Lennoxlove House

Coordinates: 55°56′20″N 2°46′40″W / 55.9389°N 2.7778°W / 55.9389; -2.7778
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Lennoxlove House
Lennoxlove, with the original tower house of Lethington in the foreground
Coordinates55°56′20″N 2°46′40″W / 55.9389°N 2.7778°W / 55.9389; -2.7778
Listed Building – Category A
Official nameLennoxlove House or Lethington
Designated5 February 1971
Reference no.LB10814
Official nameLennoxlove (Lethington)
CriteriaHistorical
Architectural
Designated1 July 1987
Reference no.GDL00259
Lennoxlove House is located in East Lothian
Lennoxlove House
Location in East Lothian

Lennoxlove House is a historic house set in woodlands half a mile south of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. The house comprises a 15th-century tower, originally known as Lethington Castle, and has been extended several times, principally in the 17th, 19th and 20th centuries. The house is protected as a category A listed building, and is described by Historic Scotland as "one of Scotland's most ancient and notable houses."[1] The wooded estate is included on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland, the national listing of significant gardens.[2]

It is now the seat of the

Duke of Hamilton and Brandon
.

History

The lands of Lethington were acquired by Robert Maitland of Thirlestane in 1345. The Maitland family constructed the earliest part of the building, the

Chancellor of Scotland, at Lethington on 28 April 1593 to persuade him to return to court.[3]

In 1674, Lennoxlove is said to have been the first Scottish estate to practice

"enclosure", dividing the ground into evenly sized rectangular fields.[4]

The coach house was built around 1676, to designs by

Sir William Bruce.[1] Lethington remained in the Maitland family until after the death of John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale (1616–1682) who was born there.[5] Rooms were furnished for his second wife, Elizabeth Maitland, Duchess of Lauderdale. In 1674, her silk lined bedchamber included Indian satin curtains, an Indian screen, and an Indian cabinet. A closet room had a couch with Indian taffeta curtains.[6]

Lennoxlove

The property was purchased by the trustees of

Prestonkirk. Their younger son, Major William Baird, commissioned the architect Sir Robert Lorimer
to oversee extensive refurbishment of the house in 1912.

Lennoxlove is now the seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, having been purchased by the 14th Duke in 1946. It is open to the public during the summer, accommodates corporate events and weddings, and can be rented privately by groups.

Lennoxlove Book Festival

This festival was started in November 2009, and it is being continued in November 2010.[citation needed]

South façade of Lennoxlove House

Art collection

Lennoxlove is home to one of Scotland's most important collections of portraits, including works by

Boulle cabinet given to the Duchess by King Charles II and a silver jewellery box that belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, that purportedly held the Casket letters showing her complicity in the murder of Lord Darnley, together with her death mask. There is also the map and compass carried by Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, who flew to Scotland in 1941 on a mission to involve the 14th Duke of Hamilton in helping negotiate peace between Britain and Germany
.

The very rare and important 17-piece Lennoxlove

Frances Teresa Stuart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox (1647-1702). The pieces come from a number of different makers and years, and the service was assembled around 1672.[7]

In literature

Pamela M. King has attributed the poem Lethington (No. 68 in the 'Maitland Quarto') to Marie Maitland (c.1550 - 1596). She suggests that, as one of Sir Richard's younger children, Marie could still have been living at Lethington Castle, the family home, when it was confiscated in 1571 following her brother William's arraignment for treason, and that the poem is a response to that experience.[8] Joanna Martin has identified Lethington as being one of the earliest of the 'country house' genre of poems.[9]

Marie's brother Thomas Maitland wrote a poem in Latin in praise of Lethington, Domus Ledintona, published in Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637).[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c Historic Environment Scotland. "LENNOXLOVE HOUSE OR LETHINGTON (Category A Listed Building) (LB10814)". Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  2. ^ Historic Environment Scotland. "LENNOXLOVE (LETHINGTON) (GDL00259)". Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  3. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 82.
  4. ^ Scottish Garden Buildings by Tim Buxbaum p.11
  5. ^ Yorke, Philip Chesney (1911). "Lauderdale, John Maitland, Duke of" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). pp. 279–280.
  6. ^ Charles Wemyss, Noble House of Scotland (Prestel Verlag, 2014), p. 134.
  7. ^ "The Lennoxlove service". National Museum of Scotland. Archived from the original on 24 September 2022. Retrieved 24 September 2022.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-1-908980-39-7
  9. ISBN 978-1-4438-4481-9

External links
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