Interior. Detail of parquet floor in basement marking the site of a former column base. Digital image of C 54089.

Description Interior. Detail of parquet floor in basement marking the site of a former column base. Digital image of C 54089.

Date 5/1995

Catalogue Number SC 772437

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 54089

Scope and Content Detail of parquet floor in basement, Newbattle Abbey House, Midlothian This shows part of the 19th-century parquet floor in the basement. Inlaid wood in a darker colour to the main part of the floor marks to position of a column base from the original Cistercian Abbey which was excavated 1878-95. Other column bases outside the new building were also discovered, and their positions were marked by gravel in the garden. Links to the original abbey building were emphasised by the marking of these column bases, and also by the replication in marquetry of a medieval tiled floor found at the same time. This work was carried out by the Clerk of Works to the Lothian family, John Ramsay, using 13,226 pieces of yew, oak, maple, plane and laburnum wood from the estate, a task which took two years to complete. Ramsay also excavated further parts of the monastery in 1892 and 1894. 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.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/772437

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap