Barony of Ladyland
Coordinates: 55°47′06″N 4°40′41″W / 55.785°N 4.678°W The Barony of Ladyland was in the old feudal Baillerie of Cunninghame, near Kilbirnie in what is now North Ayrshire, Scotland.
In the Parish of Kilbirnie were three baronies, Kilbirnie, Glengarnock and Ladyland. The first Lairds of Ladyland were a cadet branch of the Barclays of Kilbirnie. Archibald, as second son, is recorded as having the Barony of Ladyland bestowed upon him by his father, Sir Hugh Barclay. David Barclay of Ladyland was with Mary, Queen of Scots, at Hamilton in May 1568 and probably fought at the Battle of Langside where the Queen's side lost and she subsequently fled the realm.
Hugh (Hew) Barclay of Ladyland was a poet of considerable power and humour and a fervent papist, married to Isobel Stewart, meeting an unusual death by drowning on Ailsa Craig. Sir David Barclay of Ladyland and Auchinheiff (now 'Auchenhove') succeeded his brother Hugh and married Elizabeth Cunningham, the widow of John Craufurd of Craufurdland who had died in 1612, aged only 21, from an injury received at football. His son, also David, was unfortunate enough to inherit his father's debts and was forced to sell Ladyland to John Blair of Cloberhill in full payment. This was the end of the Barclay's involvement in the barony and by 1654 Sir David Cuninghame was the Laird of Ladyland, a property then valued at £546 17s 8d.
Captain William Hamilton of Ardoch or Airdoch in Kilwinning Parish was the first of the Hamilton's of Ladyland (see illustration of their Coat of Arms). Lieutenant William Hamilton of Gilbertfield in Lanarkshire still owned Ladyland, but rented Gilbertfield, where he lived, making only the occasional visit to Ladyland. William was a published poet and a friend and correspondent of the poet Allan Ramsay. In 1722, Hamilton published an abridged and modernised version of Blind Harry's Wallace, which, though an artistic failure, aroused Robert Burns's boyhood interest and enthusiasm and, as he recorded in the Autobiographical Letter: 'poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins which will boil along there till the flood gates of life shut in eternal rest.'
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