BARNCLUITH 



Barncluith are the reverse of promising. You turn off 

 the tram line to the east of the town, and follow for 

 half a mile or so what was once a country lane, but is 

 now a partly-built line of small villas or large cottage 

 dwellings. Great trees have been uprooted to make 

 way for these, the roadway is worn into deep ruts in 

 the course of transition into a common street, along 

 which you proceed until, with dramatic suddenness, 

 the scene changes. The way parts in two, passing on 

 either side of a row of the weirdest sycamores you ever 

 saw. Stretching their immense arms across both 

 roads, these half dozen venerable giants remind one 

 of the fantastic growths in Salvator Rosa's impossible 

 forests. The right-hand road leads up to the gate- 

 way which admits to Hamilton High Parks, where 

 the wild white cattle still browse beneath the 

 gnarled oaks of Cadzow Forest ; the one to the 

 left descends to another gate, within which round a 

 narrow plateau of closely-mown sward, stand at 

 different elevations the three houses which form the 

 mansion of Barncluith. One is puzzled to understand 

 why there should be three, instead of but one, nor 

 have I met anybody who could explain the mystery ; 

 howbeit, the resulting effect is picturesque in the 

 highest degree. 



"Barncluith," says Mr. Neil Munro, " is of all the ancient 

 dwellings in that romantic neighbourhood the one which should 

 most bewitch the angler; it was so obviously built for peace 

 and an artistic eye and the propinquity of good fishing, while 

 all the others were built for war." 



187 



