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Interior General view of Mrs Carnegie's bathroom on first floor
SU 770
Description Interior General view of Mrs Carnegie's bathroom on first floor
Date 1982
Catalogue Number SU 770
Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images
Copies SC 772654
Scope and Content Mrs Carnegie's bathroom, Skibo Castle, Highland This shows Mrs Carnegie's bathroom which has a mosaic floor with marble insets underneath the toilet furniture. The walls are tiled and there is a frieze decorated with bows and swags of fruit. There is a heated towel rail between the two sinks and the sink on the left has a transfer print rim and is encased in marble. Mrs Carnegie may have used each sink for different ablutions. Prior to the Victorian age indoor toilet facilities in country houses were basic and tended to consist of chamberpots, commodes (close-stools) or occasionally valve water closets (WCs). Water would be pumped to the cistern above the water closet by a manservant every morning. The only washing facility was by basin and ewer (jug). The housemaids would daily clean out the toilet facilities and provide fresh water for the jugs. The lavatory shown here was very luxurious for its time. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was born in Scotland and made a fortune in the steel industry in the United States of America. Once his daughter was born he decided that she should have a Scottish home, and at the end of the 19th century he bought a large Baronial house at Skibo built in 1880 by Clarke & Bell. In addition to the £85,000 purchase price, he spent a further £2 million in the creation of an even larger mansion, constructed between 1899 and 1903 to the designs of Ross & Macbeth. In 1981 his daughter Margaret decided to sell the estate, and the castle lay empty until 1990 when Peter de Savary paid £10 million for the castle and the 2,832-hectare estate. Some £30 million was then invested in its transformation into the Carnegie Club, a private residential golf and sporting club. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
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