A Mere Bagatelle
by Margaret Kane
Bagatelle is a beautiful house on Eldon St, Greenock. Run as a nursing home nowadays by the Medical Aid Society, it has a long and interesting history.
It was built by James Hunter Robertson, in 1831, youngest son of George Robertson, who built the Tontine. Bagatelle was modelled on the Villa de Bagatelle, Bois de Boulogne, Paris, France. There is an anecdote, however, that Lady Shaw Stewart of the Mansion House was asked, was she not jealous of the house and it's position? She supposedly replied, “It's a mere bagatelle” (Bagatelle - meaning A trifle - a decorative nothing!”).
Villa de Bagatelle
James, a teller in the Bank of Greenock, married Helena Macauley in Co. Antrim in 1832. They had three children, all born in Bagatelle before the house was destroyed by fire in 1843.
It was rebuilt and sold to a Dr. Walter Washington Buchanan, a retired doctor who had spent his working life in America but whose parents came from Greenock. He had studied Medicine at Glasgow University, qualifying in1793.
He married Annabella Brownlie in Greenock in 1803 and, as his name suggests, he was a Godson of George Washington.
James, then in his 40s, and married with a young family, went off to Edinburgh to study medicine. I like to think that Dr. Buchanan encouraged him to follow his dream. James qualified and went on to have a very lucrative and successful practise in Liverpool, dying in 1893 aged 90. His obituary in the Greenock Telegraph tells us that he was a man of ‘fine appearance, gentlemanly manners and well liked’.
Walter died in 1862 and sadly their son James only two years later, Annabella having died ten years earlier The house then passed to their eldest surviving grandson, Walter Washington Buchanan Rodger, son of Eliza Buchanan and her husband, Alexander Rodger.
Walter then lived at Bagatelle till his death in 1907 and many improvements were made during that time.
Provost Roger & Family
The whole Rodger family moved to Bagatelle. Walter was only about 16 at the time. He became a civil engineer and married his cousin, Emma Amelia Rodger, in America and they had two daughters and three sons.
He was a member of the school board and the Council, becoming Provost in 1889/1890. He was a member of St. Paul's Church and a Master of Kilwinning No 12.
He was very proud to be the owner of Bagatelle and loved living there.
After Walter's death, Emma Amelia stayed on till about 1915 when sadly, like so many others, she lost her youngest son, Lt. Walter Washington Buchanan Rodger at Galipoli, age 20.
Her son Charles Finch had died in 1903 and William, had disappeared into “the wide blue yonder” so after the first world war, Olive Clark Rodger, her daughter, moved in with her husband, James Reid Kerr, and family and lived there till the Government commissioned Bagatelle for the 1939-1945 war effort for the princely sum of £800 – coach house excepted!!!
Churchill made many important decisions in a little attic room there, so I heard, from a friend whose sister-in-law was in the W.A.A.F and worked at Bagatelle. She often opened the door to Churchill and all she got was a whiff of his cigar as he passed her muttering, “Damned country;damned rain!”
Greenock and rain aye gang thegither!
After the war, the NHS took it over as an x-ray unit and a pharmacy and the rest, as they say, is history!!