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Interior Detail of bell indicator and telephone in second floor corridor Digital image of SU/791
SC 772667
Description Interior Detail of bell indicator and telephone in second floor corridor Digital image of SU/791
Date 1982
Catalogue Number SC 772667
Category On-line Digital Images
Copy of SU 791
Scope and Content Detail of telephone and bell indicator panel on second floor, Skibo Castle, Highland This shows a bell indicator panel which was connected by electric cables and bell pushes to different rooms in the house. If the bell push was pressed in a room the bell on top would ring and waving 'flags' in the panel would indicate in which room the servant was needed. The telephone was part of an internal phone system for the castle and there was a telephone exchange on the estate which would connect calls. Country houses could easily be fitted with a wire and lever bell-pull system by the end of the 18th century. Electric servant bell systems were developed in the late 19th century and were a vast improvement on the old system which was liable to become clogged with dust and needed regular servicing. Skibo Castle had its own estate electric house. 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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