My Lamont Heritage

MY LAMONT HERITAGE

Colin Lamont Mayall




I was born and brought up in the County of Renfrew across the Firth of Clyde from Bute and Cowal . My birth place was about 30 miles south west of where my Lamonts dwelt in Kilmun and Inverchaolain . I had perhaps an inbred affinity with these places which really only became fully known to me much later in my life . As a child I holidayed on the Island of Cumbrae in the County of Bute . As a teen ager I stayed in the Youth Hostel at Strone adjacent to Kilmun and Hafton birth place of John Lamont or McPhorich and Catherine Buchanan my 3 x great grandparents but a fact that at that time was unknown to me . I walked the hills where the Lamonts crofted and I fished for saithe in the waters of the Holy Loch where some 150 years earlier John and Neil plied there trade . As a student I spent time at Tigh na bruaich on the Kyles of Bute and walked the tortuous route ten miles or so along Loch Ridden’s  banks to Colintraive opposite Rhobodach and Stuck at a time before the present road was constructed . I crossed by the ferry at the narrows and walked the two or three miles to Rothesay passing the Stuck road end and on through Port Bannatyne . Little did I know at that time , that this was the place where my forefathers had been born and raised . In my twenties I recall vividly accompanying  my future father in law James C Sharp on a Neerday shooting trip above Innellan in the parish of Inverchaolain in Cowal . We trekked  across moorland and mountain descending down the side of the Ardyne Burn to the little croft and cottage of Willie Graham  at Achafour * where a welcoming  dram was proffered by our convivial host .We later went up to the “ big house “ ( Knockdow ) where the brother ( or was it cousin ? ) of the present clan Chief was in attendance . As he and I were the only Lamonts present I was poured an extremely large measure of the usquebagh !
** Achafour ( NS 111 703) lies a mere mile east from Little Ardyne ( NS 103 699 ) , the farm where Robert Lamont farmed .
The last direct family connection with Inverchaolain and Cowal was Cona Glencoe Lamont . She was a drawing office tracer and remained single. She died aged 78 years at Edenbank, West Church Lane Innellan near Dunoon in the heart of Lamont and McPhorich country, near the birth place of both sets of her great great grand parents namely John McPhorich and Catherine Buchanan and Archibald Lamont and Margaret White ! The informant on her death certificate was given as her younger brother Alistair Glenstrae Lamont . Thus on May 7th 1973 , the Lamont connection with “ the lonely lands “ of  Cowal was ended . Cowal , this ancient part of  this ancient land had seen us all move to other places . To America , to Australia and to other parts of old Scotia , the Lamonts have now gone from what was their hard earned birth right .














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