Thirlestane Castle
Thirlestane Castle is a castle near the town of Lauder in the Scottish Borders. The castle is on a hill, the Castle Hill, located in Lauderdale, the valley of the River Leader. The land is located since 1587 in the possession of the Maitland family who own the castle as the Earl of Lauderdale. Currently Thirlestane Castle of Gerald Maitland - Carew, the grandson of Ian Colin Maitland, 15th Earl of Lauderdale, inhabited.
Architectural History
On the site of the present Thirlestane Castle a fortified defensive structure was built before the 13th century. Its purpose was to secure the southern access to Edinburgh through the valley of Lauderdale. In the 16th century the terrain to Robert Lauder of did Ilk went on, who handed it to the beginning of the 1530s as a dowry to his daughter Alison Lauder at her wedding to George Wedderhede.
Alison Lauder and George Wedderhede and their son were killed in the following time in feuds, so that the property fell back to their parents. The putative The Rough Wooing clashes between England and Scotland in the years 1543 to 1550 Castle Hill was occupied by the British and used as a garrison. Under the direction of Sir Robert Bowes, a fort was built on the site within four weeks. Robert Lauder of did Ilk and his wife Alison Cranstoun died in 1567, leaving the property their grandchildren.
The Maitland family came originally from Normandy, reaching England in 1066 with William the Conqueror. They settled first in Northumberland. Your influence and their assets in Scotland secured the Maitlands by military services and their participation in the legal administration of the country. So Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington and Thirlstane, the father of the buyer of Castle Hill, Sir John Maitland was a member of the Supreme Court and a well-known Scottish poet. He was also Keeper of the Privy Seal, and thus one of the Great Officers of State. His son, Sir John Maitland, succeeded him in that office and was also Lord Chancellor of Scotland ( Lord Chancellor ). Sir John's brother, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, served as Secretary of State for Mary Stuart. He occupied the headquarters of the family, Lethington Castle in East Lothian, which is now considered Lennoxlove House home of the Hamilton family.
Sir John Maitland bought Castle Hill on 27 January 1587th Already in the year of purchase he built a square donjon or a residential tower on the foundations of the English forts. In 1590 he was named after his appointment as Lord Chancellor of Scotland and in the course of wedding celebrations of James VI. charged by Scotland with Anne of Denmark and Norway to the 1st Lord Maitland of Thirlestane. He had the house to expand to the new home of the Maitlands, which thus replaced the about two miles south seat of the family, a residential tower ( Peel tower ), which was also called Thirlestane Castle and whose remains are accessible in ruins. An ancestor of Maitland, Sir Richard Mautalent had purchased the castle and the Lauderdale mid-13th century through his marriage to Avicia, the daughter and heiress of Thomas de Thirlestane.
The son of Sir John Maitland, John Maitland, 2nd Lord Maitland of Thirlestane was levied in 1616 for Viscount of Lauderdale and 1624 for Lord Thirlestane and Boltoun, Viscount Maitland and 1st Earl of Lauderdale. His son, John Maitland, 2nd Earl of Lauderdale, was one of the most important Anglo -Scottish politicians in the middle of the 16th century. 1660, he was under Charles II as Secretary of State in Scotland, the most important figure in Scotland. In 1672 he was appointed the Duke of Lauderdale. By his marriage with Elizabeth Tollemache, 2nd Countess of Dysart, he came also in the possession of Ham House, near London.
In Thirlestane Castle, the first Duke of Lauderdale employed the architect Sir William Bruce to rebuild the plant into a larger and higher social rank of his person adequate residence. Between 1670 and 1676 Bruce added to the front corners of the inner tower-like construction of two more towers and sat in between a large external staircase. Inside, the rooms were converted to state rooms and equipped by the British plasterer George Dunsterfield with elaborate stucco ceilings.
In 1840 was extended in the style of the Scots Baronial Castle Thirlestane of the Edinburgh architect David Bryce and William Burn. The central building was thereby increased by a further wing, so that the building now has a T-shaped floor plan. In these recent additions a kitchen, pantries, laundry rooms and quarters for the servants were established.
Gerald Maitland - Carew handed 1984, the house of his mother in 1972 by his grandmother, the widow of the 15th Earl of Lauderdale, had inherited, to a foundation. This was specifically set up to maintain the facility and financed in large part by the National Heritage Memorial Fund ( NHMF ) and the Historic Buildings Council. This has become known as Formula Thirlestane linking of public and private organizations developed a best-practice solution for the preservation of other historical architectural complexes, and has also been applied as in Paxton House.