Publication Account

Date 1996

Event ID 1016392

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016392

RCAHMS: Exploring Scotland's Heritage - Aberdeen and North-east Scotland, 1996

Of all William Adam's creations, this is the most assertive, the most baroque, certainly when compared with the blandness of Haddo (no. 3), which he was also building at this time. The explanation lies in Adam's ability to interpret his client's demands and temperament. In William Braco, MP, one of the richest men in the north-east (as a result of his father's banking business), Adam had a client who was determined to impress, if not daunt, his fellow mortals. Created Lord Braco in 1735 and Earl Fife in 1759, Braco a nd his descendants were a fam ily in a hurry: from bonnet lairds to dukes in 150 years' it has been said. Adam rsponded brilliantly to his patron's pretensions, giving him a building that is waggering, sophisticated and breathtaking: work began in 1735.

Built in an extravagant classical-baroque style, the house consists of a square block of three storeys and a full basement. It is entered up a double curving staircase. The principal feature of the front is a group of four corinthian pilasters topped by a sculpture-filled pediment and a balustrade. This block is flanked and oversailed by square corner towers that thrust upwards and outwards from the main facade. he effect is dramatic and reminiscent of some of Vanbrugh's creations. The verticality of the design, to which the pilasters make a major contribution, is emphasised by the isolation of the house. Adam origin ally intended that pavilions should flank the main block, sitting forward from it and linked to it by curving colonnades. That these were never built was due to a dispute between Adam and Braco in 1736 over the cost of shipping the carved Corinthian capitals from Queensferry. It was finally settled in Adam's favour shortly before his death in 1748. Although the house was roofed by 1739, such was Braco's bitterness that he never lived in it and would draw down the blinds of his coach whenever he passed it.

The visitor should stand before the house on the south lawn and note the overall symmetry, and details such as the sculpture in the pediment, the lead figures of Mars, Diana and Orpheus above and the urns placed on the balustrade yet higher above. On entering the ho use the height of the rooms is at once striking and exhilarating. The delicate plaster ceiling mouldings and the gold leaf on the doors of the first floor are fine rococo work (completed by the second earl), while the central stair, rising the full weight of the house, is at once majestic yet appealingly domestic. The main public rooms are on the first and second floors, allowing visitors an elegant 'parade'.

The house was eventually occupied by the second earl and his descendants. As part of the break-up of the Fife estates, it was gifted to the burghs of Macduff and Banff in 1906 and its contents sold in 1907. It was used as a hotel, nursing home and army billet, being rescued by the when Ministry of Works in 1956. It has been meticulously restored by Historic Scotland and is now open as a Country House Gallery, clothed in pictures and furnishings, an outstation of the National Galleries of Scotland,run by the local authority.

Such a grand house had originally a large and impressive park, mostly created by the second earl. Some of the features of this park can still be seen on the riverside walk to the south of the house. There is a fine icehouse and the mausoleum built by the second earl , for which he had two tombstones removed from Cullen kirk (no. 50) and their dates altered to give his family a spurious antiquity. (These stones have since been returned to Cullen, but a third, which he removed from St Mary's, Banff is still against the back wall: it is probably the tomb of a 17th century provost of Banff.) The track winds on to the bridge of Alvah, a magnificent structure of 1772.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’, (1996).