Interior View from S Digital image of SU/847

Description Interior View from S Digital image of SU/847

Date 1982

Catalogue Number SC 772697

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of SU 847

Scope and Content Swimming Pool from south, Skibo Castle, Highland This shows the interior of the swimming pool block which was built c.1900. The building has a tiled floor and a glazed and steel roof made by Mackenzie & Moncur, which provides natural light for the pool. The pool had been unused for some time when this photograph was taken. The block could be easily converted into a ballroom by covering the pool with a dance floor and the roof could be wound back allowing music to fill the room from a galleried bandstand above. It was extremely unusual for a swimming pool to be constructed at a country house at this time. Andrew Carnegie built this pool for exercise and enjoyment for himself, family and guests. The swimming pool is now part of a spa complex which has been created at the castle. 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.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/772697

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap