Glenbuchat Heritage

1 Inverernan House

Forbes of Inverernan Album

The photographs for is album have kindly been supplied by Tom King a descendant of the family.

The Forbes Family of Inverernan


The passages below give an outline of the Forbes Family at Inverernan

Click for more family details.


From Donean Tourist 1828

‘A little down the stream stands the neat villa of Inverernan, seat of Major Forbes, a branch of the House of Skellater. Alexander was a son to William Forbes of Skellater and received this place as his patrimony in 1680. He married Jane Michie of the House of Lochans issue. Alexander who married Christina Alexander daughter to Alexander of Auchmull. The present villa was erected in 1762 by Mr George Straiton architect. He had issue Captain Alexander, who died in 1819. His daughter married the Rev George Forbes DD of Strathdon Esq of Blelack. Proprietor in 1826, Major Alexander Forbes, who married Margaret F Mitchell from Thainston Arms. Heir apparent Alexander Forbes Esq. Here the Ernan falls into the Don Distance from Aberdeen 46 miles.’

The family of Forbes of descends from Alistair Cam Forbes, youngest brother of the first Lord Forbes. He married about 1409 a. daughter of the Laird of Brux, with whom he got the lands, and secondly a niece of the Earl of Mar. John Forbes of was a celebrated Jacobite, commonly called Black-Jock, who was baron bailie for Kildrummy to the Earl of Mar about 1666, and who died in Carlisle Prison in 1716, the night before his proposed execution, of wounds received at Seriffmuir in 1715.

General Sir John Forbes, descendant of Black-Jock and father of Major Gordon Drummond Forbes, served in the Afghan campaign of 1840, in Sind in 1845-4, in Persia, in 1856 (where he was severely wounded and recommended for the V.C.), and in the Indian Mutiny, when he was mentioned in despatches and promoted lieutenant colonel. General Forbes was present at the battle of Solferino with the staff of the King of Italy. He afterwards commanded the North and Mhow Divisions of the Bombay army. He died in 1906, and was succeeded in the estates by Mr George Forbes, the second surviving son. Major Forbes’ mother was a. daughter of Colonel Adam Drummond, the third son of Admiral Sir Adam Drummond of Megginch Castle, Perthshire, and Lady Charlotte, daughter of the fourth Duke of Atholl.

After the Forbes family, the house seemed to come into the hands of H.J. Tennant who had previously bought Edinglassie House. In 1934 if was sold to the Wallace family who owned Candacraig and was the residence of Mr. A.L.P.F. Wallace and it was also to be used as the dower house for Candacraig. About 1980 it was sold to Sylvia and Andrew Lawson-Johnston and finally to its present owners about 2012.

An interesting reflection on the stature of the members of the Forbes family is reported in the ‘Records of Invercauld.’

A curious coincidence has recently occurred in connection with the above-mentioned family of Forbes of Bellabeg. The elder brother of John Forbes of Bombay (Uncle of Sir Charles Forbes) was the Rev. George Forbes; the grandson of the latter, General Sir John Forbes of Inverernan, was on 3rd June, 1899, awarded the Grand Cross (Military) of the Order of the Bath.

An elder sister of the same John Forbes, Anne, married James Gordon of Croughly in Kirkmichael, Banffshire; her grandson, Lieut.-General Benjamin Lumsden Gordon, was on the same day, 3rd June, 1899, appointed a Knight Commander (Military) of the same Order.

Another elder sister of the same John Forbes, Isobel, married, as appears from these Tullochcoy papers, Peter Farquharson of Tullochcoy ; her great-grandson, Colonel John Farquharson of Corrachrce, was on the same day, 3rd June, 1899, appointed a Knight Commander (Civil) of the same Order.

Considering the very small number of these distinctions (G.C.B. and K.C.B.) which fall to be annually distributed, and the very large number of naval, military, and civil servants of Her Majesty, as well as of distinguished persons in private life, who have claims to receive them, it is somewhat remarkable that three of them should on one and the same day fall to the descendants of a brother and two sisters of a family settled more than one hundred years ago in a remote corner of Aberdeenshire.

Two of the above officers still remain locally connected with the north ; Sir John Forbes having inherited from his mother, a descendant of the old Skellater line, the estate of Inverernan, in Strathdon, while Col. Farquharson has inherited from his uncle, Lieut.-Col. John Farquharson, a grandson of Peter Farquharson of Tullochcoy, the estate of Corrachree, in Logie-Coldstone