Talk:Loudoun

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I'd love to learn more about the Loudoun clan. My understanding has been that the Loudouns came to Scotland as Huguenot refugees from Loudun, France; but I may be wrong. I do know that Scottish Loudons developed the oil fields in Dutch Indonesia & thereby became founders/owners of Royal Dutch Shell/Shell Oil & in due course Dutch noblility, while retaining British connections/residences. John Loudon, head of Shell, was featured on the cover of TIME in the late 50s, and his son is now head of the huge chemical company Akzo Nobel. I am descended from Scottish, then Canadian Loudons.Jvloudon (talk) 05:04, 14 October 2009 (UTC)John

Hailing from the Valley, I'm aware of nobody who refers to Hurlford as being part of Loudoun or the Valley. Technically speaking, Loudoun only covers the north side of the river, Galston & Greenholm lie to the south, in Galston parish.

In response to the request above, I have no idea if Hugenot Loudouns came over from France, but I know the name was already in Scotland by that time. Loudoun's first recorded barons date from the turn of the 12th century, James de Lambinus and his son James de Loudoun.

--Waterwynd (talk) 19:26, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

There are a few errors on this page, so I'm going to set about correcting them. I don't really wish to expand upon the page, because I'm currently working on a page about the Irvine Valley as a whole, which will cover information about Loudoun. I'll give a brief list of what I've corrected on this page.

1. Took Loudoun population as a rough figure from the 2001 census by adding the populations of Darvel and Newmilns & Greenholm. This will not be entirely correct, but more accurate than the previous figure. I'm unaware of where we'd find an accurate population figure for Loudoun as a whole, because it isn't measured as an area in its own right, but if anyone has it, stick it up. 2. Removed erroneous claims that the town of Galston is in Loudoun. 3. Explained more about Loudoun's etymology.

--Waterwynd (talk) 10:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

My work on the photographer George Washington Wilson has drawn my attention to an image of the Kirkyard entitled "Loudoun Queer" and I wondered a) what this term means and b) whether it is still in use. For the image see https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/collectionDiscovery?vid=44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1&collectionId=81151711790005941&query=any,contains,2696 Regwik~eswiki (talk) 11:38, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Anglicism

"locally referred to as The Valley" - The habit of calling "valleys" such in Scotland is of recent origin. Usually they were known as glens.--86.179.27.219 (talk) 17:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

Please indicate the correct pronunciation (in IPA script).

Etymology issues

As with the majority of etymological sections on Wikipedia pages and other popular sources, the section of this one leaves much to be desired, which is perhaps not surprising given that the rigour of place-name studies methodology is niche, and poorly understood even by most intelligent laymen. Typically these sections pluck at antiquarian or relatively witless printed examples of 'soundalikey' etymology, which is far from logical or sensible. This section is thankfully short in the article, but parts are poorly framed as theory where they represent untrained speculation or hypothesis. Given the issues, I shall edit the phrasing and precise details to try and resolve this, without substantially adding to the topic (would take time). ~2026-28773-2 (talk) 06:48, 14 January 2026 (UTC)