When Roseneath Castle was blown up with 200 pounds of gelignite in 1961, a physical remnant of a breed’s history vanished off the face of the earth.

Certainly, the building had to go. Built between 1803 and 1805 to replace an earlier castle, the structure was unsafe and in danger of collapsing at any time. Still, the Castle had a storied history both as a structure, and because of “Roseneath,” the land on which it sat.

In the 15th century, Roseneath was annexed by the Crown, and in 1490, King James IV granted the lands to Colin Campbell, the First Earl of Argyll. This was how Roseneath came into the possession of the most powerful of the Highland clans, the Campbells, and there it stayed until 1941.

George John Douglas Campbell, the 8th Duke of Argyll, lived at Roseneath Castle. An amateur scientist, the Duke had a keen interest in ornithology, and was one of the first people to explain the principles of bird flight. He also had an interest in dogs, and the white terriers he bred at the castle were named for the residence, Roseneath Terriers.

In time, the Roseneath Terrier would have a role in the ancestry of today’s West Highland White Terrier, a breed that exists to the credit of Col. Edward Donald Malcolm, the 16th Laird of Poltalloch, and a contemporary of the 8th Duke. Malcolm, too, was developing his own breed, the Poltalloch Terrier. History doesn’t tell us if Malcolm and Campbell worked together, but one would be hard pressed to read up on the Westie’s history and find one name without mention of the other.

Neither do we know what the exact role was of the Roseneath Terrier in the Westie’s ancestry. Many sources simply write that the Roseneath Terrier was another name for the West Highland White Terrier, but others mention that Campbell’s dogs were a different strain of the same breed. In reality, there were fanciers who followed the breeders, owned their dogs, and likely crossed the different lines. Here we must mention Mr. America Edwin Flaxman from Fife was also developing “Pittenweem Terriers,” dogs out of a female Scottish Terrier who consistently produced white offspring.

In 1903, Malcolm made it clear that he didn’t want to be known as the creator of the Poltalloch Terriers, and insisted that his white terriers be renamed the “West Highland White Terrier,” the moniker first appearing in Otters and Otter Hunting by L.C.R. Cameron, published in 1908. Four years earlier, a breed club had been formed, and its first president was by now a familiar name to us – the Duke of Argyll.

We thought Westie folks might like to see the building that was part of their breed’s history.

Visit this link for more photographs and information about the castle.

Thumbnail image of Roseneath Terriers photographed in 1899 comes from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia