Lennoxlove Castle
Late, again. Seroiusly - while I love travelling in May, becuase it's gorgeous, the weather is perfect, and there aren't many tourists around....it's still "off season" and everything closes at 5pm or earlier. Since the sun doesn't set until 10, we often get caught up in whatever we're looking for and forget that things that we might want go inside and look at, are long closed by the time we swing by.
the original tower and newer wings
14th century
Lennoxlove House, which is now a lovely musem-piece and country park, is built around the stout 14th century tower of Lennoxlove Castle. The L-plan tower is a prominent part of the current building, standing three storeys with an attic and added rooms above the parapet.
The tower is 16.4m x 11.4m, with very thick walls (over 3m in some palces) and an eastern wing. Up at the parapets, waterspouts carved with human figures surround the tower -- it's one of the few castles we've seen with actual gargoyles!
It has been thoroghly modernized, with large windows and addition of a two-story caphouse on top, giving the tower a rather odd lopsided look, if you ask me. A shorter range is attached to the castle, and further on, additions from the 17th century. The east wing stil retains its iron yett. Most of this work was performed by John Maitland, who left behind dated plaques from 1626, when he updated the staircase and enlarged the windows, and probaly built the adidtional range shortly after.
An entrance in the re-entrant angle leads to the first floor, vaulted hall, and also to the vaulted cellars. The kitchen wre on the same level as the hall, added in the new wing.
In the 18th century, a coachhouse and a NW wing were added to the castle, while the rest of the castle was once again remodeled in the early 19th century.
Ownership
The Maitlands bought the property form the Giffords in 1350. They are responsible for the tower house, which wa possibly built on the foundation of an older castle.
The castle was burned by the English in 1549. It then was occupied by William Maitland, Secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots (and he was also part of the plot to kill Lord Darnley, for which he was imprisoned.
In 1645, the castle was stil lint he hands of the Maitlands, in the person of the Duke of Lauderdale, who then sold it to the Stewart Lord Blantyre -- it was Francis Stewart, Duchess of Lennox, who renamed the castle to Lennoxlove on 1703.
The Duke of Hamilton took the castle as a family seat in 1947, and it remains their property.
one of the creepy little gargpyle-man downspouts