Interior. Detail of drawing room ceiling.

Description Interior. Detail of drawing room ceiling.

Date 5/1995

Catalogue Number C 54115 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 772447

Scope and Content Detail of drawing room ceiling, Newbattle Abbey House, Midlothian This shows part of the double-height drawing room built in the 1770s, but decorated in c.1870 by Thomas Bonnar (1810-73). This part of the ceiling is divided into panels filled with mythical beasts and a cartouche, wreath and shields bearing the arms of the Kerr family, Marquesses of Lothian. The decoration of this room was completed by the painter Thomas Bonnar shortly before the death of the 8th Marquess in 1870. This large room with its fine proportions and complex colour scheme was designed to show off the marquess's art collection, upon walls painted 'citron olive', thought by Bonnar to be the perfect colour against which art should be displayed. Newbattle Abbey was founded by Cistercian monks in 1140, and its church dedicated to St Mary in 1233-4. It became a private residence in 1587 when the last abbot, Mark Kerr, converted to Protestantism and was able to retain his lands. His son became Lord Newbattle in 1596. The remains of the abbey are built into the surviving house, which was modified and rebuilt by the architects John Mylne (1650), William Burn (1836) and David Bryce (1858). The house was gifted to the nation in 1937 to be used as a further education college. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium Colour negative

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