Elderslie Estates

lexander Speirs of Elderslie amassed enormous wealth from 1745 until his death in 1782. One of Glasgow’s leading tobacco lords, he was reputed to be worth £153,000, a colossal figure somewhere in the region of £133 million in today’s money. He used much of this wealth to buy estates in Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire and in 1767 bought the Elderslie Estate from Helen Wallace, the direct descendent of William Wallace. The family wealth was further increased when the price of land doubled in the early 1800s.

A William Wallace enthusiast he called his house Elderslie House, which was on the site of the modern day Braehead shopping centre and was reputed to have owned two of Wallace’s double handed broadswords. He adopted Wallace’s crest, replacing the sword in the hand with a spear.

Elderslie Estates, into which many of the estates that Speirs bought were amalgamated, are still owned by his descendents and have diversified away from traditional landowning activities.

The Elderslie website seeks to give an overview of its activities and opportunities.

After five generations of Speirs, Elderslie Estates passed to Major David Crichton Maitland in 1959 and thence to his son, Mark Crichton Maitland in 1995.

Mark, born in 1955, has two sons and seven stepchildren. He divides his time between Houston and Suffolk. Qualifying as a Chartered Surveyor in 1979, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 1993. He is a former chairman of Timber Growers Association, now Confor, the body representing private woodland owners in the UK. When not involved in the running of the various Elderslie businesses he is a commercial property consultant.

The Estate now covers some 4,000 acres mostly in the triangle between Houston, Kilmacolm and Bridge of Weir, to the west of Glasgow. As so often the case, farming is no longer the mainstay of the estate economy although the estate has some 1, 000 acres in hand and a number of tenanted farms. A portfolio of houses in and around Houston is balanced by a similar portfolio of commercial and sporting properties. The Estate has over 1,200 acres of woodland, a sizeable proportion of which is the East Renfrewshire Community woodland just to the south of Neilston, created to encourage informal public access and recreation.

Elderslie believes that not withstanding the current climate of political disfavour, the Scottish landed estate is a vital part of the economy, providing not only jobs and investment in the built environment but other less tangible benefits. Whilst the paternalistic role of an estate has quite properly gone, there remains a significant support structure for widows and pensioners. Elderslie is also proud to be able to contribute a sense of history and continuity without which any community is the poorer and recognises its responsibilities in the challenges of the post agricultural landscape.

Faced with political and institutional hostility, the landed estate has two options, take cover or stand up and argue the case. The latter option requires transparency, this website hopes to assist.