Sir Iain acquired the castle and the title when he bought 23,000 acres from Lord MacDonald, Chief of Clan Donald and his neighbour on Skye, in 1972, long before the market in such titles was established. "We have never made use of the barony title and we have several projects we could use the capital for in Skye," he says. "The two we have in mind are a distillery, for which we have the perfect buildings, and an educational project to teach wooden boat-building skills." Both projects would create local jobs.  Peculiar to Scotland, baronies have long since been stripped of privilege and, mercifully, the "power of pit and gallows", imprisonment and execution. And, legally, a barony must be attached to property over which it was first granted, unlike English lordships of the manor - hence Sir Iain's ruined castle.  But there is no shortage of takers. Hamilton now has 200-plus clients on his books, from Venezuela to New Zealand, all of whom are prepared to pay for the legal entitlement to call themselves a baron and the chance to petition the Lord Lyon King of Arms for their own coat of arms.  Business has doubled in the past year and, apart from the MacDonald title, Hamilton has a feudal earldom, a glorified barony "as rare as hens' teeth", on his books for £200,000, the property of Lord Cochrane of Cults, descendant of the swashbuckling Nelsonian admiral.  As Scotland's premier purveyor of baronies, he should by rights be the scion of an ancient, possibly double-barrelled, Scottish family who drifted into the outer fringes of estate agency. In fact, he is not even Scottish, but a former North Sea oil-field welder possibly of ancient Jewish-cockney lineage, via Woking, Surrey.  He spotted a growing niche market in barony titles when he stumbled across them as a mature student of land economy at Aberdeen University in the 1980s and unearthed his first barony in a job lot of "worthless" deeds bought on spec from his own alma mater.  Most of his clients are foreign, but of Scottish ancestry often in search of their roots. The latest US census recorded a huge increase in Americans giving their antecedents as Scottish.  "The East Europeans are beginning to show interest; a lot of Scots were mercenaries in the 17th and 18th centuries. I have a Canadian of Scots descent who has two baronies, one for him and one for his wife, and he wants three more for his sons." An English High Court judge bought a barony because it related to his holiday home in Scotland.  Barons may use their titles on legal documents but have no role in government, local or national. Nor, strictly speaking, are they entitled to call themselves lord: it's just bad form. But unless it is for fraudulent purposes, there is not a lot anyone can do about such uppitiness.  Modern Scottish folklore still rejoices in the tale of "Lord" Tony Williams, Baron of Chirnside, a Metropolitan Police accountant from Esher who bought his title, two hotels, several houses and a tea room in the Highland village of Tomintoul with cash from the Met's undercover slush fund.  He was invited to open the local Highland games in his kilt. The village was thrilled with its self-effacing titled benefactor. But Williams ended up doing seven years in jail for theft.  Other people hold their baronies in deep historical reverence. Baron Dr Nelson Ying of Balquhain (pronounced Bal-whine), a nuclear physicist and philanthropist from Orlando, Florida, bought his 14th-century, Leslie-family barony from the estate of a Scot who had died in New Zealand.  Describing himself as a "galactic citizen" of Chinese descent, Dr Ying became imbued, after a holiday in Scotland, with unusual missionary zeal. He founded the Barony of Balquhain Foundation, which honours the good works of others in the business community. "I believe it is a baron's duty to serve the community and do good work in the name of the barony," says Dr Ying.  In reality, there are no such obligations - they were effectively abolished after the 1745 uprising. And their former owners who have sold these titles on are take a more relaxed attitude towards their significance.  "Good gracious, I never went about calling myself baron," says Sir Houston Shaw-Stewart, who has a 75-room house and 400 acres to maintain in Renfrewshire. "I think I had to sell the baronies with a lamp-post or some sort of property and the best was worth about £50,000. It's one of the best things I've ever done; and it's helped keep the show on the road."  Changes in the law, due next year under the Abolition of the Feudal System of land tenure in Scotland, mean titles will no longer be associated with land ownership. However, the Act will not abolish the actual titles, which will remain marketable and heritable assets.  But Hamilton warns against treating a title as an investment. It should be bought for pleasure rather than gain, he says. "Interestingly, women seldom buy baronies. I think they just don't see the point."
A one-time welder from Woking might not be your first call if you were looking to buy into the aristocracy. But, as Alastair Robertson finds, business is booming