Argaty

Argaty is a farm estate located just over a mile northeast of Doune, Stirling, Scotland. The present Argaty House dates from the 19th century with baronial additions in the 1860s and 1920s, but was largely destroyed by fire in April 2011.

Argaty farm is host to central Scotland's only red kite feeding station where visitors can come and watch the birds, recently reintroduced to their former natural habitat through a program managed by the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage.

In 1982 ownership of Argaty House and the farm estate were separated.

Argaty (aka "Ardgaty"), derives from the Gaelic words aird, meaning "height", and gaoth, meaning "wind" and therefore translates as "windy height".

Argaty was originally part of the Doune estate, property of the Dukes of Albany, ancestors of the Clan Stewart of Balquhidder. When Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany was executed for treason by King James I of Scotland in 1425, the Stewart lands were forfeited to the Crown, and Argaty was among the forfeited properties.

After the forfeiture the Crown granted the lands of Argaty to one John Sinclair, Esquire to the King's Chamber. The property then passed to Sinclair's younger daughter who married Patrick Home (also spelled "Hume") of Polworth, and Argaty thus came into the possession of the Home family.

Around 150 years later the property was again inherited by a daughter, one Mary Hume, who married George Stewart (also spelled "Steuart") of Ballachallan. George Stewart was a descendant of Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany and, by this marriage, the ownership of Argaty returned to the descendants of the very same Stewarts who had forfeited it some three centuries earlier.

In 1758 Argaty was inherited by the Maryland planter and Loyalist politician George Hume Steuart of Annapolis, Maryland, second son of George Steuart and Mary Hume. Steuart also held extensive lands in Maryland and, at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775, he was forced to leave America and return to Scotland, dividing his estates among his family. His son, also named George Hume Steuart (1747–1788), inherited Argaty estate in his turn, changing his name to George Steuart Hume.

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