Galt and the Granny Kempock Stone

Gourock’s Kempock Stone gets a mention in John Galt’s novel Southennan the story of a young man’s journey from Ayrshire to Edinburgh to witness the arrival of Mary Queen of Scots from France.

Kempoch Stone, Gourock

In the first chapter, Galt writes about the young laird of Southennan’s parents –

“For his mother was an English lady of high rank, the daughter of the Lord Derwent, to whom his father surrendered himself a prisoner in the mutinous field of the Solway moss, and by whom he was entertained more as a guest than a prisoner.  During the period of that captivity the fair Isabel was wooed and won.”

The Battle of Solway Moss took place in 1542 between the Scots and the English.  The Scottish forces were defeated.  Many Scottish “noblemen and gentlemen” were taken prisoner and given into the custody of English gentry and landowners with pledges that they would support the English cause.  This explains Galt’s description of Southennan being “entertained more as a guest than a prisoner”.

However, the young couple returned to Scotland after Southennan’s release, but the bride – 

“before she was yet a mother, her husband was killed while hunting among the moors of Renfrewshire.  His horse bounded in the chase, close to the edge of the precipice of Kempoch, and, startled by the danger, suddenly recoiled, and threw him over the rock.  A large stone still marks the spot where the accident happened.”

Kempock Stone, Gourock

The Kempock Stone in Gourock is now surrounded by housing but did indeed once stand on the edge of a cliff facing the River Clyde.  The Rev David Macrae in Notes About Gourock, Chiefly Historical published in 1880 describes the stone - 

“It stands about six feet high, with a diameter of two, and has a faint resemblance to a mantled figure, with a shrouded head.”

For that reason, the stone is known locally as the Granny Kempock Stone.  Macrae goes on to state –

"It was chiefly in connection with the winds and the sea that the Kempoch Stane was regarded with superstitious dread.  Standing forth on the top of the rock, where there were no trees or houses or Castle walls to intercept the view, Granny Kempoch must have been a marked object to ships sailing up or passing down the Firth; and would look like someone placed there to rule the winds and the waves, and watch the ships as they came and went.”

The stone had many old tales and superstitions connected with it.  It was said that mariners would walk around the stone seven times to assure a safe voyage.  The Kempoch Stone was also associated with the storiy of Marie Lamont who was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake in 1662.

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.