CALDER PARK is situated in the parish of Old Monkland and county of Lanark, on the north side of the road leading to Bothwell, and about six miles from Glasgow.
The house is built upon lands which formed part of Easter Daldowie. This estate of old belonged to the Stewarts of Minto, a family, which may be said to have ruled Glasgow for nearly two centuries. They were cadets of the family of Garlies, and settled in Glasgow before 1472. In that year Sir Thomas Stewart was Provost of Glasgow, and many of his descendants also filled the civic chair. After a long course of usefulness and prosperity the family came to a close in Glasgow about the middle of the seventeenth century. Sir Ludovick Stewart was about that time obliged to part with the Glasgow properties, and Daldowie soon followed; for in 1653 we find it was sold to the Woddrops of Dalmarnock. From them it passed through several families to the M'Calls, who now hold part of this estate. (1)
About the beginning of this century, James M'Nair built the present handsome villa, on a feu from these lands of Daldowie. He was a member of a well-known Glasgow family, and engaged at that time in business as a sugar refiner, along with his brother, Robert M'Nair of Belvidere. Their sugar house was in Ingram Street.
Calder Park afterwards belonged to Theodore Walrond. This gentleman belonged to an old Devonshire family, which has been settled at Bradford in that country for seven hundred years. He was a West India proprietor and merchant in Glasgow, and for many years one of the most respected members of the community. The youthful appearance of this fine old gentleman is still fresh in the memory of many of his fellow-citizens; and by his death the city lost one of the finest specimens of a Glasgow merchant of the olden time.
He left a numerous family. His eldest son, Theodore, finished his education at Oxford, where he acquired a great reputation as a classical scholar; he has been engaged for some years in the educational department of the Privy Council, where he stands very high. A younger son, Francis Charles, became a merchant in Glasgow.
Upon Mr. Walrond's death Calder Park was sold to Mr. James Reid Stewart of Glasgow, by whom it was recently sold to the Hamilton and Bothwell Railway Company. This Company, after retaining a small part of it for their own uses, resold it to Mr. John Hendrie, who is the present proprietor.
(1) See Daldowie.
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