This photo published in 1904 by Gilmours has kindly been scanned in at high resolution and shared here. I’ve been able to capture the photo in zoomed in sections to show a little more detail than would normally be seen.
This rare scene is Bardykes Road, Barnhill. It’s 1904 and pictured is the Barnhill Tavern (Hoolets) rising above Aggie Bain’s Cottage. The photograph gives a good indication of how rural things were, and all the buildings on the right, now completely gone. The roads look rutted by horse and carts prints, muddy and not firm. Aggie Bains House now has a dormer window on this side and is of course much smaller, with the gable of the building cut off in 1929 when the road required to be widened. The houses on the right, are all demolished and now reclaimed by mother nature, the top of the calder woodland. Incredibly zooming in on the doorway, of the building on the right, I can see a child, a boy of around 4 years of age. (In the 1911 census this boy will be about 11 years old, so I have added this to my “to do” list to see if I can identify him)
Thanks to Gordon Cook for sending the photo.
Hi Paul
My family, I am told, lived at the Hoolit’s Nest in the 1910/20s, with my grandfather as publican. However have found nothing on the censuses for a Patrick Kelly. But it was always pointed out to us when we went up Barn Hill, either to roll our Easter Eggs or to go blackberrying. Strangely when we moved to Kingsbury in England there was also a Barn Hill and they were really similar.
Regards
Moira