View of gallery showing fireplace and remains of painted decoration

Description View of gallery showing fireplace and remains of painted decoration

Date 1889

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

Catalogue Number SC 747704

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of F 1998

Scope and Content 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. This fireplace in the west wall of the room, is painted in tempera and decorated in a stylised pattern in black and white. Above is a scrolled panel which contains a stone shield with the initials and coat-of-arms of Sir William Bruce (the original owner) and his wife, Margaret Meldrum. In the upper part of the panel is a Latin inscription recording the house's beginning in 1546 and completion in 1617. Running above the fireplace, and continuing as a frieze along the side walls, is a painted arcade that contains a series of short pithy sayings in Roman letters beneath its arches. The gallery, probably the early 17th-century creation of Sir William Bruce, the great-grandson, originally contained 20 or 30 sayings painted on the frieze around the room. Most were, by the late 19th century when the photograph was taken, illegible but a few were clearly decipherable. One reads: ' A nice wyf and a back door oft maketh a rich man poore'. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/747704

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap