P’s Great-grandfather made a tidy little sum in the bus business. As the money came in, family life was transformed. Each summer, the family would rent a substantial scots baronial pile near their home town: Milton Lockhart. P’s family has films from the 1930s which show family weddings; horses charging about the meadows; children dancing on the lawn and a curl of smoke from the chimney of the gatehouse – another world in flickering sepia.
Eventually, the family bought a large house and the long inter-war summers were forgotten. Milton Lockhart, dark and neglected became rain-slick and defeated. Then, in the 1980s, the old house disappeared completely. It had been dismantled at the behest of a grinning Japanese film star and shipped to Japan where it sat, disassembled, in a warehouse awaiting its fate.
At this point Mr Hirai came to its rescue. Mr Hirai is a successful businessman of the sort P’s Great-grandfather would immediately have felt a fellowship with. His principal business is stone. To his evident frustration the Japanese continue to prefer to build and decorate their homes with wood. The black walls of Milton Lockhart would stand as an advertisment of sorts – a granite statement of the possibilities of building in stone.
That was how Milton Lockhart came be Lockheart Castle, brooding on a hillside in the Gunma Province of Japan. On behalf of P’s family we were tasked with finding the Castle. We brought with us, as a gift, a copy of the 70 year old family movies.
Oh, I’m going to like this, I can tell. That place looks fabulous!
They took down the whole place, shipped it over and rebuilt it? This is amazing. What a great story this makes. Are you considering a book deal?
BTW, my father spent some time in Salzburg after WW II, thus the elkskin lederhosen. It’s a family joke.
The suspense is killing me … did you find it?
Wow!
What a great story!
Did you find the castle? Were the family movies well received?
wow that is amazing!! did you find it ? is it all back together? you better not disappear for a month without spilling the details!!
oh Moobs! I am on my seat’s edge, what a tale you weave, friend…
with baited breath…I wait the next installment.
That is so interesting, can’t wait for more . . .
What those rich folks won’t spend their money on! I do hope you find it!
The journey of a house, a home and of locked memories in its stone…
I can not wait for the next installment…
It’s stories like this that make the internet so worth it.
So strange and interesting that the Japanese film star had the place dismantled. Why not make a replica? I suppose that is what an american film star would have done.
OH I can’t stand the suspense! Did you find it??
Hi,
My mother grew up in the gardener’s cottage on Milton Lockhart in the 1930s. She’d be very interested to see the film footage you describe.
She mentioned a carved stone representing Jesus on the cross which was on the side entrance of the building – she described it as having nail pierced hands and feet, a cross and a crown of thorns carved on it, with greenish, “curly kale” round about it – she remembers her father pointing this out to her as a child. She wonders if it survived the move to Japan!
Be grateful for any info you can supply.
JJ- I’m doing some resarch on another property owned originally by the Lockharts – Lee Castle – and specifically about some families who worked there around the turn of the century. I’d love to include some info about this amazing story as well.
Marie. You would be welcome to. I know P’s family had a connection with Lee too. I think they may even have owned it at one point.
Marie, if you do a google search for Jo Johnson’s watercolours, you’ll find my website – if you email me, I’ll send you some info on my mother’s family and their life on Milton Lockhart Estate.
Jo