Whittingehame | |
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Whittingehame Church, the south aspect | |
Location within Scotland | |
OS grid reference | NT604735 |
Civil parish |
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Council area | |
Lieutenancy area | |
Country | Scotland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | HADDINGTON |
Postcode district | EH41 |
Dialling code | 01620 |
Police | Scotland |
Fire | Scottish |
Ambulance | Scottish |
UK Parliament | |
Scottish Parliament | |
Whittingehame is a parish with a small village in East Lothian, Scotland, about halfway between Haddington and Dunbar, and near East Linton. The area is on the slopes of the Lammermuir Hills. Whittingehame Tower dates from the 15th century and remains a residence.
The village is the birthplace and burial place of Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.
The barony was anciently the possession of the Dunbar Earls of March family, and Chalmers' Caledonia records that they held their baronial court there. In 1372 George de Dunbar, 10th Earl of March, gave in marriage with his sister Agnes to James Douglas of Dalkeith, the manor of Whittingehame, with the patronage of the chapel. The Douglases remained in possession for over 200 years: about 1537 Elizabeth (d. after August 1557), daughter of Sir Robert Lauder of The Bass (d. 1517/18), married William Douglas of Whittingehame, and in October 1564 Mary, Queen of Scots, confirmed to their son, William Douglas of Whittinghame (d. 17 December 1595), a Senator of the College of Justice, the barony of Whittingham, the castle, mills, and the avowson of the Church there, ratified by parliament on 19 April 1567. This William Douglas had married in 1566 Elizabeth (d. after 6 August 1608), daughter of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, a Senator of the College of Justice.
It is said that the plot to murder Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, was discussed at length at Whittingehame castle in 1566, and in March of that year "William Douglas of Whittingehame, brother to Master Archibald Douglas parson of Douglas", is cited as one of those in the conspiracy to murder David Riccio. On 26 August 1582 William Douglas of Whittingehame is cited as one of the Ruthven raiders.
On 28 December 1630, Sir Archibald Douglas, 5th of Whittingehame, son and heir of the previous couple, was a witness to the baptism of Archibald Sydserf at Whittingehame Church, but by 1640 Sir Archibald was dead with no issue. Whittingehame passed to his brother Sir William Douglas of Stoneypath, near Garvald, whose daughter Isobel married, in 1628, Sir Arthur Douglas of the Kellour family, and their daughter Elizabeth (1632–1668) married, in 1652, Alexander Seton, 1st Viscount of Kingston and carried Whittingehame to him (Elizabeth's brother Archibald having died unmarried). Their youngest daughter Elizabeth, carried Whittingehame to her husband William Hay of Duns and Drumelzier, Peebleshire, upon their marriage in 1695. The Hays, as proprietors, were highly esteemed by their tenants.
In 1817 they sold Whittingehame and Stoneypath, near Garvald, to James Balfour, second son of John Balfour, 5th of Balbirnie in Fife, who had made a large fortune in India. James Balfour subsequently enlarged his estate by buying up a great many adjoining properties. By 1900 there were about 25 farms on the Whittingehame estate. The coal mines on their Fife lands greatly increased their prosperity throughout the 19th century.
James Balfour engaged James Dorward, from Haddington, to build a new neo-classical mansion and offices to designs by Sir Robert Smirke, Whittingehame House, completed about 1817, with additions and alterations by architect William Burn ten years later. [1] This became the family home of the Balfours and the birthplace of the Prime Minister Arthur Balfour [2] and the scientist Francis Maitland Balfour. Between 1939 and 1941, Whittingehame was converted into a school for Jewish refugee children coming to Britain through the Kindertransport. The school, known as the Whittingehame Farm School, sheltered 160 children between the ages of 7 and 17. This building, a huge country house and A-listed, still stands, albeit now divided into private apartments. It is not open to the public. Having passed through various hands after the Balfours (at one time it was a private school - Holt School, but it closed and the property lay dormant) there is still much of interest to see, including a spectacular ceiling to the dining room.
A parochial school, of which the laird was patron, was long established at Whittingehame, and Mr James Hogg was appointed schoolmaster there in 1742; having transferred from neighbouring Morham.
In 1820, James Balfour rebuilt the church, supplanting the previous rebuild of 1722, and then established, in 1840, a new model village to the north-west of the former medieval settlement. It consists of a schoolhouse and a string of cottages, all in red sandstone.
From 1950 to 1955, it was a boarding school called "Whittingehame House School For Boys", then a few years later, it was used as a school called Holts Academy; which only lasted a few years. After that, it was sold off and converted to 3 or 4 apartments.
There is a folk legend that Whittinghame was once home to the ghost of an unbaptised child, who could not enter the afterlife because he had no name. One night the ghost was encountered by a drunk, who addressed him as 'Short-Hoggers'. The ghost, overjoyed at being given a name, was never seen again. [3]
East Lothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921.
The title Earl of Morton was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1458 for James Douglas of Dalkeith. Along with it, the title Lord Aberdour was granted. This latter title is the courtesy title for the eldest son and heir to the Earl of Morton.
James Maitland Balfour was a Scottish land-owner and businessman. He made a fortune in the 19th-century railway boom, and inherited a significant portion of his father's great wealth.
James Douglas, the 4th Lord of Dalkeith, was created the 1st Earl of Morton in 1458.
Mary Balfour Herbert (1817–1893) was a British artist. She was born Mary Balfour in 1817, the daughter of James Balfour MP and Lady Eleanor Maitland; they were grandparents of Arthur Balfour 1st Earl Balfour. She grew up in Whittingehame House, East Lothian, Scotland, and travelled widely during her childhood. She took drawing lessons but had no other formal art education.
Stenton is a parish and village in East Lothian, Scotland. It is bounded on the north by parts of the parishes of Prestonkirk and Dunbar, on the east by Spott and on the west by Whittingehame. The name is said to be of Saxon derivation. The village has a number of houses, a school, and a church.
Morham, East Lothian, sometimes spelt Moram, Morum, or Morhame in old records, is the smallest (agricultural) parish in Scotland, sandwiched between five other parishes: Haddington, Garvald, Yester, Whittingehame, and Prestonkirk, in the undulating lower reaches of the Lammermuir Hills.
Sir Alexander Seton, 1st Viscount of Kingston, a Cavalier, was the first dignity Charles II conferred as King.
Garvald is a village south-east of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. It lies on the Papana Water south of the B6370, east of Gifford. The combined parish of Garvald and Bara, borders Whittingehame to the East, Morham to the North, Yester to the West, and Lauder to the South. It is mainly an agricultural parish. The red freestone once constantly mined in this parish was well known throughout the whole country.
Nunraw is an estate in East Lothian, Scotland. It includes the White Castle, a hillfort, situated on the edge of the Lammermuir Hills, two miles south of the village of Garvald, Nunraw House was formerly used as the Guesthouse for retreatants at Sancta Maria Abbey the Cistercian monastery on the hillside nearby. Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, writing in 1905 stated that Whitecastle and Nunraw are the same place and that the lairds there were often referred to by one or the other of these territorial designations.
William Douglas of Whittingehame was a Senator of the College of Justice at Edinburgh, and a Royal conspirator.
Robert Lauder of The Bass was an important noble in Haddingtonshire, the Merse, and Fife. Stodart remarks that "to 1600 the barons of the Bass sat in almost every parliament". He was a firm supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots whom he accompanied to Carberry Hill on 14 June 1567, and fought for at the battle of Langside.
Sir Robert de Lawedre (Lauder), Knt., of Quarrelwood, Edrington, and the Bass was Justiciar of Scotia, a Scottish soldier of great prominence and Captain of Urquhart Castle. He is recorded by Fordun, in his Scotichronicon, and in Extracta ex variis Cronicis Scocie as "Robertus de Lavedir 'the good'"
Ada de Warenne was the Anglo-Norman wife of Henry of Scotland, Earl of Northumbria and Earl of Huntingdon. She was the daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey by Elizabeth of Vermandois, and a great-granddaughter of Henry I of France. She was the mother of Malcolm IV and William I of Scotland.
James Douglas, 1st Lord Dalkeith was a Scottish nobleman born in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland to Sir James Douglas and Agnes Dunbar. James was the brother of Nicholas Douglas, 1st Lord of Mains.
Whittingehame Tower, or Whittingehame Castle, is a fifteenth-century tower house about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of East Linton, on the west bank of Whittinghame Water in East Lothian, Scotland.
James Balfour was a Scottish nabob who became a landowner and politician. The son of a prosperous and influential Scottish gentry family, he became a trader in India. Having made a fortune supplying the Royal Navy, he returned to Scotland to buy several landed estates, including Whittingehame in East Lothian where he built a classical mansion.
William Roy Sanderson was a Scottish minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1967. In 1961 he had organised the first meeting between a moderator and the pope. He was chaplain in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.
Richard Douglas was a Scottish landowner, courtier, and letter writer.