Malcolmwood

Blantyre's Ain Website

Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland

High Blantyre

Malcolmwood

MalcolmswoodAlthough Malcolmwood is strictly not in the Parish of  Blantyre, as it is just above the River Calder and has a significant part in Blantyre’s History, it is worth including it here. It is there that you find the bluebell wood.

William Pettigrew and his family moved up the hill from Dysholm to the family farm at Malcolmwood  around 1860. Dysholm is a corruption of Davisholm.  Malcolmwood is a corruption of Milcolmwood. He married Betsie Imrie on the day before Christmas, 1858 at Auchterarder, Perthshire, where she was born out of wedlock to her father James Connell, the shoemaker. Her mother Phemie came with her to Blantyre.

Then we have the start of  the Malcolmwood Pettigrew’s. There were seven sons and five daughters.

Ah’m a Pettigrew from Malcolmwood. Ma mither was one of nineteen. Of whom fifteen lived. I have thirty five first cousins. My grandmother was the Irish woman from Greenhall Farm  with the laugh in her eyes, Margaret McWilliam. She was of Irish weaver stock.  The Pettigrews came from France. They were master carters before they were farmers. My grandfather Clark was from Antrim. He was related to President McKinley. His wife was a Perthshire Duncan. He was Glasgow Irish. My grandmother was related to the old Admiral.

Mary Queen of Scots drank from the well at Dysholm  on the eve of the battle of Langside. It is still called Queen Mary’s Well.

Douglas Clark

Malcolmwood Today

Malcolmwood Today

Out of the ruin of my life  I see my great-great-great-grandfather William Pettigrew, aged 33, emerge from the door of his cottage, Dysholm on a morning in January 1800 after his marriage to Jane Pollock, aged 17. Jane’s uncle William Pollock, the blacksmith,  emigrated to Virginia; his grandson James Knox Polk* was President. (*This has now been proven as false.)

He came from Mecklenberg, North Carolina,  and died in Nashville,Tennessee. William Pollock was born in Blantyre. Alex was William Pettigrew’s eldest son but
Robert Pettigrew, who died a pauper in Calton,  produced William, the heir, born in Yoker. Robert married Susanna McDougall of Renfrew.

William Pettigrew and his family moved up the hill from Dysholm to the family farm at Malcolmwood  around 1860. Dysholm is a corruption of Davisholm.  Malcolmwood is a corruption of Milcolmwood. He married Betsie Imrie on the day before Christmas, 1858 at Auchterarder, Perthshire, where she was born out of wedlock to her father James Connell, the shoemaker. Her mother Phemie came with her to Blantyre.

Only my grandfather John was a stay-at-home. The sons were wanderers. Son William was off to America. Robert and Andrew headed for Australia. The eldest son Alex, Jimmy and Dick were for New Zealand. The daughters married: Jessie, Jean, Liza,
Susan, Kate.

Ah’m a Pettigrew from Malcolmwood. Ma mither was one of nineteen. Of whom fifteen lived. I have thirty five first cousins. My grandmother was the Irish woman from Greenhall Farm  with the laugh in her eyes, Margaret McWilliam. She was of Irish weaver stock.  The Pettigrews came from France. They were master carters before they were farmers. My grandfather Clark was from Antrim. He was related to President McKinley. His wife was a Perthshire Duncan. He was Glasgow Irish. My grandmother was related to the old Admiral.

My mother was Kate and my father William. I have two brothers Mick and Ron. Our sister Dorothy never lived.
We are a great family

Douglas Clark

Dysholm became derelict and was eventually ceremonially burnt down in the winter of 1903/4. Beside it was Queen Mary’s Well where Mary Queen of Scots drank and watered her horse on the eve of the Battle of Langside.

See Petigrew Findings

Dysholm (Benjamin Press, 1993), 32 pages,
Malcolmwood,  painted on a tile by Phemie Kelly.
Dysholm

Dysholm

Sweet Dysholm, Sweet Dysholm,
thy flowery haunts I love to roam,
thy woods, thy glens, thy mossy dell
Sweet Dysholm I love thee well.

The brawling Cawder’s rapid tide,
around fertile holms doth glide,
and murmurs there in gentle tone,
I love thee well, Sweet Dysholm.

Decked like a bride thy hawthorn fair
with grateful fragrance fills the air,
wild flowers whose colours far outvie,
the costliest gems of deepest dye.

Thy charms to me grow still more clear,
in Summer gay and Winter drear,
I’m bound to thee in fairy spell,
Sweet Dysholm I love thee well.

Each warbling bird, each humming bee,
each flower, each shrub, each sprawling tree,
swell out the chorus loud and long
I love thee well, Sweet Dysholm.

Jane Pettigrew, Malcolmwood. 1860

~~~

It would appear that Jane Pettigrew is a member of the extended family Pettigrew, who lived in between times, in Dysholm Cottage and Malcolmwood Farm, both of which are situated on the west bank of the River Calder, opposite Milheugh Estate, between the years of 1830’s and 1861. Whatever the case may be, we have to thank her for her wonderful poem that she left.
ACKN; Alex Rochead,

James Cornfield 2006

Dysholm became derelict and was eventually ceremonially burnt down in the winter of 1903/4. Beside it was Queen Mary’s Well where Mary Queen of Scots drank and watered her horse before the Battle of Langside. Jane’s death is recorded in Cambuslang from dysentry at 10 January 1860 aged 77

Malcolmwood Farm Photo supplied by Lyn and Kym McDougall from Australia.

Hi from Australia.

I am sitting at a very old roll top desk owned by my wife Lynette McDougall (nee Pettigrew). The desk has been in the Pettigrew family since at least 1874, and an inscription on the back of a pen tray that is still with the desk says: “This desk belonged to Wm Pettigrew of Malcolmwood, Blantyre.

N.B. Died about 1874. His son Robert Pettigrew got possession of it when he went to England.”

On your fabulous website I found a poem by Jane Pettigrew of Malcolmwood written in 1860, and we have a photo here of a thatch roof house with an inscription “Malcolmwood”. Can anyone provide us with any more background to Malcolmwood or the Pettigrews who lived there?

Thanks so much,

Warm Regards

Kym and Lynette McDougall

If you have any Photos… Send them to Bill

~~~

Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland

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