Interior view of Cairndhu Hotel, Helensburgh, showing detail of corbel in dining room.

Description Interior view of Cairndhu Hotel, Helensburgh, showing detail of corbel in dining room.

Date 3/1965

Collection Records of the Scottish National Buildings Record, Edinburgh, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 1944082

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of DB 50

Scope and Content Scottish National Buildings Record. Written on verso of the mounted print: 'Shire: Dunbartonshire. Place: Helensburgh. Building: Cairndhu Hotel. Photographer: G.N. Date: March 1965. Detail of corbel in dining room’. Detail of corbel in dining room, Cairndhu, Rhu Road Lower, Helensburgh, Argyll & Bute Cairndhu, a two-storeyed asymmetrical villa, was built in 1871 to designs by architect William Leiper (1839-1916). The service wing was extended in 1902. The interior was decorated by artist Daniel Cottier (1838-91), and includes Japanese-style painted ceilings and fine stained glass panels. It was converted to a hotel in 1956, and a residential home in 1984. This shows a corbel (supporting bracket) in the dining room. It appears to be made of plaster, and depicts a young woman sowing seed, whilst an old woman with a stick follows carrying a twisted, leafy branch. The pair symbolically depict the seeds (or deeds) of youth being harvested in old age. The other three corbels in this room show pairs of female figures representing fertility and fruitfulness, music and song, and a pair of angels. As this house was built for John Ure, a flour miller, merchant and Lord Provost of Glasgow, depictions of sowing and reaping in the corbels almost certainly reflect his milling interests. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference MW/BR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/1944082

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap