The Douglas-Home Family
Douglas and Angus Estates is the Douglas-Home Family Estate Company, an amalgam of two of the great Border families (Home and Douglas). Historically having land holdings in Lanarkshire, Perthshire, Angus, and the Borders.
Today, the Estates are focused on the Hirsel at Coldstream and Douglas in South Lanarkshire, extending to about 36,000 acres – although there are still many reminders of the families’ historical influence, elsewhere, throughout Scotland, including Hume and Bothwell Castles and in Dundee, Claypotts Castle (which is still owned by the family today) remains as a reminder of the family’s interests in that area.
The Douglas family’s legendry connections go back to 767 AD when Sholto Duglass “turned” a battle in favour of King Solvathuis against Donald Bane; however, it is William (Born) 1174 who is widely acknowledged as the founder of the Black Douglas family and the Douglas Estates.
The Earls of Home, as Wardens of the East March of Scotland, can boast similar lineage to the Douglases, although their association with the Hirsel Estate is very much more recent, it having been purchased from Sir William Ker in 1611 by the first Earl of Home.
The two families and the two Estates came together in 1832 when Lady Lucy Montagu Douglas married Cospatrick Alexander Home – the 11th Earl of Home.
The union resulted in the amalgamation of the Estates, much as we know them today – geographically separate, but run as a single integrated trading business.
Both Estates are “bedded” in their own local communities and have always taken the “long view” seeking to protect, maintain, improve, and sustain their local environments for the benefit of all those who live and work within them.
The Douglas-Home family has not only served Scotland, and their local communities of Douglas and Coldstream, but the Nation as well, with Sir Alec Douglas-Home (14th Earl of Home) serving as Prime Minister in 1963.
The Estates are currently under the stewardship of Michael, the 16th Earl of Home, and his immediate family.