Eastwood
Principal Sources
OSA Vol 18 No 10 1796
The New Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol VII, Edinburgh, 1845:
Eastwood or Pollock pp 33-46, dated 1836
OPS I p 66 Appendix pp 505-6
RMS I App 1 (123) 12 February a.r. 24 David II [1354]
RMS II (3712) 1511-12
RMS III (993) 1530-1
RMS IV (1121) 1556, (1444) 1562-3 on original of 1562, (1674) 1565, (2070) 1572 on originals of 1562 & 1567, (2098) 1572 on original of 1571, (2338) 1574
RMS VI (174) 1594, (705) 1598, (1689) 1606
RMS VII (900) 1613, (1130) 1614
RMS IX (1060) 1642 on original of 1635, (1091, 1108) 1642, (2083) 1649
RSS III (953) 1544, (1381) 1545, (1747, 1750, 1754) 1546, (1906, 1910, 2056-7) 1546
RSS IV (2295) 1553
RSS VI (1663) 1572, (1977) 1573
RSS VII (32) 1574-5
GD3/1/4/9/1 1716
GD3/1/10/41/1 1484
GD3/1/10/71/1 1516
GD3/1/10/73/1 1612
GD3/1/10/74 1543
GD3/1/10/75 1490
GD3/1/10/76/1 1658
GD3/1/1/20/3 1528
GD220/1/F/6/2/5 1511-12
GD220/1/H/2/5/1 1662
GD220/6/1957 1504
GD220/6/1972 1523
GD220/6/1975 1525
GD220/6/1978/1 1529
GD220/6/2034/6 1662
ER XIV p 554 1514
ER XVIII p 390 1545, p 483 1549, p 507 1545
ER XXII pp 509-10 1594-5
Renfrew Retours (17, 18, 20) 1604, (30) 1610, (49) 1619, (107) 1639, (119) 1643, (121) 1645, (155) 1658, (159, 161) 1661, (208) 1608
RS53 ff 9v-10v 1642
RS53 ff 13v-14r 1642
RS53 ff 54r-54v 1642
RS53 ff 54v-55v 1642
The Abbey of Paisley, J Cameron Lees, Paisley, 1878 (hereafter ‘Cameron Lees’).
Crawfurd, G., A Genealogical History of the Royal and Illustrious Family of the Stewarts, from the year 1034 to the Year 1710 …, Edinburgh, 1710. (Hereafter ‘Crawfurd’).
Robertson, G., A general description of the Shire of Renfrew …, Paisley, 1818 (Hereafter ‘Robertson(1818)’). Table of Property p 277.
Descriptions of the Sheriffdoms of Lanark and Renfrew, compiled about 1710 by William Hamilton of Wishaw, Maitland Club, Glasgow, 1831 pp 113-116.
Liber protocollorum M. Cuthberti Simonis (Cuthbert Simon), 1499-1513; eds., Bain, J., & Rogers, C., London, 1875. English abstracts Vol I; Latin text Vol II.
- Campbell, Notes on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Eastwood, Renfrewshire, Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society, pp 26-44, 1896.
Fraser, W., The Cartulary of Pollok-Maxwell, Edinburgh, 1875, contains a large number of entries for Eastwood. See under individual properties.
Fraser, W., Memorials of the Montgomeries, Earls of Eglinton, Edinburgh, 1859, No 95 1515, No 117 1528, No 121 1530-1.
Fraser, W., The Lennox Vol II No 83 1485, No 134 1522
Fraser, W., Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok Vol I, Edinburgh, 1863 No 20 1400, No 55 1486, No’s 63-65 1493, No 68 1494, No 76 1495, No 78 1499, No 82 1504, No 88 1513, No 89 1513, No’s 92-94 1518, No 96 1519, No 97 1520, No 104 1522, No 110 1527, No 122 1536, No 137 1546, No 139 1549, No 155 1574, No 161 1586
The Cartulary of Pollok-Maxwell p 254 refers to a Plan of Hillhead and Henry’s Croft. I have not seen this.
Maps (available via the National Library of Scotland digital Map Library – online)
Pont (33)
Gordon (55)
Blaeu (Renfrew)
Roy (PC & FC)
Richardson (1795)
Ainslie (1796)
Thomson(1826)
There is also a county map produced by Robertson in 1818 (see above).
National Records of Scotland RHP3 includes farm plans for Eastwood. See under Eastwood parish table.
Eastwood is associated with Nether Pollock and it is important to distinguish between Upper and Nether Pollock. (Upper Pollock lies roughly 5½ kilometres to SSW and is situated in the parish of Mearns (q.v.)). Nether Pollock and Eastwood each had their own church and both of them were owned by Paisley Abbey. From the thirteenth century they have been treated as one parish. Auldhouse appears to have been part of the endowment of the church of St Convallus of Pollock.
The issue of Eastwood’s western boundary is complicated. In parts it was the Brocks Burn but there was a sliver of land which reached as far west as the Levern. Following Ainslie’s maps of Renfrew (1796, 1800) and working north from Arthurlee, it appears that Stewart’s Rais was in Paisley; Boghall and Parkhouse were in Nielston; Hole, Saulterland, Wardhill and Slates were in Eastwood; Laveronshiels was Paisley again and Brokenbridge was Eastwood. However, Richardson’s map of 1795 and Thomson’s map of 1826 put Laveronshiels in Eastwood parish. For the Eastwood and Paisley tables I have gone with the latter evidence. Why? Because in 1517 (Fraser, Lennox I, p 337) ‘Leveranescheildis’ was part of the Lennox lordship of Darnley and early parish boundaries often marched with those of great estates.
Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok Vol I, No 20, 1400 refers to Castelbar, Mathowbar and Dykebar which had been acquired from Alexander Tayte in the barony of Renfrew and which ‘sal stand for fyfe markis worth of land’ (shall stand for 5 marks worth of land).
Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok, Vol I, No 68 1494 refers to 5m AE called Dikbar, Castailbar, Mathovbar & Commone which were in the lordship of Neddirpollok. I do not know where Castlebar, Mathewbar and Common were but Dykebar is in Paisley parish (q.v.). Commone probably just means their common grazing land, as in Inchinnan parish.
There is a significant cluster of names including the element bar/barr in the area to west of the Levern and north of Arthurlee. These include Broxbar (Ainslie), Bridgebarr, Carli-barr (Thomson) and Craigiebar (OS 6” 1858). Other such names elsewhere in Paisley parish include Corsbar, Foxbar and Oldbar, while in nearby Nielston there is the now-major settlement of Barrhead. Taken together these names in bar/barr suggest a landscape named at roughly the same time by people speaking the same language. The word bàrr is a Gaelic word signifying the top of something, or a hill. Since none of these hills (Dykebar, Oldbar, Foxbar) are very high it seems likely that bàrr implied a certain type of small hill. The hybrid English/Gaelic forms suggest the term passed into the local vocabulary so that, even after Gaelic died out in Renfrew, it was adopted by English-speakers coining new names. Another place with a significant cluster of names in bàrr is Knapdale in Argyll, but there the context is wholly Gaelic.
Eastwood was once well-wooded. NSA p 33 writes:
Eastwood is … a name obviously derived from the woods that exist in it, one of which, of large extent, covering more than 200 acres, has within these twenty-five years been rooted out, and the ground converted into arable land.
The NSA entry is dated 1836, so the reference is roughly post 1811.
The natural woodland in Eastwood and Cathcart may be reflected in the number of place-names in these parishes which end with the element ‘-lee’. This has long been associated with the Anglo-Saxon word ‘leah’ which can mean a woodland clearing. This issue is further explored in the files dealing with Renfrewshire place-names.
Both Purves and Stewart give Eastwood as £20 (30m) but this was evidently the Montgomery estate only, presumably the old heart of the parish.
The table gives a total of 139¼m in Eastwood parish.
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