Clan Lamont
The Lamonts held most of the Cowal peninsula in Argyll. The surname begins in record in 1235, when Sir Laumon granted lands to Paisley Abbey; the family had earlier been styled MacKerracher, and the traditional descent from the Irish house of Ua Néill is pedigree rather than documentary record. From the fourteenth century onward the clan lost ground steadily to the Campbells: Robert II granted the Lamont seat at Dunoon to Colin Campbell in 1371, and a Campbell charter for the Dunoon lands followed in 1472.
The end came in 1646. After the sieges of Toward and Ascog castles the Lamonts surrendered on terms of quarter, and the terms were broken: around two hundred were killed, about a hundred executed in Dunoon churchyard and thirty-six gentlemen of the name hanged from a single tree. Sir James Lamont spent five years in prison. Sir Colin Campbell was executed for treason in 1661, partly on account of the massacre. The Clan Lamont Society was founded in 1895 and raised the Dunoon memorial in 1906.
The Lamont tartan
The Scottish Register of Tartans holds four Lamont records: Lamont, reference 2035, Clan/Family, dated 1817; Lamont #2, reference 2033, Clan/Family, dated 1850; Lamont Dress, reference 2036, in the Fashion category, dated December 2003; and Lamont, Heather, reference 2037, a Corporate tartan dated 1998.
Only the first two are clan tartans in the register’s own classification. Neither carries the 1842 date, so no Lamont sett comes from the Vestiarium Scoticum, the Sobieski Stuart book of that year that was exposed as a forgery and that supplied a great many clan patterns. The 1817 date falls within the working life of Wilsons of Bannockburn, which makes a Wilsons origin plausible; we have not been able to read the register’s designer field and will not claim it as fact.
A note on honesty: Lamont Ancient, Modern, Weathered and Muted are dye colourways of the 1817 sett, not separate tartans, and the 2003 dress pattern is classified by the register as fashion rather than clan. No Lamont sett predates the commercial era — the earliest register date is 1817, nearly six centuries after the clan enters record and 171 years after the massacre at Dunoon.
Clan facts
| Chief | The Rev. Fr. Peter Noel Lamont of that Ilk, 29th hereditary chief, who succeeded on his father’s death in 1972 and is resident in Australia |
|---|---|
| Motto | Ne parcas nec spernas — “Neither spare nor spurn” |
| Plant badge | Not reliably recorded. Crab apple, trefoil and dryas all circulate; no source we could check settles it. |
| Lands | The Cowal peninsula, Argyll; historic seats at Toward Castle, Ascog and Ardlamont |