Rachel Pringle's view of Greenock's Cathcart Street

In the Ayrshire Legatees, published monthly originally in Blackwoods Magazine between June 1820 and February 1821and in book form in June 1821, John Galt describes the Pringle family’s journey from Irvine to London to receive a legacy left by a relative.  In Chapter 1, Letter II - Miss Rachel Pringle writes to her friend Miss Isabella Tod describing Greenock. 

“The chambermaid of the inn where we lodge pointed out to me, on the opposite side of the street, a magnificent edifice erected for balls; but the subscribers have resolved not to allow any dancing till it is determined by the Court of Session to whom the seats and chairs belong, as they were brought from another house where the assemblies were formerly held.” 

Tontine Hotel, Cathcart Street, Greenock

The “inn where we lodge” was likely to have been Greenock’s Tontine Hotel on Cathcart Street.  Coaches to Ayr and Glasgow arrived and departed daily from the Tontine or the White Hart Inn in Cathcart Square, as this extract from Hutchison's Greenock Directory of 1820 shows. 

Built in 1801, the Tontine Hotel contained a large hall, twelve sitting rooms and thirty bedrooms.  It was a popular stopping place for visitors to the town, and many local clubs and organisations held their meetings there.  It was ideally situated in Cathcart Street, which was then the commercial centre of Greenock.

The "magnificent edifice erected for balls" probably refers to the Exchange Buildings (opened 1814) also the home of the Coffee Room. In 1821 a new Coffee Room was opened in Cathcart Square.  There was a disagreement between some of the subscribers about the cost etc, and a court case followed - thus Rachel Pringle's reference to the Court of Session.  

Thereafter there were two Coffee Rooms in Greenock!

Tontine Hotel, Cathcart Street.  Photo - Greenock Burns Club

The original Tontine Hotel was demolished and replaced by a new Post Office in 1899.  That Post Office  building still stands and is now the James Watt Pub (Wetherspoons).  A new Tontine Hotel was opened in 1892 in Union Street, Greenock.  Read more about the history of the Tontine Hotel here.

John Galt's Southannan

Southannan (Galt writes as Southennan) in Ayrshire is a place that seems to have sparked the imagination of John Galt ever since he was a young boy.  Each year in his childhood the Galt family travelled by coach from Irvine to Greenock to visit relatives.  In his Autobiography, published in 1833 John Galt writes –

“I have continued to this day to cherish my early dreams about Southennan, undisturbed by any matter of fact; pausing occasionally in the journeys of my juvenility between Irvine and Greenock, to ponder of strange things amidst the solitude of the ruins.”

He goes on to describe the area – “The situation is lone and picturesque, at the foot of a green mountain, on a little plain spreading to the sea, with a garden extending southwards, which in my imagination is still in blossom as if I saw it in the spring of the year.  I could draw the landscape still, though years and days and sadder thinks have happened to me since I was there.”

Southannan (Southennan) Ayrshire map.

While the name Southannan can still be seen in maps of Ayrshire, the area has changed considerably since John Galt’s day.  Little remains of what must have been the romantic ruins seen by Galt in the early 19^th century.  An idea of what could be seen can be found in “The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland” (1897) by MacGibbon & Ross.  Southannan Castle is described – 

“It has been an extensive structure having had a high enclosing wall, with a courtyard and an arched entrance porch to the west, defended with shot-holes.  There has been a considerable range of dwelling-house accommodation, two stories in height, along the north side, and smaller buildings on the east side, leaving a large courtyard in the centre, now forming the garden of the adjoining farmhouse.”

 In his Autobiography Galt writes -

“The origin of Southennan, is, to myself at least, interesting.  At a short distance on the south side of the village of Fairlie in Ayrshire, stands the ruins of the ancient house of Southennan.  I know nothing whatever of its history, but was told in my boyhood a vague tradition, which had something mysterious about it, and which still lingers in my recollection; namely, that the house belonged to a branch of the ancient noble family of Semple ; that the last inhabitants had been Roman Catholics, who went away into Spain at the period of the Reformation, and that they were never more heard of.”

MacGibbon & Ross write -   “The castle was much enlarged by Robert, fourth Lord Sempill, ambassador to the Court of Spain in 1596.” As Galt says, Southannan did belong to the Semple family, they had been granted the lands in 1504 by James IV.  

The Semples built a chapel dedicated to St Annan (Ennan, or Innan – patron saint of Irvine).  However Southannan fell into disrepair and as the report goes on to explain – “The old mansion was dismantled towards the end of last century, and the materials used in the erection of farm-buildings and dykes.  What remains are chiefly the outer walls to the north of the courtyard and some more ancient looking remnants at the east.” 

Galt also mentions Southannan in his 1821 novel The Ayrshire Legatees in the description of a journey by coach which the Pringle family take from Irvine to Greenock.  In a letter to her friend, Miss Rachel Pringle describes the journey from Kilbride on the road with views of the island of Cumbrae and writes:- “On the other side of the road, we saw the cloistered ruins of the religious house of Southennan, a nunnery in those days of romantic adventure, when to live was to enjoy a poetical element.”

In 1830 Galt published his novel Southennan - the story of a young man of that name and place who visits Edinburgh to witness the arrival of Mary Queen of Scots from France.  In that novel Southennan is described – 

“It was a quadrangular building, with an embattled gateway in the wall, which connected the two wings.  The orchard and garden lay along the south side of the green hills of Fairlie, at the bottom of which it stood, and on which a computable number of the beech and sycamore shook their heads few and far between.  About a score of the meagre and naked ash marked out where an avenue might have been.  On the northern side of the mansion a little sparkling brook ran, whispering from its rimples peace and felicity to the genius of the place.”

Passing these old ruins as a very young child obviously had a profound effect on John Galt.  With his fertile imagination it is easy to see how they led him to speculate and write about them many years later.