Black Bull Hotel, Milngavie.

[Dany Nicholas]

Hello all,
I have just become a member after stumbling across an old, 2006, post on here entitled "Anybody know Milngavie", about the Black Bull Hotel. I was amazed to find one of your members ran this establishment for 17 years and mentions the Best family who owned/ran it from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. John Best Contractor in Leith, my GG Grandfather, apparently built an extension to the hotel for his half brother Francis Best hence the initals JB and a small iron black horse which I am told are still above the M&S store which it has now become.
Due to the family tree I have been growing for some 5 years now, I am in contact with 5x G Granddaughter of Francis Best. We would both be very interested in any old photos or information on the Best family and the Black Bull, to add to our trees.

So pleased to have found this site, I think it`s brilliant.

Regards Dany

[Lorna Allison]

Hello Dany

I will be happy to share information on the Black Bull with you. As you have noted we were there for 17 years from 1966 to 1983. At that time Milngavie Week was a very big deal and in 1977 we decided to put on a Milngavie Retrospective exhibition in the old dining room which had once served as the local law court. While researching for that we discovered that by some official licensing date (I think) the hotel was 150 years old that year so that sent the pulses racing and we did dig up old photos and info about the Best family. Of course the Black Bull had been a drover's halt since about the 1500s apparently.

The upshot of it all was the renaming of the lounge bar to "The Best Bar", the donation of all photos and negatives to the archives of Bearsden Public Library and an amazing amount of publicity

A new extension with a very attractive dining room and cocktail bar had been built before we came and during construction an ancient well was discovered which was beautifully integrated into the downstairs reception area and glassed over. On one occasion the beer pipes to the public bar sprung aleak and the well developed a wonderful head of beer foam. Bet the drovers would have like that

Well, I think the best way forward is for you to pm me and I shall arrange for copies of the info which we still have. By the way we actually met up with the last surviving daughter of the 9 Best girls. She was in her nineties then and living with her daughter.

Look forward to being of some help.

Regards

Lorna

[Dany Nicholas]

Thank you so much Lorna will pm you with the info

[Charles McIvor]

Hi Dany

I have just stumbled upon this site whilst I was looking for information on the Black Bull.

I am a great grandson of Francis Best - my grandmother was Ellen Best, one of Francis Best's many children.

In the mid 1970s my mother was informed that there was a photograph in the Best Bar purporting to show all of Francis Best's daughters but my mother knew that two of the people in the photograph were hotel staff. My mother contacted the then owners of the hotel to advise them of this and as a result my parents were invited to visit the hotel and were able to add information about the Best family that the then current owners did not know.

I am in possession of Francis Best's family bible which records births and deaths of his offspring. If you are still researching the family tre I can hopefully provide you with information.

Francis Best's grandchildren were a close group, but sadly this is not the case with the 'great grandchildren generation.

I note that you are in contact with 5 fellow great grandchildren.

I am only in contact with 2 fellow great grandchildren and both are the issue of my mother's brother.

I do know of the existence of other great grandchildren, but I do not have a exhaustive note of them all.

If you are looking for further information I will try and provide it to you.