Estate houses in Scotland

Estate houses in Scotland (or Scottish country houses) are large houses usually on landed estates in Scotland. They were built from the sixteenth century, after defensive castles began to be replaced by more comfortable residences for royalty, nobility and local lairds. The origins of Scottish estate houses are in aristocratic emulation of the extensive building and rebuilding of royal residences, beginning with Linlithgow, under the influence of Renaissance architecture. In the 1560s the unique Scottish style of the Scots baronial emerged, which combined features from medieval castles, tower houses, and peel towers with Renaissance plans, in houses designed primarily for residence rather than defence.

After the Scottish Restoration in 1660, the work of the architect Sir William Bruce introduced to Scotland a new phase of classicising architecture, in the shape of royal palaces and estate houses incorporating elements of the Palladian style. In the eighteenth century Scotland produced some of the most important British architects, including the neo-Palladian William Adam and his son Robert Adam, who rejected the Palladian style and were two of the European initiators of neoclassical architecture, embodied in a series of estate houses in Scotland and England. The incorporation of "Gothick" elements of medieval architecture by William Adam helped to launch a revival of the Scots baronial in the nineteenth century, given popularity by its use at Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford House and Queen Victoria's retreat at Balmoral Castle. In the twentieth century the building of estate houses declined as the influence of the aristocracy waned, and many were taken over by the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland.

After the Reformation, and the departure of the Scottish court in 1603, artists and artisans looked to secular patronage and estate houses became repositories of art and of elaborate furnishings. Estate houses were adorned with paintings, wood carvings and plasterwork. The Grand Tour encouraged the collection of classical art and the adoption of classical styles for new works that were incorporated into the Adam Style. The Baronial revival resulted a synthesised Victorian style that combined elements of the Renaissance, symbols of landed power and national affiliation with modern fittings. From the late sixteenth century, many estate houses were surrounded by gardens influenced by Italian Renaissance gardens. From the late seventeenth century the formal gardens at Versailles and Dutch gardens were important models. In the eighteenth century less formal and symmetrical layouts became common with the development of the English landscape garden. In the nineteenth century there was a return of the formal garden near to the house. The development of the Palladian country house in the seventeenth century separated the family of the householder from the servants. Gentry families spent much of their time visiting family, friends or neighbours, and hospitality was an important part of life. Major activities included hunting, cards, chess and music. Large and sumptuous meals were an important part of social life. In the eighteenth century, estate houses were designed as centres of public display, but in the nineteenth century they became increasingly private and developed distinct male areas.

Architecture Renaissance

The origins of private estate houses in Scotland are in the extensive building and rebuilding of royal palaces that probably began under King James III (reigned 1460–88), accelerated under King James IV (r. 1488–1513), and reached its peak under King James V (r. 1512–42).M. Glendinning, R. MacInnes and A. MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture: From the Renaissance to the Present Day (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), , p. 225. These works have been seen as directly reflecting the influence of Renaissance styles. Linlithgow was first constructed under King James I, under the direction of master of work John de Waltoun and was referred to as a palace, apparently the first use of this term in the country, from 1429. This was extended under James III and began to correspond to a fashionable quadrangular, corner-towered Italian signorial palace of a palatium ad moden castri (a castle-style palace), combining classical symmetry with neo-chivalric imagery. There is evidence of Italian masons working for James IV, in whose reign Linlithgow was completed and other palaces were rebuilt with Italianate proportions.M. Glendinning, R. MacInnes and A. MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture: From the Renaissance to the Present Day (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), , p. 9. James V encountered the French version of Renaissance building while visiting for his marriage to Madeleine of Valois in 1536 and his second marriage to Mary of Guise may have resulted in longer term connections and influences.A. Thomas, The Renaissance, in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), , p. 195. Work from his reign largely disregarded the insular style adopted in England under Henry VIII and adopted forms that were recognisably European.J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), , p. 5. This was followed by re-buildings at Holyrood, Falkland, Stirling and Edinburgh, described as "some of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Britain".R. Maison, "Renaissance and Reformation: the sixteenth century", in J. Wormald, ed., Scotland: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), , p. 102.

Much of this work was planned and financed by James Hamilton of Finnart (c. 1495–1540), in addition to his work at Blackness Castle, Rothesay Castle, the house at Crawfordjohn, the "New Inn" in the St Andrews Cathedral Priory and the lodging at Balmerino Abbey for the ailing Queen Madeleine.J. E. A. Dawson, Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), , p. 120. Rather than slavishly copying continental forms, most Scottish architecture incorporated elements of these styles into traditional local patterns,A. Thomas, "The Renaissance", in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), , p. 189. adapting them to Scottish idioms and materials (particularly stone and harl).D. M. Palliser, The Cambridge Urban History of Britain: 600–1540, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), , pp. 391–2. Work undertaken for King James VI (later also James I of England) demonstrated continued Renaissance influences, with the Chapel Royal at Stirling having a classical entrance built in 1594 under the direction of William Schaw and the North Wing of Linlithgow, built in 1618, using classical pediments, designed by James Murray. Similar themes can be seen in the private houses of aristocrats, as in Mar's Wark, Stirling (c. 1570) and Crichton Castle, built for the Earl of Bothwell in the 1580s.A. Thomas, "The Renaissance", in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), , pp. 201–2.

Scots Baronial

The unique style of great private houses in Scotland, later known as Scots baronial, originated in the 1560s. It kept features of the high walled Medieval castles that had been made largely obsolete by gunpowder weapons and may have been influenced by the French masons brought to Scotland to work on royal palaces. It drew on the tower houses and peel towers,J. Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 9th edn., 1993), , pp. 502–11. hundreds of which had been built by local lords since the fourteenth century, particularly in the borders. These abandoned defensible curtain walls in favour of a fortified refuge, designed to outlast a raid, rather than a sustained siege.S. Toy, Castles: Their Construction and History (New York: Dover Publications, 1985), , p. 224.S. Reid, Castles and Tower Houses of the Scottish Clans, 1450–1650 (Botley: Osprey, 2006), , p. 33. They were usually of three stories, typically crowned with a parapet, projecting on corbels, continuing into circular bartizans at each corner.J. Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 9th edn., 1993), , p. 502. The new houses built from the late sixteenth century by nobles and lairds were primarily built for comfort, not for defence. They retained many of these external features, which had become associated with nobility, but with a larger ground plan. This was classically a "Z-plan" of a rectangular block with towers, as at Colliston Castle (1583) and Claypotts Castle (1569–88).

Particularly influential was the work of William Wallace, the king's master mason from 1617 until his death in 1631. He worked on the rebuilding of the collapsed North Range of Linlithgow from 1618, Winton House for George Seton, 3rd Earl of Winton and began work on Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh. He adopted a distinctive style that applied elements of Scottish fortification and Flemish influences to a Renaissance plan like that used at Château d'Ancy-le-Franc. This style can be seen in lords houses built at Caerlaverlock (1620), Moray House, Edinburgh (1628) and Drumlanrig Castle (1675–89), and was highly influential until the baronial style gave way to the grander English forms associated with Inigo Jones in the later seventeenth century.

Restoration

During the turbulent era of Civil Wars (1639–51) and the English occupation of Scotland (1651–60), significant building in Scotland was largely confined to military architecture. After the Restoration in 1660, large scale building began again, often incorporating more comprehensive ideas of reviving classicism.M. Glendinning, R. MacInnes and A. MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture: from the Renaissance to the Present Day (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), , p. 70. Sir William Bruce (1630–1710), considered "the effective founder of classical architecture in Scotland", was the key figure in introducing the Palladian style into Scotland, following the principles of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). Palladio's ideas were strongly based on the symmetry, perspective and values of the formal classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and associated in England with the designs of Inigo Jones. Bruce popularised a style of country house amongst the nobility that encouraging the move towards a more continental, leisure-oriented architecture. He built and remodelled country houses, including Thirlestane Castle and Prestonfield House.J. Gifford, William Adam 1689–1748 (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing/RIAS, 1989), , pp. 57–8. Among his most significant work was his own Palladian mansion, Kinross House, built on the Loch Leven estate which he had purchased in 1675. As the Surveyor and Overseer of the Royal Works he undertook the rebuilding of the Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse in the 1670s, which gave the palace its present appearance. After the death of Charles II, Bruce lost political favour, and later, following the Glorious Revolution, he was imprisoned more than once as a suspected Jacobite.H. Fenwick, Architect Royal: the Life and Work of Sir William Bruce (Kineton: Roundwood Press, 1970), , pp. 73–8. These houses were predominantly built using well-cut ashlar masonry on the façades, while rubble stonework was used only for internal walls.I. Maxwell, A History of Scotland's Masonry Construction in P. Wilson, ed., Building with Scottish Stone (Edinburgh: Arcamedia, 2005), , p. 26.