Glen Finart

The name is derived from Glenfinart Estate and the word Glenfinart is taken from the gaelic "Glen Fineard" meaning Gathering Place.

The Glen Finart Deer Park was originally the estate home farm and contained some two hundred acres of arable and hill grazing.

The population at the time was in the region of 200/250 (in the Glen Finart/Ardentinny area), occupied as estate, household and farm workers with their families.

Glenfinart Forest stretches some seven miles from Gairletter Point on Loch Long to near Carrick Castle on Loch Goil. The now known forest area is part of what used to be, in the 18th century, the estates of the Earls Dunsmore which occupied most of this almost peninsular land, bounded by Lochs Long and Goil to the south, the Holy Loch to the east. and in the north by Loch Eck.

The various woodlands on Glenfinart Estate would seem to date around 1800-1862 with the bulk of the woods being planted by the Earls Dunsmore with other small plantations added by the Douglas family.

Changing hands through the years, the area was gradually reduced to smaller estates, until 1860, when the then Glenfinart Estates which contained lands bounded by Gairletter Point on Loch Long, to Whistlefield on Loch Eck, and Carrick Castle on Loch Goil was sold in lots, much of it in the 1920's. The total area amounted to about 13670 acres.