Callendar, an estate, with a mansion, in Falkirk parish, Stirlingshire. The mansion, standing ¾ mile ESE of Falkirk town, amid finely wooded grounds, is an ancient edifice with very thick walls and antique turrets, and was formerly surrounded by a deep fosse, but has been greatly modernised. Queen Mary visited it; Cromwell stormed and captured it; General Monk made it his home during the stay of his troops in Scotland; Prince Charles Edward slept in it, 14 Sept. 1745; and General Hawley breakfasted at it with the Countess of Kilmarnock on the morning of his rout at Falkirk, 17 Jan. 1746; whilst at it Queen Victoria changed horses on her first visit to Scotland, 13 Sept. 1842. The estate was given, in 1246, by Alexander II. to Malcolm de Callenter, and passed, in the reign of David Bruce, to Sir William Livingstone. To his descendant it gave the title of Earl in 1641; and coming along with that title, in 1695, to the Earl of Linlithgow, was forfeited, in 1716, by James, fourth Earl of Callendar and fifth of Linlithgow for his share in the '15. It was sold in 1720 to the York Buildings Company, in 1783 to William Forbes, Esq., a London merchant, whose grandson and namesake, the present proprietor (b. 1833; suc. 1855), owns 13,041 acres in the shire, valued at £16,215 per annum, including £3419 for minerals. The sum paid for it by Mr Forbes was £85,000, or not much more than half the value of the mere timber on it. Five splendid limes are in front of the mansion; a magnificent avenue of planes on the E leads to a lochlet full of aquatic vegetation; and deep forest glades are all around. The mausoleum of the Forbes family, a circular structure, with 12 fluted Doric columns, surmounted by a massive dome, is in one of the leafiest nooks of the park. A portion of Antoninus' Wall also, in a state of striking preservation, is on the estate.—Ord. Sur. sh. 31,1867.
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