North of the Border

Arbigland, an estate lying on the Solway Firth in Scotland is a relatively recent addition to the Blackett family properties.

The present mansion house was built in 1755 by William Craik, whose family had acquired the estate in 1679, and in 1852 it was sold to the Balfour family. Robert Balfour Stewart inherited Arbigland in 1869 but died in 1872, leaving it to his mother, who that year gifted it to her nephew, Colonel Christopher Edward Blackett. On his death without issue in 1904 it passed to his nephew, Captain William Stewart Burdett Blackett, who died of war wounds in Belgium in 1914.
William’s widow, Kathleen, who had legally changed her name to Blackett-Swiny following her 2nd marriage to Brig.-Gen. William Frederick Swiny in 1918, supervised the building of her dower house (“The House on the Shore”) in the grounds of Arbigland between 1934 and 1936, and lived there until her death in 1974. The estate is still (2009) in the ownership of this branch of the Blackett family.

In 1747 John Paul, later to be known as John Paul Jones, and regarded as the father of the American navy, was born in a cottage on the Arbigland estate, where his father was a gardener. John Paul Jones Cottage has been preserved and is now a Category A listed building.

[With thanks to Geoff Blackett for informing us about this property.]