Lambroughton

Lambroughton is a village in the old Barony of Kilmaurs, Scotland. This is a rural area famous for its milk and cheese production and the Ayrshire or Dunlop breed of cattle. Although Kilmaurs is in the council area of East Ayrshire, Lambroughton is now in fact in North Ayrshire, part of a narrow finger of land included in that council area with the parish of Dreghorn. The lands of Lambroughton lie in the parish of Dreghorn. A Laird of Lamrochton is recorded in the 14th century. The place name has many variants, such as, Lambruchton, Lambrochton, Lamrochtoune (1544), Lambrachton, Lambrachtoun, Lambrachtoune (1332), Lambroughtoune (1794), Lambriegton, Lambughton (1672), Lambructon (1669), Lammerachtounhead (1745–1755), Lamburghtonn (1776), Lambroychtoune (1561), Lambrieghton and Lambristoune. The 'Mc' part of the name was dropped and Lamrochton became Lambroughton after passing through several intermediate stages. There are several modern farms with 'Lambroughton' incorporated, namely 'Townhead of Lambroughton', 'East Lambroughton', 'West Lambroughton' and 'Mid Lambroughton'. Timothy Pont's map of 'Cuninghamia', surveyed in the early 17th century (1604–1608), but not published until the 1654 atlas by Joan Blaeu indicates the place names of 'Lambrochmill', 'Mains of Lambrochton' and 'Lambrochton B.(bridge?)'. Ainslie in 1821 only names Lambriegtonend and Lambriegton for Mid Lambroughton. Many of the name forms give a soft pronunciation to the 'gh', as in 'Lamberton', however the original Scots pronunciation may have been more like the 'och' in 'loch', thus 'Lambrochton' would be closer to the original. The Barony was originally held by the powerful De Morville family. The feudal allocation of tenements to the vassals of De Morville was carried out very carefully, with the boundaries being walked and recorded. The term 'ton' at this time was added to the site of the dwelling house, not necessarily a grand stone-built structure, which was bounded by a wall or fence.