DOUGLAS CASTLE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4567, 10 November 1937, Page 2

DOUGLAS CASTLE

TO BE DEMOLISHED. COAL SEAMS UNDERNEATH. Because coal seams have been discovered beneath the 176-year-old Douglas Castle, the ancestral home of the Douglas family in Lanarkshire, the Earl and Countess of Home are leaving it to allow it to be demolished (says the "Daily Telegraph.") At the castle a reporter was informed:—

"The discovery of the new coal seams meant grave danger to the castle if they were to be worked. Lord Home was influenced in making his decision by the desire to benefit the several thousand inhabitants of the village of Douglas, who are largely dependent for their livelihood on the estate colleries.

"There remained no alternative to demolition. Considerable subsidences due to the underground workings have already occurred in various parts of the castle grounds. "Both the Earl and the Countess will be extremely sorry to leave, but the Earl's action in making possible the working of the new seams will avoid an increase in local unemployment, which might have otherwise taken place. Some of the old seams are now almost worked out."

Lord and Lady Home are to move with their family to their Berwickshire estate, near Coldstream. They intend to return each year to their estates near the village and stay for some time in the factor's house. This decision has caused the greatest pleasure among the local people.

Lord Home's decision to allow Dougla's Castle to be pulled down spells the end of an ancient phophecy well known in Lanarkshire. It runs: "As often as Castle Douglas is destroyed, it shall rise again in even greater size," says a correspondent in the same newspaper. What seems likely to prove its final disappearance has an unromantic cause. It is being demolished so that newly-discovered coal seams beneath its foundations may be worked, to the benefit of local employment. Though after past wars the castle has risen, phoenix-like, from its ashes, it is unlikely to do so from a coal mine.

The stormy history of the Douglas family is reflected in that of "Castle Dangerous," as Sir Walter Scott called it. During the struggle with Edward I it changed hands again "and again. In 1759 it was burned down and the present castle was built. Near it is the chancel of the Church of St. Bride, containing the heart of Robert the Bruce. Altsough Lord Home thus loses Douglas Castle, he still has another stronghold, Bothwell Castle. The castle and grounds are visited every year by thousands of people from the neighbouring industrial districts.

Visitors are subject to only one rule, which was started by Lord Home's father. This provides that anyone may picnic there, whatever his opinions, but that no speeches may be made. "So," in Lord Home's own words, "Harmony prevails always."

Lord Home's eldest son is Lord Dunglass, the member for Lanark and P.P.S. to the Prime Minister. He was one of the best batsmen of his time at Eton, but missed a Blue at Oxford. He married a daughter of his former headmaster, Dr. C. A. Alington.