General view of castle from terraced garden to South West. Digital image of D 47008/cn

Description General view of castle from terraced garden to South West. Digital image of D 47008/cn

Date 26/4/1999

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 764715

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 47008 CN

Scope and Content Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfries & Galloway, from the south-west The castle, built of pinkish local sandstone, is similar in plan to George Heriot's Hospital (now School), Edinburgh. It is constructed around an inner courtyard, with a circular staircase turret at each corner of the courtyard, and a rectangular tower at each outer corner. The five-storeyed outer towers are carried one storey higher than the wings, and have balustraded flat lead roofs with pepperpot turrets arising from the corners. The west front, which overlooks formal gardens, is plain except for rope-moulded eaves-courses studded with cannon spouts at the roofline, and Y-shaped lead downpipes on the outer towers. The four-storeyed main wing contained bedrooms and dressing rooms, and these were served by a corridor, an unusual provision for the period and a marked development in planning. The discreet low service wing (left) is a 19th-century addition, probably by the architect, William Burn. The 1st Duke laid out formal gardens in the form of parterres to the east and west, and, after he died in 1695, these were developed and improved by his son, James Douglas, 2nd Duke. The parterre, as the name suggests, is of French origin, and was the height of fashion in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It consisted of formally arranged flower-beds among the lawns, and was usually positioned below the windows or below a terrace in order that the geometric effect it created could be fully appreciated from within the house. At Drumlanrig, the west parterre was arranged around a central white marble vase, and was linked to the parterre on the east side of the house by a broad terraced walk (right). The daily maintenance of the parterres required the work of one gardener and several men. Drumlanrig Castle, one of the great Renaissance courtyard houses of Scottish domestic architecture, stands on a terraced platform within extensive parkland amongst the hills of Nithsdale. The mansion was built between 1679 and 1690 for William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry, incorporating part of a mid-16th-century house and the remains of a late 14th-century Douglas stronghold which originally stood on the site. The architect was almost certainly James Smith who had worked on the construction of Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, and the builder was William Lukup who is buried in Durisdeer churchyard nearby. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap