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Carrick Estate in Eday

John Stewart (b. c1568) was the third son of Earl Robert Stewart and Jean Kennedy and a brother of Earl Patrick Stewart.  He accompanied James VI of Scotland to England on the Union of the Crowns in 1603,  where he enjoyed royal favour.

He was created Lord Kinclaven and subsequently Earl of Carrick in 1630. The lands in Eday were conveyed to him in 1632 by James VI of Scotland and formed into the Burgh of Carrick.  The name may have come from the imported Gaelic word "Caraig" or craig.  Certainly, Calfsound in the north end of Eday is dominated by the Red Head.  There is also the Grey Head on the Calf of Eday itself.

Sir John Buchanan purchased the lands in Eday from John Stewart, Earl of Carrick. Sir John had married Margaret Hartsyde, who was involved in a scandal and was convicted of the theft of jewels belonging to her mistress, Ann of Denmark, the Queen of James VI of Scotland.  While he was cleared of the offence, he had accompanied his wife who was banished to Orkney.

Sir John cannot have lived long in Eday as he died in 1643. He sold the estate and the lands of Sound in Shapinsay to his nephew Arthur Buchanan who married Margaret Boxton.  They had a number of children according to the IGI:

Margaret  3rd April 1662

William 19th June 1663

Charles 14th November 1664

Issobell  16th January 1666

Majorie 30th August 1668

Margrat 26th July 1670

Each of the children were born in Shapinsay.   Arthur Buchanan, with Hugh Craigie from Gairsay, represented Orkney in the Commonwealth Scottish Parliament and was supportive of a unification of the Scottish and English Parliaments some half century before unification took place in 1707.

Carrick House was certainly built around 1633 when the date was set over its doorway.  An armorial tablet set in the grounds is thought to have come some thirty years later from Sound in Shapinsay, when the estate was owned by Arthur Buchanan.   Walter L Bell in his "Notes on the armorial stone of Carrick House, Eday, Orkney" (Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland Vol. XLII) deciphers the armorial as:

Buchanan - Dexter, a lion rampant within a double tressure florry counter-flory Buxton - sinister, quarterly, first and fourth, a lion rampant; second, two stags lodged in pale; third, three birds The initials AB appear above the dexter, and MB over the sinister. From "The Real Captain Cleveland" (1912) - Allan Fea (page 80)

Carrick House still stands today.

Arthur Buchanan's daughter, Majorie, married his nephew Thomas Buchanan who was the son of his brother, James Buchanan.  This was Thomas's first marriage.

Sabbath, 14th August 1692, Thomas Buchanan of Sansyd wes married to Merjorie Buchanan, daughter to Arthur Buchanan of Sound. From "The Diary of Thomas Brown 1675-1697" (1898 - Ed. A Francis Steuart)

Thomas and Majorie Buchanan had a son called James who certainly died prior to 1717.

Janet Buchanan, the only daughter of Thomas Buchanan and his second wife, Margaret Douglas inherited Carrick Estate in Eday and Sound in Shapinsay from her great uncle, Arthur Buchanan.