BALLOCHBalloch's origins are medieval. At the south of Loch Lomond, which cuts a deep gash 23 miles up into the Highlands, the moated site of Balloch Castle, 1238-1390, once a stronghold of the Earls of Lennox, can still he detected. Centuries later, when mountain and flood drew romantically inclined travelers north, the beauty of he location and the opportunities for tourism which it offered became apparent.
As early as 1817 there were steamer excursions on the Loch aboard the Marion. In 1841-2 a toll suspension bridge was built to cross the Leven where the old Ferry House Inn stood on the east bank.Balloch Hotel is still there, (now called Balloch house)a black-and-white concoction of old and not-so-old building. In 1850 the railway arrived to ensure the village's future. Today, the tourists come by train, bus and car, and the Leven is full of small craft - a bright riverside scene worlds away from the industrial wasteland that begins only yards downstream. From the old bridge at Balloch Hotel, now a lattice-beam structure of 1908, to the Lomond Road Bridge, 1934, several large houses have taken advantage of riparian sites. On the west bank is the Tullichewan Hotel, 1893, a largeArts & Crafts style villa with half-timbered bracketed bayed gables, red brick chimneys, tile-hung walls and a big English roof. To the south, off Lomond Road, sits Fisherwood, 1910, equally English and picturesque.
In Drymen Road — an attractive, suddenly suburban, tree-lined avenue — is Roselea, 1888, distinguished by decorative bargeboards and segmental lintels to its ground-floor windows. Outstanding, however, are Warwick House and The Cottage, c.1930, both mansarded cottage villas with charming porches, canted bays and swept dormers.
Balloch's setting at the foot of Loch Lomond is one of great beauty, all the more attractive after the jaded industrial landscape of the Vale of Leven. Its Celtic name, Bealach, has the fittingly poetic translation, pass to the field of smooth waters.
Balloch Castle, 1808-9, Robert Lugar John Buchanan of Ardoch, an original partner in the Glasgow Ship Bank, commissioned this castellated mansion from the London architect Lugar; with Tullichewan and Boturich it was one of three such projects Lugar carried out in Dunbartonshire - designs which, when published in 1811, became highly influential on the development of the secular Gothic Revival. A free symmetrical composition, battlemented and turreted a very good specimen of the Castle-Gothic - Balloch swallows up an earlier plainer building. The principal facade has an unusually slow concave curve ending in a bellcoted clock tower, 1830, over the services wing. Castle, garden and estate are today part of a beautiful 200-acre Country Park which stretches along the south-east shore of Loch Lomond. In the Castle, Page & Park have designed a crisp Interpretative Centre, 1986.
Boturich Castle, from 1830, Robert Lugar Boturich, another of the homes of John Buchanan of Ardoch, sits above the loch about a mile north of Balloch Castle. Lugar's rebuilding, 1830, of the 15th-century castle scarcely imparts a satisfactory unity, though it must he likely his intentions were never wholly realised. Yet, there are picturesque corners. Scott, Stephen & Gale had a hand in matters, too, in 1834, while the octagonal entrance tower was not added until 1850.LOCH LOMOND
Past Hamilton House, formerly Woodbank, late 18th century — an impressive five-bay pedimented mansion with a hipped and chimney roof — the old Loch Lomond road north out of Balloch now comes to an inexplicable dead end. The loch side must he reached from the new road marginally to the west.
Cameron House, c.1830 and 1865, William Spence
Baronialised with a tall asymmetrical tower by Spence; despite a liberal bombardment with bartizans, hefty dormers and string-courses, the lower Georgian house of 1830 is still evident. Now lavishly appointed as a leisure centre and hotel at the foot of the loch, but still recognisably a country house. The setting, well sheltered and commanding a fine view of the watery expanse, is magnificent.Auchendennan House, 1864-6, John Burnet
On the A82, just past the Mid Lodge, c.1850, entry to Cameron House estate, this must be Scotland's grandest youth hostel. Built as a rich man's castle, every Baronial device has been deployed in hard-edged mechanical panoply. The Mannerist aberrations of a colossal porte cochere, added by A N Paterson in 1902, anticipate the richly decorative interiors.
Lomond Castle Hotel 1865Campbell Douglas & Stevenson
Formerly Auchenheglish House, this loch side hotel (now roofless) has a softer Baronial aspect. The entrance front is wide and low and wholly domestic, but from the stumpy- columned arched porch the roofs build up almost imperceptibly towards the high ridges and turrets of the eastern side of the house.
Arden House, 1868, John Burnet
Following his Baronial tour de force at Auchendennan, Burnet produced this equally vigorous design for Sir James Lumsden, and then recently knighted Lord Provost of Glasgow. The roofscape is peppered with turrets — cones, pyramids and ogees — though the staircase turret of a six-storey central tower has gone. Burnet's porch is massive and bold, but lacks the bravura of Paterson's at Auchendennan.
Rossdhu House, 1772-4, possibly Sir James Clerk
A short drive north of Arden the high arched portal of Rossdhu South Lodge is reached. Pairs of tall three-quarter columns support an entablature on which the painted arms of the Colquhouns of Luss are raised on the skyline. Behind the gates lies an estate rich in the built appurtenances of an ancient family. Rossdhu Castle, first referred to in a charter of 1541 as the castle, tower and lin-taliee of Rosedew, inhabited by the family until 1770, survives as a ruinous wall and, just north of the castle, the medieval Chapel of St Mary, dedicated 1469, used latterly as a burial ground, as little more.
In 1773, a few months after the completion of the new house, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell stopped over at. Rossdhu during their celebrated Tour of the Hebrides. Lady Helen Colquhoun, justifiably proud of her new home found the good doctor's boorish manners insupportable. Discovering him drenched after boating in the Loch yet striding across her drawing room splashing water from his boots in all directions she is reported to have muttered What a bear! Yes, commented another guest, he is no doubt a bear, but he is Ursus Major, a remark doubtless as unbearable to Lady Helen as Johnson's behaviour.
The present Rossdhu House, 1772-4, erected by Sir James Colquhoun, 25th of Luss, is an Adam-style mansion built with stone quarried from the old castle. Adam may have been consulted, Sir James Clerk of Penicuik certainly was; but the executive hand belonged to John Baxter who had worked with bothAdam and Clerk, while there is also evidence of payments to Mr. Thomas Brown, Architect at Renfrew. There is a pedimented portico and a balustraded parapet; the portico and lower wings are of later date added by Sir James, 27th of Luss. The classical offices, which comprise laundry, byre and coach house, date from the early 19th century. A sundial in the walled garden south of the main house may, however, belong to the 17th century.
