Estate: Biggar

Biggar, Lanarkshire
c1300 - 1773; 1826

Biggar came to the Flemings through the marriage of Sir Gilbert Fleming to Marjory, heiress of Biggar, around 1300. For more than four centuries Boghall Castle, on the edge of the town, was one of the family’s principal seats, and the Flemings of Biggar went on to lead the whole clan.

Acquisition

The first recorded lord of Biggar was Baldwin of Biggar, sheriff of Lanark in 1162. The barony passed to the Flemings when Sir Gilbert Fleming married Marjory, the heiress of Biggar, around 1300. By 1322 Gilbert was holding his baronial court at Biggar, and in 1359 his grandson Malcolm Fleming paid twenty shillings from the barony towards the upkeep of the royal castle of Lanark.

Estates within the barony

The barony included the burgh of Biggar; Boghall, with its castle, Mains, Milton and Arretshole; Edmonstoun and Wintermuir, held of the Flemings by the Douglases; Carwood and Persilands; Westerraw, Heavyside and Goveside; the Templelands of Biggar; and the patronage of the parish church, later the collegiate church.

Burgh, castle and church

Sir Malcolm Fleming had a charter of the lands and barony of Biggar from Robert, Duke of Albany, on 28 June 1413. In 1446 and 1470 Robert, 1st Lord Fleming, acquired the share of Biggar held by the Hays of Yester, together with the patronage of the church and hospital, so that the whole barony was his. King James II made Biggar a free burgh of barony on 31 March 1451, with a weekly market on Thursdays, and James V renewed the burgh’s status, together with Kirkintilloch’s, on 21 November 1526.

In 1545 Malcolm, 3rd Lord Fleming, founded the Collegiate Church of Biggar, which still stands. Boghall Castle was rebuilt by William, 5th Earl of Wigtown, around 1670.

Mortgages and forfeiture

John, 2nd Lord Fleming, mortgaged the barony to Archibald, Earl of Angus, for nine hundred merks on 24 March 1499 and redeemed it the same August. After the forfeiture of John, 5th Lord Fleming, his niece Jean Fleming and her husband John Maitland of Thirlestane received a Great Seal charter of Biggar and Thankerton in 1583, but the family recovered the barony. In 1589 Biggar was united with Lenzie in the lordship of Cumbernauld, and in 1629 the 2nd Earl of Wigtown had a letter of reversion from John Dickson for the barony.

Disposal

After the death of the last earl in 1747, Biggar passed to his niece Lady Clementina Fleming. The family records give two sales of Biggar and Boghall: by Clementina to Sir Michael Bruce of Stenhouse in 1773, and by her grandson Admiral Charles Elphinstone-Fleming, after obtaining an Act of Parliament, in 1826. Parts of Biggar were still among the lands in which Cornwallis Maude-Fleming was served heir in 1869.