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Douglas Park was created in 1906 when Mr. Charles John Cathcart Douglas Douglas, of Haylee, Largs, J.P. D.L. gifted the land
to Largs Town Council for a public park. It comprised of the formal
Spring Gardens at Irvine Road and the hill section of Haylie Estate. In 1919 he also gifted the lower lands of Haylie, for use as a bowling green and tennis courts.
The park proved to be a great success both for its sport and formal
gardens and the hillside rising to 600 feet. So popular was it with
visitors to the town that the former president of the Scottish Ramblers
Association, Thomas Lockhead, had his ashes scattered on the hillside in
1938.
Charles John Cathcart Douglas was born before 1864. The son of General Sir John
Douglas of Glenfinart
and Lady Elizabeth Cathcart,
he married Helen Tolmie Dick Bayly, daughter of General John Bayly and
Jane Crum-Ewing, on 17 November 1880. He died on 25 April 1926.
At the 50th anniversary of the burgh , special caskets were handed to Mr Charles John Cathcart Douglas who handed over land at Haylie for Douglas Park in Largs, giving the upper lands in 1906, before donating the lower lands in the 1920 to allow for new bowling and tennis courts. Mr Douglas accepted the casket just weeks before his death.
Mr Douglas had handed over the upper lands of Haylie as a gift to the Town Council for the benefit of the residents and the visitors to Largs, and this was followed after the war, by a gift of the more valuable lower lands, as an expression of thanksgiving for the preservation of his son in the perils of the great war. |
Notes:
• Largs is a town on the Firth of Clyde in North Ayrshire, Scotland, about 33 mi (53 km) from Glasgow.
Research note:
• Is Douglas Street, also in Largs,
named for the same man?
• Haylee and Haylie and presumably one
and the same.
See also:
•
Battle of Largs
|
