inscribed " Wallace's Cave Falls of the Clyde Lanark" a page from an album inscribed in the frontispage "F W Staines 3 Uplands St Leonards on Sea"
Amelia Jackson, Nee Staines (1842 – 1925) and thence by descent
While hardly on the scale of their Victoria or Niagra counterparts, these torrents of water provided the inspiration for a raft of painters, JMW Turner, Jacob More, Alexander Nasmyth and Alasdair Gray included. They also featured in the writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott and William Wordsworth, the last describing its highest waterfall as “the Clyde’s most majestic daughter”. A fugitive William Wallace, meanwhile, is said to have found refuge in a cave behind Corra Linn. The cave area where William Wallace took refuge after the Scots’ defeat by the English led by Edward I in the Battle of Falkirk in 1298. This was a major battle in the First War of Scottish Independence. This defeat led to Wallace resigning as ‘Guardian of Scotland’, and after the battle he sheltered in this cave to hide from the English army. There are some more recent carvings on the walls of the cave – see if you can find them.
Francis William Staines was the last of a family of merchants from the City of London. Not only was he a successful businessman but he possessed a large independent fortune, such that he could devote his time to the cultivation of his talents in music and art. He was a brilliant amateur violinist, and also loved to spend much of his time painting. His daughter Amelia and her mother accompanied Mr Staines as he travelled throughout the country finding subjects for his painting. One area of the country that they visited frequently was Scotland and the Lake District, and Amelia grew particularly fond of the dramatic landscape of the Fells. Skelwith Bridge with the view of the hills around it 43 was one of her father’s favourite scenes. He painted landscapes and maritime paintings , exhibited 11 works at the RA including views on the Italian Coast, address in London, Hastings and St Leonards on Sea Susssex.