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Wednesday, 04/Feb/2009
Laggan Farm Then and Now
In December 2008 Tim Helmer contacted me and my readers for some help about his Grandmother's old family home, Laggan Farm near Bowmore. He provided a link to his A Brief History of Mine page with some old pictures of the house. Paul from the Basildon Malt Whisky Circle visited Islay in January 2009 and was so kind to take a few pictures he allowed me to share. To start with here's a composite picture I created from the old and new images:
The first of Tim's old pictures shows what looked like the front elevation of a smaller house, which actually turned out to be the west elevation (facing the sea) of a much bigger building. The house doesn't seem to have changed much over the years, at least not from this end. The fence and the statue (?) outside of the building seem to have gone.
Looking at the current picture from Paul the main additions seem to be the extension (conservatory / sun lounge) on the right and what looks like a chimney at the gable. The windows have been replaced with modern versions, but apart from that not much has changed. So how about the farm, how does that compare? The changes here seem to be a bit bigger than on the western elevation:
While the main house seems to have seen only fairly few alterations (the already mentioned chimney, also there are additional windows in the eastern wing of the building) some of the outbuildings seem to have changed significantly. The building just right of centre seems to have been replaced by a newer building and the two buildings on the right seem to have merged into one longer building.
I hope you found this interesting, if you have any further information please share it in the comments.