The Gardens of Troup: From Gardenstown to Jakarta

We've recently been rearranging and carrying out mroe detailed cataloguing on the Garden of Troup collection, which we have held since the 1980s.

The Garden family acquired the lands of Troup, on the Banffshire coast, in the mid-17th century and it remained in the family’s hands through to the 20th century. The Gardens lived at a successive series of Troup Houses, the latest of which was built in 1897.  

Photograph of Troup House, c. 1930s (DD21/1/2/2)

 One of the family’s members, Alexander Garden, founded the village of Gardenstown on the estate in the early 18th century. In addition to this Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone, developed Laurencekirk in Kincardineshire as a planned village in the 1760s and 1770s. The family also owned estates at Glenlyon in Perthshire and Pitsligo in Aberdour, Aberdeenshire.  

Gardenstown Harbour notice of Bye-laws and Regulations, c. 1893 (DD21/5/5/3)

The family’s archive collection includes records relating to the running of the family’s estates as well as the operation of the harbour at Gardenstown. Estate records include rentals recording the names of tenants on the estates, leases, plans and fishing rentals. The harbour records range from plans, notices and byelaws concerning the running of the harbour, and registers of vessels. Recording the boat’s name, master and cargo, the registers provide evidence of the fortunes of Gardenstown’s herring fishing industry.   

Page from the Gardenstown Harbour Register of Vessels, 1898 (DD21/5/1/2)

There is also a long petition roll put together by local fishermen asking the Gardens to repair the harbour in 1884. Containing around 200 signatures, the petition must have been signed by the vast majority of the village’s male residents. The harbour was eventually transferred to the ownership of a Harbour Trust in 1911 by Act of Parliament.  

Fishermen’s petition unrolled at the archives, 1884 (DD21/5/3/4)

There are also a few personal items from Garden family members in the collection, including a journal relating to the 18th century sea voyages of Peter Garden of Delgaty, who travelled to Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia, then part of the Dutch East Indies) in the 1740s, and then back to the Netherlands in 1761.  

Page from log book of the Augusta (DD21/4/1)

The volume is written as a log for the ship Augusta and contains an insight into sea travel at the time, as well as the business of the East India Company and Garden’s ownership of slaves in the Dutch East Indies.   You can read more about this volume in an earlier blog post: https://aberdeenarchives.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-ship-augusta.html.

Katy Kavanagh, Archivist