Place:Rothesay, Bute, Scotland

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The town of Rothesay is the principal town on the Isle of Bute, in the council area of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It can be reached by ferry from Wemyss Bay which offers an onward rail link to Glasgow. At the centre of the town is Rothesay Castle, a ruined castle which dates back to the 13th century, and which is unique in Scotland for its circular plan. Rothesay lies along the coast of the Firth of Clyde.

The ferry journey from Rothesay pier to the mainland port of Wemyss Bay takes about 45 minutes.

Rothesay Old Parish Registers cover the years 1691 to 1854 for baptisms and marriages. There are no records for deaths or burials. The burial register for Rothesay did not start until 1882.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Rothesay was the county town of the former county of Bute, which included the islands of Great Cumbrae, Little Cumbrae and Arran. The former county buildings, now partially closed down, overlook the castle.

During the Victorian era, Rothesay developed as a popular tourist destination. It became hugely popular with Glaswegians going "doon the watter" (lit: down the water, where the 'water' in question is the Firth of Clyde), and its wooden pier was once much busier with steamer traffic than it is today. Rothesay was also the location of one of Scotland's many hydropathic establishments during the 19th century boom years of the Hydropathy movement. The town also had an electric tramway - the Rothesay and Ettrick Bay Light Railway - which stretched across the island to one of its largest beaches. However, this closed in the mid 1930s. The centre of activities was the Winter Gardens building (built 1923) which played host to some of the best known music hall entertainers of the day.

The bauhaus-inspired pavilion of 1938, stands-out on the seafront.

From the 1960s onwards, with the advent of cheap foreign package holidays, Rothesay's heyday was largely over. The Winter Gardens closed and lay derelict for many years. However in the 1990s, it was redeveloped and is now a tourist information and exhibition centre.

Duke of Rothesay

The heir to the British throne is known as the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland. This practice was begun by Robert III, who regularly resided at Rothesay Castle, and first granted the title to his son David in 1398. The title was given to the heir of the Scottish throne until the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Unlike the equivalent English title of Duke of Cornwall, there is no land attached in the form of a Duchy. The main landowner on the island is the Marquess of Bute, whose principal seat, Mount Stuart, is located a few miles to the south.

Research Tips

• "Buteshire Resource and Information Links" on the Scotland GenWeb site has some very useful onward references.

• GENUKI's introduction to the County of Bute or Buteshire, and the annotated list of Bute's parishes are, for the most part, quotes from 19th century gazetteers, but nonetheless valuable for all that.

• Transcriptions of all the 19th century censuses are available on FreeCen.

• ScotlandsPeople holds indexes and images for all civil births, marriages and deaths, censuses 1841-1911, and for all Old Parish Registers throughout Scotland. It is a pay-per-view site. ScotlandsPeople also holds records of Wills and Testaments and Coats of Arms. Access to this latter part of their website is free.

• From the National Library of Scotland Website is John Arrowsmith's 1875 map of Scotland which can be digitally expanded to a very large scale. This brings up Arran and Bute and the surrounding mainland beautifully. This is one of a very large series of maps on this site which can keep a map-mad genealogist entertained for hours.

• Vision of Britain provides both the topographical Ordnance Survey of Scotland First Series (1856-1887) in black and white, and the Ordnance Survey of Scotland Popular Edition (1928-1945) in colour at a scale of 1:63360, as well as other series of maps covering the whole of the United Kingdom. These maps are wonderful for finding places that have diminished in size over the past 150 years.
• Google maps include Street View for Rothesay's centre and the main roads of the Isle of Bute.