Seymour Hotel

“A recent Traces through Time featured the Seymour Hotel restaurant and there was a query as to where the Seymour Hotel was,” says Mairi Shiels of Newport.

“The Seymour was here in Newport, almost underneath the road bridge. Seymour Hotel was painted in large white letters on the shore wall facing the river, and it is still just about visible. This would be easily seen by any passengers heading over to Newport on the Fifie on a day out.

“Seymour, a beautiful red sandstone building, was built in 1898 by John Leng, son of Sir John Leng, MP for Dundee and owner of the Dundee Advertiser. Sir John lived at Kinbrae House in Newport, demolished in 1960. John Leng’s family lived at Seymour for 50 years.

“Tragically in 1945, one of his sons committed suicide there and this event possibly hastened the sale of the house four years later. It then became a hotel in 1949 and was popular with both locals and visitors until its closure in 1989. Thereafter it became the Seymour nursing home, now the Riverview Lodge care home.

“Sir John’s other son, William, also lived in Newport. He built Highgrove at the extreme opposite corner of the village from Seymour. I wonder if this could have been because the brothers did not get on?

“Highgrove was later named Waterstone House, and after William’s death, his daughter gifted it to the council for use as a home for the elderly. It is of course much better known now as the Leng Home.”