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Stonebyres was the residence of General Sir Thomas Monteath
Douglas (1788 - 1868).
Thomas Weir of Kirktoun, who was one of those who, in 1572, found
caution to answer an indictment charging them with being accessory to
the murders of Darnley and the two Regents, is thought to have lived at
Stonebyres, though not in these buildings.
Stonebyres was an estate and country house in Lanarkshire, Scotland,
belonging to the Weir, or de Vere, family from earliest recorded
history. The Weir-de Veres were a cadet branch of the Weir family of
Blackwood but were a powerful and sometimes rival branch of the laird of
Blackwood, head of Clan Weir. The laird of Stonebyres was often styled
Baron Stonebyres.
Stonebyres Castle stood by the Linn Burn, a tributary of the River
Clyde, around 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of Lanark. The keep, which was
extant in the 15th century, measured 10 by 8.8 metres (33 by 29 ft). It
was later extended to more than twice this size, and in 1850 it was
remodelled as a Scots Baronial-style mansion. It was demolished in 1934,
though some ruined walls survive. The coach house and a walled garden
also remain nearby. Thomas de Vere is said to have been the laird of
Stonebyres Castle in the 13th century.
From a fortified castle in the 14th century, Stonebyres House was
gradually modified over the centuries to a large mansion. In the 1840s,
the profligate lifestyle of the owner led to the sale of the house which
was then greatly modified and was surrounded by a designed landscape
with four entrance lodges, drives, avenues, parkland with specimen and
woodland. The estate had a walled garden, smithy, coach house, laundry,
ice house, gasworks, man-made loch used for curling in the winter,
quarry and its own water supply.
When the De Vere family put Stonebyres of the market in 1841, it
extended to 832 acres, after considerable disposals had already been
made. It was purchased in 1842 by James Monteath for £25,600. He
extended the house, spending additional £25,999 to do so.
The purchase price had come from money inherited from Major Archibald
James Douglas Monteath, who reputedly had made his fortune in India with
treasure looted from a Maharaja's treasure elephant.
James later succeed to the Douglas family's
Douglas Support estate
when he assumed the surname of Douglas. James Monteath Douglas
died unmarried in 1850 and was succeeded by his cousin, General Sir
Thomas Monteath Douglas, who died at Stonebyres in 1868.
Stonebyres was then leased out for the remainder of the century as
James's only surviving daughter Amelia, having married Sir William
Monteath Scott of Ancrum made that her home.
There was another major renovation of the house in 1906. Dame Amelia's
daughter, Constance had acquired the estate from her mother who in turn
sold it to James Noble Graham, of Carfin, in 1906. However, having spent
£60,000 on Stonebyres, he became bankrupt and Constance regained
ownership in 1924.
Demolished: 1934
When the owner, Constance Emily Monteath Scott, died in 1933, the estate was sold to Messrs. Kennoway &
Fraser, Estate Agents, 9 South Charlotte Street, Edinburgh, who then
resold it to the Department of Agriculture reserving the house for
demolition in 1934
The Department of Agriculture created small holdings for unemployed
men from Auchenheath.
Elements of the old estate and the designed landscape exist today
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