Hopetoun House, interior. View of heating chamber in apartment adjacent to North service-stair on principal floor.

Description Hopetoun House, interior. View of heating chamber in apartment adjacent to North service-stair on principal floor.

Date 1975

Catalogue Number WL 1643

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 766955

Scope and Content Heating chamber (with doors open) in the Serving Room, Hopetoun House, West Lothian This shows a special cupboard made of cast iron which is heated by a fire in the grate below. A drawer for cleaning out ash is built in below. This heating chamber was used to keep food warm until it was time for it to be served in the nearby State Dining Room. Keeping food hot in large country houses was always a problem. At Hopetoun, food was cooked in the kitchen on a lower floor, moved by a steam-heated railway to a lift, delivered to the servery to be kept warm in the heating chamber, before finally being carried into the State Dining Room to be served by the butler and the footmen. Hopetoun House, the seat of the Marquis of Linlithgow, was built 1699-1704 to designs by architect Sir William Bruce (c.1630-1710). Between 1721 and 1748 architect William Adam (1689-1748), and his sons Robert (1728-92) and John (1721-92) designed extensions to the central block, flanked by curving colonnades leading to advanced pavilions containing stables (north) and a ballroom (south). Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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