Last week Eye on Millig featured its larger neighbour Blairvadach, which was at one time also a childrens home and is now Argyll and Bute Council planning offices.

The Eda Yarrow Home — built around 1859 and demolished around 1980 — began life as Broomfield, a large private residence located on the sloping hillside.

Helensburgh Heritage Trust director Alistair McIntyre has looked at the history of the building and says that the earlier years of the house appear to have been relatively uneventful.

He tells me: “One of the more interesting-sounding owners was a James Kirk, described as a music hall proprietor in Helensburgh, who was there in the 1890's, but little information about him has so far come to light.” A year or so before the outbreak of the First World War, the property came under the ownership of Etheldreda, wife of Harold E.Yarrow, of the Yarrow shipbuilding family.

The Yarrows had a history as benefactors as well as shipbuilders — in 1894, Alfred Yarrow, Harold's father, set up a convalescent home for children at Broadstairs.

This was aimed at the invalid children of the middle classes, “whose parents, although able to afford a small sum, could not afford to give their children a change to sea air combined with skilled attendance”.

At the start of June 1914, Broomfield began a new chapter under the name of Broomfield Convalescent Home.

It was described as having been founded and endowed by Alfred Yarrow, who had presented the house to his daughter-in-law, along with the six acres of well tended attractive grounds.

Accommodation was provided for six mothers and their young children, with preference being given to patients of Glasgow Royal Maternity and Women's Hospital, and to the wives of workmen of Messrs Yarrow.

However other deserving cases were also considered.

The Home operated under the care of a physician from Glasgow Royal Maternity, and another from Glasgow Royal Sick Children's Hospital.

The visiting physician was Dr Downes from Helensburgh, and Miss Gow was appointed a resident Matron.

Alistair said: “It is worth noting that Harold, later Sir Harold, was also a philanthropist in his own right.

“He was one of those responsible for setting up the Princess Louise Scottish Hospital for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers at Erskine, and also served as president of the Scottish Convalescent Home for Sick Children.” Very soon, the new Home came to be known as the Eda Yarrow Home.

Several years before the death of Lady Yarrow in 1945, ownership of the Home was vested in the Trustees of the Glasgow Royal Maternity, although the name continued to apply as before.

In the early post-Second World War period, ownership changed once more, when the Home came under the wing of the Children's Department of Glasgow Corporation, already the owners and administrators of the adjacent Blairvadach Children's Home.

After that the two both properties had a shared history, including the final phase, when ownership and control passed from Glasgow Corporation to the newly-created Strathclyde Regional Council, who operated the facility under the wing of the Social Work Department.

Strathclyde Regional Council in turn passed into history in 1997, but the Eda Yarrow building had by that time fallen into disuse, having closed its doors about a decade earlier.

The property was subsequently demolished, and to-day a housing estate occupies the site.

Garelochhead resident Fiona Hamilton has fond memories of life at Broomfield, where her father was head gardener.

Brought up at Broomfield Cottage, she well remembers the wives of the Yarrow firm and their babies.

Fiona also recalls the German POW's, whose camps were close by at Blairvadach and Stuckenduff.

At Christmas, they would present local children with toys they had fashioned from driftwood and other available materials.

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