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Cameron House Hotel
Learn about:
-Accommodations
-Dining
-History
-Location
-Things to Do
Photo Gallery
-Afternoon
Tea
-Georgian
Dining Room
-The
Breakers Casual Dining
-The Celtic Warrior
Romance Packages
Honeymoon in Scotland, this hotel are part of our honeymoon and
romantic getaway program in Scotland. Combining stays in castles,
manor houses, boutique hotels and guest houses together with
a car rental and driving directions.
Scottish Tourist Board
Rated
5 Star
To book or for more information email
call toll-free 1-800-876-5084
Return to Cameron main page
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History
The crooked strip of land juts out into Loch Lomond like a nose
upon a face. In Celtic times it was called Cam Sron, or crooked
nose, and from this comes the name Cameron which it has born
ever since.
There was never a Cameron family living there. The names of the
earliest inhabitants are now lost in the mists of time, but by
around 1400 there was a fortified stone keep with curved ceilings
on the site now occupied by Cameron House.
Those were warlike times, when it was prudent to guard oneís
home against attack. The builders of the keep constructed two
secret tunnels as escape routes from the cellar ñ one
to landward and one to the loch, allowing flight in either direction.
The cellar, however, is all that remains of this first structure.
By the mid-16th century, the old keep had become a small, square
house.
Since the start of the 16th century, the land had been owned
by the Charterises of Amiesfield, who eventually sold it to the
Dennistons of Colgrain.
In time it was purchased by the Colqhouns of Luss, whose family
seat, Rossdhu, was the next big house up the loch.
But the name that became synonymous with Cameron House for the
best part of three centuries was Smollett. The Smolletts were
a family of merchants and shipbuilders in the town of Dumbarton,
where they had a mansion house in High Street.
John Smollett, a burgess of Dumbarton, acquired a number of estates
in the 1650ís and 1660ís, and his son, James Smollett,
extended the families landholdings with the purchase in 1684
of Bonhill, an estate in the Vale of Leven.
In 1690 he received a knighthood from William of Orange. The
Smolletts of Bonhill were by now substantial landed gentry, and
Sir James added to the estates again in 1692 when he acquired
Dalquhurn ñ the estate where, 29 years later, Tobias Smollett
the celebrated 18th-century novelist had the distinction of being
born under a tree.
Land acquisition was but one of Sir Jamesí many talents.
He was one of the commissioners responsible for drawing up the
Act of Union in 1707, under which the Scottish parliament merged
with that of England and Wales, and he went on to become the
first Westminster MP for the Dumbarton burghs.
On his death, the estates passed to his grandson, and then to
another grandson, known as Commissary Smollett, a judge of the
Commissary Court at Edinburgh.
Commissary Smollett bought Cameron estate in 1763 and moved the
family seat hence from the place of Bonhill.
Upon Commissary Smollettís death in 1776, his cousin Jane
Smollett, sister of the novelist, and her husband, Alexander
Telfer of Scotstoun and Symington, inherited the house and land.
Their son, also Alexander, took the surname Telfer Smollett,
and it is from this branch of the family that the subsequent
owners of the Cameron estate descended.
Alexander Telfer Smollett married Cecilia Renton, sister of the
beautiful ìMiss R.î who had taken his Uncle Tobiasís
fancy and featured in his novel, Humphry Clinker.
Cecilia must also have won the heart of her mother-in-law, for
Jane Telfer Smollett had a small village just south of the Place
of Bonhill named Renton, in her honour.
Alexander and Cecilia Telfer Smollett had two sons who distinguished
themselves in the service of their country.
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Smollett, who succeeded his father,
fought with the Coldstream Guards and was killed at the Battle
of Alkmaar in Holland in 1799. A village near Cameron House was
named Alexandria in his memory, and grew over the next two centuries
into the town it is today.
Alexanderís brother, John Rouet Smollett, was a rear admiral
in the navy of Nelsonís day. In his early days as a midshipman
he had served on board the same ship as the Duke of Clarence.
In the close quarters of an 18th century warship they did not
always get along together. On one occasion, a quarrel led to
blows, and the young Smollett proceeded to give the future King
William IV a good thrashing. In later years, Admiral Smollett
was less pugnacious. With the Napoleonic wars behind him, he
returned to the estates inherited from his brother and embarked
on some improvements at Cameron House.
The main road to Inverary was moved further away from the house,
to which the Admiral added a new front section in 1806.
He proved as successful in the field of diplomacy as he had in
battle when, during the Chartist riots, a mob from the Vale of
Leven came heading towards Cameron House, intent on forcing the
Admiral to show them his title deeds on the lands of Bonhill,
whose ownership they contested.
But the wily Admiral Smollett was ready for them, and defused
their attack with an invitation to lunch, during which he raked
their reslove with broadside upon broadside of intoxicating beverages
from his well-stocked cellar.
By the time the Chartists had taken this treatment for an hour
or two, those still able to stand up to it, if they could stand
at all, were happy to reduce their demands to a request for a
small piece of land on which they could play shinty, the Gaelic
Scots ball game akin to Irish hurley.
The Admiral was happy to grant their request, and they parted
the best of friends.
John Rouet Smollett had two sons, both of them MPís, who
succeeded him in turn. The second son, and last of his line,
was Patrick Boyle Smollett, whose portrait can be seen on the
stairs at Cameron House.
Boyle Smollett had built a grand mausoleum for the Admiral and
his wife behind the Church of Scotland kirk in Alexandria, but
the family changed denominations suddenly one day when he arrived
in his carriage to find some people sitting in the family pew.
He asked the minister what the people were doing there, and demanded
that they be removed. When the minister refused to do this, the
Smolletts promptly became Episcopalians.
Boyle Smollett gave land for the building of St Mungoís
Episcopalian church in the main street in Alexandria, but the
family still makes payments towards the upkeep of the mausoleum.
It was during Boyle Smolletts lifetime that catastrophe struck
at Cameron House in the shape of a large fire, after which it
was rebuilt extensively.
Upon his death, Cameron estate was inherited by Captain Buchan
Telfer Smollett, RN, descended through another branch of the
family from Jane Telfer Smollett. The estate then went to Colonel
Alexander Drummond Smollett, who served with the Worcestershire
Regiment until 1891, retiring with the rank of major. He was
recalled, however, on the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 and
received special promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.
His son was Major-General Alexander Telfer Smollett, Commander
in Chief of the International Garrison in Shanghai in 1937, and
father of Patrick Telfer Smollett.
Patrick Telfer Smollett was also a soldier and won the Military
Cross while serving with the Highland Light Infantry. When he
retired from the army in 1954, the Smolletts were the third longest-serving
family, father-to-son, in the British Forces.
He sold Cameron House in 1986, after it had been in Smollett
ownership for more than two centuries, and it was shortly sold
on again. As time ownership lodges are built in the grounds,
numerous new families are able to share in the pleasures of Cameron
Estate, which is now their holiday home.
"Tím absolutely delighted with the way Cameron House
has been restored, Itís far better this way than having
the place become derelict. It couldnít have been done
better.î"commented Mr Telfer Smollett. |
