Town in Lanarkshire, Scotland
Hamilton
A duke's palace here was demolished because the coal underneath it had been mined away, and the tomb he left behind once held a world-record echo.
Key information
- County
- Lanarkshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Known for
- Hamilton Mausoleum and its record-breaking echo
- What locals are called
- Hamiltonians
- Famous people
- Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton, William Adam
- Football clubs
- Hamilton Academical (the Accies)
About Hamilton
The tomb with the 15-second echo
Hamilton Mausoleum is the town's most astonishing building. It was commissioned by Alexander, the 10th Duke of Hamilton, who wanted a resting place worthy of the premier peer of Scotland. It was completed in 1858. Bang a door inside and the sound hangs in the air for around 15 seconds. That earned the Mausoleum a Guinness World Record for the longest echo in a man-made structure, until the record was surpassed in 2014 by measurements at the Inchindown oil tanks near Invergordon. The Duke had a taste for the grand and the odd. He bought an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and was buried in it after his death in 1852. His successor, the 11th Duke, died in 1863. The chapel's great bronze doors and its domed roof still stand in the Low Parks, a strangely exotic sight in a Lanarkshire town.
The palace that sank
The Mausoleum was built beside Hamilton Palace, one of the biggest private houses in Britain. The dukes owned the land and the coal beneath it, and as the pits spread, the ground beneath the palace began to subside. By the early twentieth century the house was cracked and unsafe, and it was demolished in 1921. The Mausoleum tilted too, and the Duke's remains were moved to a cemetery nearby. The palace is gone, and the gardens and parkland are now public space. The Mausoleum survives as a reminder of how much of the dukes' wealth came from the ground they were digging out from under themselves.
From Cadzow to Hamilton
Before it was Hamilton, the settlement was called Cadzow. The name changed in the fifteenth century, after the Hamilton family had risen to become one of Scotland's most powerful noble houses. The old name lingers in Cadzow Castle, a ruin overlooking the Avon Water gorge, and in Cadzow oaks. Those oaks are some of the oldest in Britain. They stand in the woods around Chatelherault. White Cadzow cattle, descended from wild cattle that once roamed the area, historically grazed on the Hamilton estate. Hamilton Old Parish Church, designed by William Adam and completed in 1734, is another reminder of the dukes' influence. Its cross-shaped plan is unusual among Scottish churches of the period.
A hunting lodge dressed up as a French duchy
Chatelherault, also designed by William Adam in the 1730s, began life as a hunting lodge and kennels for the Duke of Hamilton. It looks more like a palace in miniature, with pavilions and long, handsome fronts. The name comes from the French duchy of Châtellerault, a title given to a Hamilton ancestor in the sixteenth century. The family never let go of the connection and put it on a building in Lanarkshire. Today the lodge sits in a country park above the Avon gorge, with woodland walks and views across the valley.
The Accies, and a school that became a club
Hamilton Academical, known everywhere as the Accies, was founded in 1874 by the rector of Hamilton Academy, a local school, and takes its name from it. The club is one of the oldest in Scottish senior football. The Accies had a long, uneasy stretch without a home. Between 1994 and 2001 they ground-shared at Firhill in Glasgow and at Albion Rovers' Cliftonhill, the Cliftonhill spell being 1997-98, before moving to New Douglas Park in 2001. The town also has Hamilton Park Racecourse, which opened on its present site in 1926, though horse racing in Hamilton dates back to 1782. Nearby Strathclyde Park added another sporting claim when its loch hosted the triathlon at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.