That family name was spelled in several ways one of which was Vipont and they are recorded as Lords of Westmoreland who received the lands and manor of Sorbie in 1185. A mound or "motte" on the property is all that remains of their physical tenure.

In 1328 Gilbert de Sowerby witnessed a charter and it would have been he or his father who signed the Ragmans Roll as Gilbert de Hannethe in 1296 when Edward I (The Confessor) was taking names. What happened in the intervening 200 years?

The Vipont family motto was "Per Aspera ad Alta" and the fact that the Hannethe/Ahanna motto was "Per Ardua ad Alta" suggests that there was a peaceable union, possibly through marriage. But what of the Hannay/Hanna/Hannay/Hanney name itself? Stewart Francis in "The Hannays of Sorbie" speculates that HANN may be a place name and that the suffix, spelled in whatever way, represents the old word for "island". Indeed, the word "island" itself contains in its first syllable the sound to which he refers. The "pont" in Vipont undoubtedly is the old Latin root meaning "bridge". Perhaps there is some symbolism at work in the word play.

From Sorbie members of the clan rode to Sauchieburn and Flodden. In the tradition of the time, they made war on or were warred upon by their neighbors the Kennedys, Dunbars and Murrays. Some of them joined James IV on his pilgrimages to St. Ninian's shrine at Whithorn near Sorbie where there is a fascinating ongoing "dig". In 1601 a Hannay's behavior towards the Murrays was so outrageous the family was outlawed for a time.