Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016178
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016178
In 1612 an Edinburgh merchant, Thomas Dalyell, acquired the small properties of Mannerstoun, East Scotstoun, Fludders and Merrilies. He was living in Mannerstoun in 1614, but began to build a new house on the western shoulder of Binns Hill a little before 1621. It was completed by 1630.
The present exterior reflects a remodelling begun c1810. The east and west ranges were enlarged, the south side was extended into the forecourt, square corbelled turrets were added to all of the major gables,and everywhere imitation battlements gave it the appearance of a caricature fort-compare the grandiose and romantic Tudor Gothic turrets and battlements of William Wilkins' Dalmeny House, 1814-17 (NT 168780).
The original west wing had been built to match an earlier east wing shortly after 1665 when the notable royalist General Sir Tarn Dalyell was recalled from Russia by Charles H. It made the house into a hollow square around a courtyard, open to the south and entered from there. The General is said to have responded to the Devil's threat to blow down the house, with the words-"I will build me a turret at every corner to pin down my walls". Not all of them, therefore, are 19th century!
The original house would seem to have been the north-west part of the present main block-three storeys and a garret, with two turnpike turrets set symmetrically on the north side. Each floor had four unvaulted chambers. The ground-floor rooms are mainly 19th century, except for the vaulted kitchen or bakehouse with its wide-arched fIreplace and two ovens in the eastern, originally detached wing.
On the fIrst floor are the major early rooms, the High Hall or 'Chamber of Desse', the King's Room and the Vault Chamber-three state rooms which might be said to "embody the theory if not the actual functions, of feudal loyalty". They all have interesting ceilings, reflecting a move to Elizabethan-type modelled plasterwork in parts of Scotland following the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Most notable is that in the King's Room where rose, thistle, harp and fleur-de-lys feature in some compartments, low relief Heads of King Alexander or King David in others. The elaborate frieze contains fInely-modelled fruit, and above the fIreplace a late 18th century royal coat-of-arms echoes the thistle and rose theme to reinforce a Unionist flavour.
Northwards lies Blackness Castle (mid 15th-late 19th century, NT 055802), to which tradition attributes an underground passage leading from the-base of the east stair turret at the Binns. On the hill west of the house a round, crenellated tower was built in 1826; and south towards the road, the remains of a modest packhorse bridge survive in the middle of a meadow.
Information from 'Exploring Scotland's Heritage: Lothian and Borders', (1985).
