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Field Visit
Date August 1987
Event ID 1082936
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082936
This house stands in wooded policies 400m NNE of Ardlamont Bay, with an extensive view S over ArdlamontPoint to Bute, Arran and Kintyre. The approach as shown on Roy's Map of about 1750 was from the w, by a road from Kilfinan, and a substantial single-arched bridge which spans a stream 200m SW of the house may be of that period, while the gate-piers of a former avenue 200m E of the house are of early 19th-century date. A walled garden 0.64ha in extent lies immediately NE of the house, and a court of offices faces the public road 180m to the NNE.
The estate of Ardlamont belonged in the medieval period to a family, first recorded about 1315, who were closely related to the Lamont barons of Inveryne and were succeeded by them in 1554. Following the destruction of Toward Castle (No. 139), Ardlamont became the principal residence of the Lamonts of Lamont from about 1664. 'Lamonts new house, brew house, woman house, together with ane kilne' was assessed for eight hearths in 1693, and window-tax was charged in 1748 for twenty-one windows, rising in 1781 to twenty-eight. The laird at this period, John Lamont, was non-resident, but his heir, Major-General John Lamont, resolved in 1818 to rebuild the house despite inherited debts. Complaining of 'the very contracted and disagreeable accommodations of my present house', he proposed 'to build a house fit for my family on the most limited and frugal plan'. A 'plan and estimate of the improvements that will be requisite' amounted to £1100, and a contract for the supply of lime from Ireland was made early in 1819. The estate became notorious in 1893 for the murder of a potential purchaser in the woods close to the house, and in the same year the house and most of the estate were sold to the Watson family, who continue to occupy it (en.1).
RCAHMS 1992, visited August 1987
[see RCAHMS 1992 No. 150 for a detailed architectural description]
