guy Mannering at Kilcreggan Pier on the Clyde.
The Guy Mannering was beached and as a result both captains appeared in the Marine Court on a charge of ‘culpable neglect and reckless conduct’. Our hero was, according to reports, fined £3.
You can just imagine him going over the rights and wrongs of the case, sitting glass in hand before the roaring fire in the drawing room of The Cromlech.
The house has no fewer than 11 original open fireplaces, including one in each of the six bedrooms. They are not all working but there’s enough space for coal in a bunker to the rear of the house.
As well as the drawing room, there are fireplaces in the dining room and billiard room and an inglenook in the snug.
There’s also an Aga in the kitchen, nicely decorated in farmhouse green.
A timber period staircase leads to the three-quarter landing, off which lie six bedrooms, bathroom and access to a verandah.
The staircase continues upwards to a second floor, where the billiard room is located along with a bonus attic bedroom.
It’s the views which present owner Peter Baxter will miss most.
‘It’s a quite special place,’ he said. ‘You can see right down Holy Loch and the lovely hills to the north.
‘The house sits in about three-quarters of an acre and we constantly see deer and the odd red squirrel in the garden.
‘We light the coal fires as and when we like but there’s also central heating on the lower floors of the house.’
Mr Baxter is only the fifth person to own the property. Glasgow can be reached in an hour by ferry from Dunoon, a ten-minute drive to the south and road, but there’s a more leisurely route via Loch Lomond if time is not of the essence.
Dunoon itself has a good range of pubs and restaurants, a library, hospital, secondary school, theatre, cinema, swimming pool and leisure centre.
The Cromlech is a big house and the dimensions of the rooms are such that it would cost a pretty penny to furnish them in the way that they deserve.
But it has also previously been used as a guesthouse, offering the picturesque setting which overseas visitors in particular appreciate. How they would lap up tales of the building’s association with Captain MacNeill.
His son, John, went on to become a celebrated architect in Malaya from just before the First World War. One of his house guests in Penang was Sir Harry Lauder.
Would it be gilding the lily too much to suggest that RLS himself sat in front of the drawing room fire, recalling legends of buccaneers and buried gold? Or is that just a tale an old sea dog would tell you?
Offers over £325,000 to Hannah Lough of Robb Residential. Tel 0141 225 3887 or email hannah.lough@robbresidential.com