Joinery

Having a strong heritage in furniture making it is no surprise that Lochwinnoch had a number of joinery businesses. A prominent figure in this area was Ian Connell. You can see from the invoice below the business was established in 1764 during that time the village was transitioning from a small isolated community to a thriving industrial centre.

Ian was the last and eighth generation to run the business. He died in December 1997 leaving a son (Johnny) and daughter (Anna). The business closed in 1990/91 when Ian retired. Johnny married a local girl, Anne Casey whose mother had a haberdashery shop next to the bank, and they emigrated to Australia (Brisbane) in 1991 where they still live. Anna moved to London for a number of years but has since returned to the village with her husband.

I have two photographs of Ian, one is a view of his back (!!!) taken when he was surveying the fire damage to his wood store at the rear of his workshop in May 1984. Ian is on the right. And the other is in the collection of travel card photographs when he posed for his bus pass.

Prior to retirement Ian Connell won the contract to build the houses in John Gregor Place. This is of significance to me as before I left the village I lived at No 7 John Gregor Place. As a young lad at the time of their construction I remember watching Johnny working on the site (1965?). In 1988 Ian won a £70,000 contract as the main contractor to refurbish the Mauchline branch of Royal Bank of Scotland. Ian and his family used to live at Braevar but prior to retirement he built Nos 42 & 44 Calder Street, Ian moved into No.42 and Johnny No.44. This was the vacant site between the Cooperative buildings and the cottages at the top of the Mill Brae. On Ian’s retirement in 1990/91 so ended “Robert Connell Joiner” after 227 years.

In the time of Robert Connell (1858-1921), Ian's grandfather, the business was located at 15 Calderhaugh, in the last building on the left-hand side as you approach the bridge, see below.

In early 1900 he had premises in Church Street which were advertised as Joiner and Undertaker. By 1915 he owned numbers 26, 28, 30 & 32 (“Mossneuk”) in Church Street plus the Calderhaugh workshop. In 1935 the workshop is relocated to Calder Street under the auspices of his son Robert Love Connell (1886-15th Aug 1961). This probably coincided with the demolition of the Calderhaugh premises. The Calder Street premises are shown below. The photograph was taken in 1978. The property is now a residential building and Ian's daughter Anna currently lives there. 

The invoice above is for an extensive piece of work carried out for a Mr Japp who lived at 251 London Road, Glasgow prior to the renovations being carried out. He inherited No. 8 Factory Close around 1894 and proceeded to have extensive improvements made to the property. It had new plumbing (Gavin McGhie), the thatched roof was replaced with slates (John Eadie) painting was carried out by William Guy and dormer windows were also fitted. Mr Japp was related to a family called Murry. His widow who died in 1909 made provision for the residue of her estate to pass to Miss Isabella Murry who became the wife of Hamilton Robb. In 1928 No 8 Factory Close was formally given over to Mrs Robb. Johnny Mair through masonic records confirmed a Thomas Japp was living at Factory Street in 1898. Thomas and Robert Japp are listed as a blacksmith. No address is given for Robert other than Lochwinnoch.

Within my collection of old Lochwinnoch photographs I have a picture of the above work being carried out by Robert Connell at both 6 and 8 Factory Close (see below). Given the date of the invoices (1894) this photograph may be one of the oldest photographs with a reasonably confirmed date that I have of Lochwinnoch. It is worth remembering that photography was only developed (pardon the pun) during 1800-1850.

No 6 was occupied by Willie Millar who was a trustee for Mrs Japp and a photograph of him is included in the article about the gale that blew down Joseph Johnstone’s factory. The four dormers installed on Nos 6&8 are partially constructed and a tradesman can be seen atop the ladder. Could he be Robert Connell? We will never know, would be nice to think it is. Slates are stacked on the pavement ready for John Eadie to do his thing. The invoices from Robert Connell and John Eadie are shown in the montage below.

I came across the advert below which might suggest that Robert Connell may also have had some musical talent being given the responsibility to review applications for an organist and choirmaster. That musical talent may have passed down the generations because Ian Connells daughter Anna went for piano lesson from Mrs Warden in Harvey Cottages. I remember Ian taking us both up to Glasgow to sit a theory exam. One of these things your parents “force” you to do and now you regret not sticking at it. Wonder if Anna did? I recently met with Anna and like me she did not!

There were many other joinery firms in Lochwinnoch over the years. John Andrew had a small chair factory in one of the Calderpark mill buildings that survived the fire in 1874. This building was burned to the ground on Wednesday 19th  July 1899 throwing 20-30 workers out of work. Similarly Joseph Johnstone started out in one of these buildings before constructing purpose build premises. Robert Stewart had a small Cabinet and Chair making operation in the High Street and you’ve probably guessed what happened, destroyed by fire on 27th May 1908.

James Love and Sons had a joinery business located behind 37 Main Street. They were weel kent to Lochwinnoch folk of my fathers generation. With the help of Allan Love Jnr and his daughter Fiona who are the grandson and great granddaughter of the founder I have compiled this short family biography. Fiona posted on facebook the photograph below of the family taken sometime around 1930.

Margaret 55, (08-63), Alan 72, (01-73), Elizabeth 90, (05-95) James 58, (03-61) Catherine 90, (13-03)

William 77, (99-76), Catherine 96, (65-61), James 65, (66-31),  Mary 71, (98-69)

Amongst my Dad’s collection of old Lochwinnoch photographs some of which make up pbthecairn were two boxes of slides given to him by Alan Love Snr son of the founder of James Love and Sons. The montage of three photographs below has Alan Love Snr in the doorway of their house on Church Street. It was taken in April 1964. Back right is Allan jnr, the founders grandson. Jean, Alan Snr’s wife is front left and Bruce, visiting from New Zealand, the grandson of Jean’s brother Charles is front right. My collection has two other photographs of folk in the 1930 family group. Cathrine the founders wife is listed in the Past Generations gallery as Mrs Jas Love, Church Street October 1953, 87 yrs old. The other is her daughter Cathrine posing with the hockey team at the Big School (middle row 3rd from left). The photograph was not dated but she looks cica 12/14 making it 1925/27.

James Love was born in Beith in 1866. It’s a strange thing how so many Lochwinnoch joiners all came from Beith – Joseph Johnstone and Hunter, Hamilton and Crawford. James purchased Square House 29th December 1909. He formed James Love and Sons on 2nd June 1928 with his three sons as partners. After his death the business was registered to the boys and was sold on 1st January 1965 to the Moore brothers, Raymond and Tom, who worked for them. There is a photograph of Raymond in the Calderhaugh gallery in the demolition section. The yard was located behind 37 Main Street which is adjacent to the Brown Bull pub. David Moore, the son of one of the brothers, was in my class at school and lived at No 37.

James Love was trading as a builder prior to 1928. By 1928 his sons were in their mid 20’s, had served their time and were sufficiently qualified to join in partnership with their father. William and Alan were joiners, James was the bricklayer and Alan also provided estimates for work and hired extra hands as required. Gilbert Fisher, The Hut Man, who featured in one of our Bitsize articles had his house built by the Loves.

Although the family is associated with Church Street they originally lived at the Strype on the Johnshill. I’ll say more about the Strype in a future article. This is where Alan jnr believes the business was originally started from.

Not only were the Loves well known in their own right the children married some of the other prominent familes in the village. Mary, the eldest, married William Johnstone, Joseph Johnstones eldest son (see the articles in Furniture Making). They had two boys, Joseph, known as Alistair in the family, and Alan. William married Mary Hardy who was a school teacher in the village. They had two daughters, Anna who married William Struthers (Bill – see the Article on Struthers) and Cathy who married a John Lee. James married Margaret McLellar (sister-in-law to Betty). There is a photograph of Margaret in the item on Betty McKellar. They had three children, Mary, James (who worked in the business) and Catherine. Elizabeth married George Brown a school teacher and lived on the Johnshill. They had a son George who became an electrical engineer. Margaret married Alex Calderwood and had a son called James. Catherine married William Walker and lived in the village but had no children. Four of the grandchildren are still with us, Cathy, Mary, Allan and Catherine. In the Family Gallery of the Folk Section of the website is a Love family group taken in 1965 with a number of the above people in the photograph.

Of the founders children that leaves Alan snr. Fiona posted a photograph of her grandfathers wedding day in 1941 shown below. Their son James was born 7th November 1942. Her gran, Jean Logan, was born in 1902 and died in 1994. She didn't marry till she was 42 because she didn't want to interfere with her career as a hospital Matron. She survived long enough to enjoy the first great grand child and even knitted for her. Alan snr pre-deceased his wife and died in 1972. They had one son Alan Jnr. Alan became a research chemist and worked in Canada and the US before returning to England. And that leaves one last person, Fiona Love Roper. I found the one below of a (very) young, in fact 2 year old, Fiona Love Roper with mum, dad, grandpa and grandma taken in Ontario, Canada.