Lennoxlove House

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Lennoxlove, a seat of Lord Blantyre, in Haddington parish, Haddingtonshire, 1 ¼ mile S of Haddington town. Anciently called Lethington, it belonged to the Maitland family from 1345, and was the birth-place of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale (1616-82), and long the chief residence of him and of other members of the line. About the beginning of the 18th century it passed by sale to Alexander, Lord Blantyre, and was named by him Lennoxlove in honour of the Duchess of Lennox, who gave him the means of purchasing it. It is partly a building of high antiquity, its square tower (80 feet high, with walls from 10 to 13 feet in thickness) being unsurpassed in strength and height by any similar structure in Scotland. A Latin inscription over the massive N door of grated iron records that this tower was improved in 1626 by John Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale. In Haddingtonshire Lord Blantyre holds 2953 acres, valued at £6421 per annum.—Ord. Sur., sh. 33, 1863. See Erskine and John Small's Castles and Mansions of the Lothians (Edinb. 1883).

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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