Clydesdale Inn – Lanark

CLYDESDALE INN, LANARK

The Legend

A few Notes on the History of this hotel

1315-1328 This is the probable period of the foundation of the Franciscan Monastery of Lanark. This Hotel stands on the grounds of the Monastery – and it is likely it stands on the area of the church.

1567 At the time of the Reformation, the lands of the monastery were granted by the Crown to James Lockhart of Lee. The Great Seal of Scotland was affixed to this grant in 1592.

1791 The town Council of Lanark was concerned that the town required a first class hotel. A meeting was called and a subscription list opened. David Dale was one of the original subscribers

1792-93 The hotel was built and opened for business in 1793 and leased to Mr Robert Somerville. It was known as The New inn.

During the first twenty years of its life the Hotel was used by many of the Crowned Heads of Europe who resided in this Hotel while visiting the mills in New Lanark and studying the revolutionary social and industrial concepts of Mr Robert Owen.

1803 it is recorded that William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge stayed in the Hotel.

Robert Owen was on the board of Directors in 1812. That was the year that he was dismissed from New Lanark.

The Hotel was an important stage on the coaching run. Coaches departed here daily for Glasgow and Edinburgh and on every second day forLondon.

1827 A spacious and elegant assembly hall was added with a minstrels’ gallery, and this is now the ballroom of the Hotel. During the excavation work many human bones were recovered from beneath the flagstones in the area of the ballroom.

1845 The founding meeting of the Caledonian Railway was held in the Hotel.This was perhaps the greatest step forward in communications in Scotland during the Industrial Revolution.

During the 19th century Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor to the Hotel.

1951 During alterations to the garage to the rear, an underground tunnel was discovered revealing stone work which indicated that it was of fourteenth or fifteenth century origin.

1999

During work undertaken to the rear of the hotel and on the site of Cox’s garage remains of the cloister wall of the Greyfriar’s monastery were found. Evidence of piped water to the monastery was also found.

It was also discovered that some of the timbers for the construction of the Clydesdale Hotel later to be renamed by J.D Wetherspoons came from a seventeenth century building.

CONCLUSION The Clydesdale Inn forms part of the history of the ancient Burgh of Lanark and is almost completely Georgian in its construction. It is therefore a protected building and cannot be altered without Special Permission from the Secretary of State forScotland.

Janet Kincaid