Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 15 on 18/7/2004.

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A special house of hope and glory

Charles Douglas visits the oft-ignored Hopetoun House, just north of Edinburgh

As the most spectacular William Adam mansion in Scotland, Hopetoun House has set the pace for Scottish stately homes since it first opened to the public more than 45 years ago.

Located near Edinburgh, at South Queensferry, within view of the great rail and road bridges of the Firth of Forth, this magnificent building is not, however, as obviously accessible as might be imagined since it lies within splendid grounds to the west of the Forth Road Bridge. Often as not it is overlooked as traffic speeds north from Edinburgh towards the Scottish Highlands.

The Hope family descend from John de Hope who first appeared in Scotland in the 16th century when Magdalen de Valois arrived from France to marry King James V.

An enterprising man, he set himself up as a merchant in Edinburgh and soon prospered to the extent that his son was financially independent enough to become a member of the first protestant General Assembly in 1560.

Thereafter his grandson, Sir Thomas, was appointed Lord Advocate of Scotland under Charles I, and things really took off when Sir Thomas’s son, Sir James, Master of the Mint and a Lord of Session, married an heiress, Anne de Foulis, who inherited the profitable lead mines of Leadhill in Lanarkshire.

It was the extension of these mining interests which brought the family to West Lothian. In 1678, John Hope, son of Sir James, bought the lands of Abercorn upon which his son, Charles, began to build the great house which exists today.

John Hope is believed t.....

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By Charles Douglas

Section : Historic Houses

Page number : 12