Winton Castle, a mansion in Pencaitland parish, Haddingtonshire, on the left bank of Tyne Water, in a large and finely-wooded park, near Winton station on the Macmerry branch of the North British railway, and 3 miles SE of Tranent. Built by the third Earl of Winton in 1620, it is a striking architectural structure, 'in many respects a work of original genius,' and, though following the Tudor style in its stacks of columned chimneys and in the decorated architraves of its windows, is quite distinguishable from that era. Additions made about 1805 in the English Baronial style were destroyed by fire on 7 May 1881, the damage being estimated at over £7000. In the interior the fretted ceilings of the drawing-room and `King Charles's room' are worthy of special notice. The Winton estates, forfeited by the fifth Earl of Winton in 1716, were sold to the York Buildings Company, and on its failure part of the property, including Winton Castle, was acquired by James Hamilton, Lord Pencaitland, whose great great-granddaughter, Mary Campbell, in 1813 married James, sixth Lord Ruthven (1777-1853), and died in 1885. She held 2875 acres in the shire, valued at £4663 per annum.—Ord. Sur., sh. 33, 1863. See Seton; vol. iv. of Billings' Baronial Antiquities (1852); and vol. ii. of John Small's Castles and Mansions of the Lothians (1883).
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