Interior General view of lavatory opposite Breakfast Room on ground floor Digital image of SU/766
SC 772652
Description Interior General view of lavatory opposite Breakfast Room on ground floor Digital image of SU/766
Date 1982
Catalogue Number SC 772652
Category On-line Digital Images
Copy of SU 766
Scope and Content Lavatory on ground floor, Skibo Castle, Highland This shows a lavatory on the ground floor opposite the breakfast room. The room has a mosaic floor with a marble inset underneath the two sinks with decorative transfer pattern rims encased in marble. The tiled walls of the room would be easy for the maids to clean and the doorway on the right gives access to the toilet. Prior to the Victorian age indoor toilet facilities in country houses were basic and tended to consist of chamberpots, commodes (close-stools) or occasionally valve water closets (WCs). Water would be pumped to the cistern above the water closet by a manservant every morning. The only washing facility was by basin and ewer (jug). The housemaids would daily clean out the toilet facilities and provide fresh water for the jugs. The lavatory shown here was very luxurious for its time. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was born in Scotland and made a fortune in the steel industry in the United States of America. Once his daughter was born he decided that she should have a Scottish home, and at the end of the 19th century he bought a large Baronial house at Skibo built in 1880 by Clarke & Bell. In addition to the £85,000 purchase price, he spent a further £2 million in the creation of an even larger mansion, constructed between 1899 and 1903 to the designs of Ross & Macbeth. In 1981 his daughter Margaret decided to sell the estate, and the castle lay empty until 1990 when Peter de Savary paid £10 million for the castle and the 2,832-hectare estate. Some £30 million was then invested in its transformation into the Carnegie Club, a private residential golf and sporting club. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
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