Interior-general view of landing
SC 736828
Description Interior-general view of landing
Date 1903
Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England
Catalogue Number SC 736828
Category On-line Digital Images
Copy of BL 17905
Scope and Content First-Floor Landing, Finlaystone House, Inverclyde (presently the home of the Chief of the Clan MacMillan and his family) Finlaystone House, originally built as a tower-house for the Dennistoun family in the late 14th century, was rebuilt and extended in 1746 by John Douglas as a handsome early Georgian mansion house for William, 12th Earl of Glencairn. In 1898-1903 the house was remodelled and refurbished in a grand style by the architect, Sir John James Burnet, for George Kidston, chairman of the Clyde Shipping Company. The interior was photographed by the architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, shortly after the refurbishment was completed in 1903. Here, the stairwell, with a mid-18th-century balustrade of alternately straight and twisted shafts, opens out into a landing with walls clad in gold hessian. The two huge pink marble Roman Doric columns (left), monoliths with black capitals which rise up from the entrance hall below, make a dramatic appearance. An exuberant pedimented Baroque-style doorcase, decorated with cherubs' heads, leads through to the drawing room, the finest room in the house. Although not built from new, Finlaystone was in many ways Burnet's finest domestic achievement, with interiors of a grandeur unmatched in any of his other houses. He added extensively to the existing mansion, converting rooms, raising ceilings, but, at the same time, retaining many original features and employing a Baroque style that was determined by the early Georgian house. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
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