Crossroads and Characters

9. THE TENTH LORD ROLLO.

It was in the hands of this man, John Rogerson Rollo, tenth Lord Rollo, that the family estate of Duncrub grew to its greatest size.

His family had already been the dominant landowners in Dunning Parish for close to five centuries.

When William the Conqueror came to England with his Norman troops in 1066, the Secretary accompanying him was one Eric de Rollo, said to be of the same Norman/Danish lineage as William himself. Eric de Rollo's descendants moved to Scotland, and in 1380 one of them, John de Rollo, received from the crown grants of land in and about Dunning.

The Rollo family head was raised to the peerage in 1651. His successors soon experienced bumpy times. In 1691, the heir was murdered. And in the Jacobite uprising of 1715-16, the murdered heir's brother, the fourth Lord Rollo, was an enthusiastic fighter for the losing Jacobite cause. In fact when the retreating Highlanders burned the villages and farms of Strathearn in January, 1716, the 300 Jacobite troops who set fire to much of Dunning were billeted at the Rollo Estate of Duncrub. When the rebellion was crushed, Lord Rollo submitted to the government and was pardoned. What villagers who had lost their homes felt about their 'Superior' is not recorded.

By the time John Rogerson Rollo arrived on the scene, Dunning was at its most prosperous as a weaving and market centre. When he was just 17, his father died, and on his coming of age he inherited the estate and held the titles until his death in 1916 at age 81.

His great accomplishments for the family were the acquisition of several nearby estates and farms, notably Keltie, and the construction of a splendid mansion house at Duncrub.