Broomhall Castle On Visit To Menstrie Clackmannanshire Scotland

Tour Scotland 4K Summer travel video of Broomhall Castle on visit to Menstrie in Clackmannanshire. This Scottish castle was originally built in 1874 in the baronial style popularised by Queen Victoria's Balmoral Castle by John Foukes and Frances Mackison for James Johnstone of Elmbank Mills in Menstrie. At the time, Johnstone ran the successful woollen mill with his business partner George Drummond. The mill had been built in the 1860s at the height of the woollen industry in the Hillfoots, but the two men went their separate ways when Drummond decided to sell his share of the business to Johnstone following a disagreement. Johnstone continued the business alone until around the turn of the 20th century. The castle was sold around 1935 and became a boys' boarding school under the auspices of William Herbert Leetham, a former member of the Northern Regiment, from which he retired in 1923, with a background in education. In the early hours of Friday 28th June 1940, the building was destroyed by fire. No one was injured but the building was completely gutted, although some furniture was saved. The cost of the damage ran into several thousand pounds but fortunately Leetham had the building insured. Following the fire Leetham moved to Canterbury and died in East Sussex, England, in 1980 aged 81. In 1946, and although most of it was in ruins, the proprietor of the house was Walter Alexander of Kork-N-Seal, a metal bottle cap manufacturer, but by 1950, he had moved on and it belonged to Walter McAlpine Chalmers who rented it out to radio operator William James Sillars. In 1985 it was transformed into a nursing home with some large furniture being donated to it by local families. In the summer of 1999 an application was made to Clackmannanshire Council for a change of use to a hotel.

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