| Administrative History | Straloch is in New Machar parish, Aberdeenshire. Its name comes from 'Strath loch', 'black strath' (loch being an adjective in old Gaelic, meaning black, which occurs in place names). Barra is in Bourtie parish, also Aberdeenshire.
The earliest historical record of Straloch is in a charter, now missing, granted to Henry Cheyne by King David II in 1348 confirming his possession of the lands. The Cheynes owned Straloch over two hundred and fifty years. Then in 1500 AD they sold it to a member of the Gordon family of Pitlurg, one of the oldest and most distinguished branches of the noble house of Huntly. John was the first Gordon laird; he was succeeded by his brother, Robert, sometimes known as the Great Straloch, because of his fame as a cartographer and historian. Robert died in 1661, aged 80, leaving 11 sons and 6 daughters. He was, perhaps surprisingly, survived by his wife Katherine, daughter of Alexander Irvine of Lenturk, the eldest cadet branch of the Irvines of Drum.
The Gordon family sold the lands of Straloch in 1758 to John Ramsay, a merchant who had trade with Russia and Sweden. Five years previously he had bought the castle and estate of Barra from the Reids. One of his first acts was to demolish the mansion house and build the existing mansion on the same site. Unfortunately no record of the old house has survived, although the remnants of its foundations can be seen in the court of Straloch.
The only additions to the present house are the bathroom tower in the North Court, built in 1898, and the billiard-room on the East front built in 1907, which might have been more detrimental to the design, had it not been for the careful planning of the owner, Mary Irvine of Drum and Marshall MacKenzie, the architect, who also designed Marischal College in Aberdeen.
John Ramsay I was succeeded by his daughter Mary, who married John Innes, who took the name of Ramsay. Their son John Ramsay II, married Susan Innes, who as a widow married Captain George Nares, Royal Navy, the father of the Arctic explorer. Her son, by her first marriage, John Ramsay III, succeeded to Barra and Straloch at the age of one and died at Straloch aged 64. He won a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was offered a lectureship there, but thinking it his duty he returned to Straloch to look after his lands and farms.
It was during the time of John Ramsay III in the 1870s that W.S. Gilbert the dramatist and colleague of Sir Arthur Sullivan, was on several occasions a visitor to Straloch. In 1858 John Ramsay married Leonora Sophia Bond a daughter of the Rev. Nathaniel Bond of Creech Grange, Dorset. So that his young English bride should not feel too homesick he built a new 1.75 mile East Approach, or as the artist George Giles, who helped with its design to look as much as possible like an avenue through English parkland, liked to call it the Dorset Drive. Leonora died of pneumonia four years later, after her crinoline caught fire and she was badly burnt. They had one daughter, Mary, and so for the second time on her father's death a Mary Ramsay inherited Straloch. She married Francis Irvine of Drum and on her husband's death ran that estate until her eldest son, Alexander, came of age. She then returned to Straloch and carried out many improvements to the estate houses and farms. She and her father had owned Straloch for 107 years between them, when she died in 1938.
Mary was succeeded by her second son, Quentin, the eldest son having inherited Drum from his father. Quentin retained his father's name and so the Ramsays of Straloch, without a change of line, became the Irvines of Barra and Straloch.
Details extracted from Aberdeen and Northern Marts properties sales pages: http://www.goanm.co.uk/estates/straloch.htm: |
| Custodial History | There records were purchased from Bon Accord Books, The Spital, Aberdeen in December 2002. An additional deposit of Straloch and Barra game books was made in March 2003. |