Gallery ceiling before restoration

Description Gallery ceiling before restoration

Date 1889

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number F 2001

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 747708

Scope and Content Ceiling, Long Gallery, Earlshall, Leuchars, Fife (now restored) Earlshall, a 16th-century tower-house built for Sir William Bruce in 1546 and completed for his great-grandson and namesake in 1617, had, by the late 19th century, fallen into a semi-ruinous state. The Long Gallery, which occupies the whole of the second floor of the main block of the house, was photographed c.1890 by Erskine Beveridge before being 'carefully and judiciously restored' in 1891-8 by the architect, Sir Robert Lorimer. The ceiling is an elliptical vault constructed of deal boards, and painted in tempera with elaborate decorations in black, white and grey. It consists of longitudinal rows of circular or square panels, linked by scroll-work, which contain the coats-of-arms of the great families of Israel, Europe, and Scotland, and animal subjects taken from the natural history of the time. The square panels contain the animals, and include a chameleon (bottom row, left) and a rabbit or 'cvning' (second bottom row, right) with their names printed in Roman letters. The round panels contain the coats-of-arms and include the arms of the Earl of Buchan (third bottom row, right), a shield supported by cranes, and his family motto: 'Ivdge Nocht' (Judge Not). In the late 19th century, the house had been empty for more than 70 years. The roof had become dilapidated, and parts of the unique black and white tempera pattern on the wooden board ceiling had been effaced. The ceiling, where damaged, had been patched up with rough wooden boards, and much of it was suffering from the effects of dampness. During the reconstruction of the house in the 1890s, Lorimer entrusted the restoration of the ceiling to Mr Nixon of the firm of Moxon & Carfrae, who re-touched the existing patterns with distemper and carefully filled in the missing sections. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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