Interior-general view of Billiard Room

Description Interior-general view of Billiard Room

Date 1890

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number BL 10093

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies B 64079, SC 695370

Scope and Content Billiard Room, Seafield, Doonfoot Road, Ayr, South Ayrshire (latterly Seafield Hospital for Sick Children) Seafield, an imposing Italianate villa designed in 1888-9 by Robert A Bryden of the Glasgow architectural firm of Clarke & Bell, was built for the engineer, Sir William Arrol. This photograph of the billiard room was taken in 1890 by the architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere. This room, with a magnificent coved ceiling, has a panelled dado and inglenook fireplace with bench seating on either side of the fire. Despite the absence of figures in the photograph, the cue and billiard balls (two white, one black) have been carefully positioned on the table. In the Victorian era the game of billiards was the prerogative of the wealthy and the upper classes as the billiard table was not only expensive, but required its own room in which to be used. At that period, the game was played with three balls struck with cues into six pockets round the edge of the table. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium Glass

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