Tag Archives: Robert Adam

Historic Houses: Sarah’s Serendipitous Stopover at Ednam House

Dreaming blond retro woman with a book sitting on a meadow

Bigstock/50228168

Living in the Highlands, I do a lot of travelling, usually breaking the journey with an overnight stop somewhere. The latest trip involved staying overnight in an amazing historic house in the Scottish Borders. A surprisingly wonderful experience for someone who spends a lot of her daydreams in the past.

Charles Edward Stuart Bonnie prince Charlie. Cosmo Alexander, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Edward Stuart. Cosmo Alexander, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

We stopped at Ednam house, a beautiful 18th Century house tucked away in the old market town of Kelso. The house is built on the site of Chatto Lodge, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s residence when his army occupied the town in 1745.

The house was built in 1761 for James Dickson, whose portrait hangs over the fireplace in the entrance hall. He commissioned architect James Nisbet to build the house. It was Nisbet’s first major commission, and before that he had worked as a mason on some of Robert Adam’s designs in Scotland. The celebrated artist  Joseph Rose created the elaborate Italian plaster ceilings.

Dickson’s own life was a rags to riches adventure… Continue reading →

Culzean Castle : Scotland in the Sunshine. Plus Monster?

Joanna has been travelling…

Culzean Castle in sunshine

Last week, I was in Scotland visiting family. We spent three days visiting old haunts, the first of which was Culzean Castle. And the sun shone, as you can see above. It was glorious. (For those who haven’t been there, Culzean is on the Ayrshire coast, near Maybole, and it’s pronounced Cullane. It has other interesting pronunciation quirks, too, which I’ll come to.)

Those of you who are devotees of Fred Dibnah may have seen his programme about Culzean. He was interested in the exterior stonework and in the masons who are employed there nowadays to ensure that the walls etc stay up. And he was very complimentary about Culzean’s neoclassical architect Robert Adam. Adam didn’t just design buildings, but interiors and furniture as well, as you’ll see from some of the images in this blog.

Culzean castle, oval staircase by Robert AdamThe pride of Adam’s architecture at Culzean is the grand oval staircase. And, yes, that is a portrait of a familiar figure you can see peeping out between the classical columns. For your delectation, here’s a closer shot of that portrait.Culzean Castle, Napoleon portrait

 

 

 

 

Recognise him? Thought you would.

Napoleon gets everywhere, doesn’t he?

Culzean Castle interiors

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