About

Today, the 4000-acre estate is run by the Josephine Marshall Trust (named after a great-granddaughter of original owners, Tom and Everest Macdonald) and comprises two working livestock farms, a nine-acre open garden, a self-catering cottage, and a range of renewable energy sources including Beinn Ghlas Windfarm and two hydro-electric schemes.

"If we knew that but to-morrow stood
Between us and the end, should we not turn
To gaze anew upon the hill and wood,
The heather and the little eager burn
Winding between the crumbling banks of peat,
A distant eagle ranging out of sight?
Or golden plover whirling ... and meet,
That on our heart might be engraved that sight?"
Everest Macdonald née Lewin (1931) 

Glen Lonan was settled in Mesolithic times (9000 – 3000 BC) by hunter gatherers.  Subsequently, Iberian people (Celts) arrived in the West of Scotland by way of Ireland, in about 500 BC.  They were the "Scoti” or “Scots”, bringing with them the Gaelic language.

Thereafter, Glen Lonan became well-populated. A number of forts (or “Duns”) were established in the glen as places of last retreat, each one on a height commanding a good view of the surrounding area.  One of these forts was situated on a prominent height up the hill behind Barguillean Farmhouse and slightly to the West.  It may have been built at this spot in order to command a "choke point" – the three-way junction, where the trackway through the glen from Loch Etive-side (in modern Taynuilt) met the separate trackway which runs past Gorstain (pronounced “Gors-chen”) to Balindeor (“Ballin-jore”). The glen running towards Gorstain and Balindeor was known as “Glen Luachragan” – "the rushy glen" - and is thought to have contained the farmlands of the fort and to have been inhabited by those who would retreat into the fort as a last resort.  The name of the next fort along the glen to the West survives in the name of the nearby house – “Duntanachan”.
 
The ancient names of two other forts in the Taynuilt area have survived – both named after famous Celtic women – Deirdre's fort and Muriell's fort.  But the ancient name of the fort at Barguillean is unknown. One theory is that it was named after a Celtic male hero by the name of "Gol", which in the genitive case in Gaelic becomes "Guil".  It is possible that this was his fort.  "Barr" means "height” or “top”; so Barguillean could have meant “The height of Gol" and been the name of the fort.   

A less romantic explanation is that Barguillean means “Height of the young lads”, “guillean” being cognate with the Gaelic “gille” (“boy”, as in the term “ghilly”).  We were tickled to find that Google translate renders “Barr Ghillean” as “top guys” in English!