Transactions. 5 
her by a song, and a lady of great musical gifts in our own day 
has immortalised the Song by the air to which she set it. 
But what is there to say about Annie’s Home? It existed in 
her time, it exists now ; what has the old house to say about 
itself? The Maxwelton estate was bought in 1611 by Stephen 
Laurie, a merchant in this town, having previously for some 
200 years belonged to the Earls of Glencairn. In Van Gent's 
map of Scotland, bearing date 1654, the house is depicted as a 
castle, and called “ Glenkairn Castel,” with a farm near it called 
“ Maxweltown.” When the old name was changed I do not 
know ; possibly Stephen Laurie or his son, having no connection 
with the family of Lord Glencairn, took the name of Laurie of 
Maxwelton, that being the name of the farm on which the castle 
stood, and that name gradually dispossessed the old one. The 
site of Glencairn Castle was well chosen, whether for beauty or 
for defence. It stands on the northern side of the Cairn valley, 
upon a small promontory of rock, running out from one of the 
spurs of the Keir range of hills ; the ground behind it dips to 
the north before it reaches the steep slopes of the hillside ; it 
falls somewhat on the eastern and western sides, whilst to the 
south it falls at first abruptly, but more leisurely afterwards, 
down to the river below. The house stands near the opening 
into Glencairn of the Clan pass, the only depression in the range 
of hills by which to cross from Nithsdale into the valley of the 
Cairn. Thus the ground fell on all four sides of the old castle, 
which must have stood out as a watch-tower, commanding the 
whole valley ; whilst it was admirably placed for disputing the 
passage of the Clan should any unfriendly attack be attempted 
from that quarter. There can be no doubt, I think, that the 
present house stands on the site, and incorporates a large portion 
of the old castle ; the two in fact are practically one. It occu- 
pies three sides of a quadrangle, of which a portion of the larger 
or western wing was burnt down about the middle of the last 
century. But there remains the rude foundations of the whole 
house—the tower at the south-west corner and a small turret at 
the inner north-west angle of the courtyard, two old arches in 
the eastern wing, and many portions of a wall of great thickness, 
that of the tower being five feet, and one within the western 
wing being twelve feet thick. In “The Castellated and 
Domestic Architecture of Scotland,” by Macgibbon & Ross, the 
building which bears the nearest resemblance to Maxwelton is 
