page_title: Susanna Montgomery, Countess of Eglinton
section_title: Dower houses
hierarchical_section_title: Susanna Montgomery, Countess of Eglinton / Dower houses
caption_attribution_description: English: Eglinton Castle prior to 1805. North Ayrshire, Scotland. A Print dating from 1840.
context_page_description: Susanna Montgomery, Countess of Eglinton was the third wife of Alexander Montgomerie, 9th Earl of Eglinton. She lived as a widow for nearly 51 years before dying at Auchans, Scotland in 1780, aged 90.
  The surname of the family is often rendered as Montgomerie and she signed herself as S. Eglintoune.
context_section_description: It was traditional and practical for a dowager to move out of the family seat and dwell within a dower house. Susanna as dowager countess seems to have first moved to Kilmaurs Place in Kilmaurs, East Ayrshire and later moved to Auchans near Dundonald. Letters from 1751 to 1762 are recorded as being written at Kilmars (sic) and from 1765 they are recorded as being written at Auchans. In 1762 she writes in a letter to her son-in-law James Moray of Abercairney that her son (the tenth Earl) has given her Auchans House and that she was about to repair it. When her second son, Archibald (the 11th Earl) was married in 1772, she took up her residence permanently at Auchans, where she lived for eight years.
caption: Eglintoune castle as it was during Susanna's lifetime
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