Kerr family, Marquesses of Lothian

Mark Kerr, last Abbot of Newbattle (Midlothian) acquired the monastic lands of Newbattle and Prestongrange (East Lothian). These passed to his son Mark (d. 1609), created Earl of Lothian in 1606. Prestongrange was sold in 1622 but Newbattle was inherited by Anne, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Lothian (d. 1624), who in 1630 married William Kerr (d. 1675), son of Robert, 1st Earl of Ancrum (d. 1654) by his first wife. William Kerr, who was raised to the earldom of Lothian in 1633, bought the barony of Jedburgh (Roxburghshire) from the 1st Earl of Haddington in 1637. His son William (d. 1703), created Marquess of Lothian in 1701, inherited Ancrum and Woodhead (Roxburghshire) on the death of his uncle, the 2nd Earl of Ancram (d. 1690), son of the 1st Earl by his second wife. The 2nd Marquess succeeded his cousin Robert Kerr, 2nd Lord Jedburgh (d. 1692) in his Roxburghshire estates (Oxnam, Crailing etc.). Papers of the Barons Somerville may have been transferred to Newbattle from the family's nearby seat at Drum (Midlothian) on its sale by the 14th Baron Somerville (1765-1819).

Blickling Hall (Norfolk) was purchased by Sir Henry Hobart (d. 1625) from Sir Edward Clere. The Norfolk estate was augmented by the marriage in 1717 of John Hobart (created Earl of Buckinghamshire in 1746) to the daughter and co-heir of Robert Britiffe of Baconsthorpe, which brought him Briningham, Hunworth and Stody (purchased by the Britiffes from Sir Edmund Bacon, 2nd baronet, in the 17th century). On the death of the 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire in 1793 the earldom passed to his half-brother but the Norfolk estates descended to his daughter and co-heir Caroline, wife of the 2nd Baron Suffield. At her death in 1850 the devolved upon the 8th Marquess of Lothian, grandson of her sister Henrietta (d. 1805). Land in Gedney, Holbeach and Whaplode (Lincolnshire), acquired by the Hobart family about 1721, passed first to the 2nd Earl's fourth daughter Emily, wife of the 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (who is thought to have had only a life interest), and when she died in 1829, to the 7th Marquess of Lothian, to whom she also bequeathed the Stewart estate of Bellaghy (Co. Londonderry). These Lincolnshire and Irish properties, however, were sold by 1859.

Gunnersbury (Middlesex) and Bere Ferrers (Devon) were properties of Sir John Maynard (1602-90), whose daughter and co-heir Elizabeth married Sir Henry Hobart, 4th baronet. They apparently passed to Hobart's son, the future 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire, on the death in 1721 of Maynard's widow, Mary, Countess of Suffolk. Both estates were later sold, Gunnersbury in 1739. Marble Hill (Middlesex) belonged to the 1st Earl's sister, Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk (d. 1767).

(For records of the Melbourne (Derbyshire) and other estates of the Lamb family, inherited in the 20th century by the Kerr family, see Cowper, Earls Cowper).

Estates in 1883: 19,740 acres in Roxburghshire; 4,548 acres in Midlothian; 8,073 acres in Norfolk; worth a total of £45,203 a year, exclusive of £6,296 a year for mines.