Field Visit

Date 9 February 1921

Event ID 1114488

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1114488

RCAHMS County Inventory: Midlothian and West Lothian

Caroline Park.

The barony of Royston marched with the barony of Granton, and the respective mansions were adjacent. The residence of the Royston estate was Royston House, and that of Granton, Granton House, but in 1740 when John, second Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, the then proprietor of Royston, purchased the Granton property he combined the two estates under the name of ‘Caroline’ Park after his eldest child, who married the Earl of Dalkeith. Royston House then became Caroline Park House, and Granton House was known as Royston House.

Caroline Park House (Fig. 53) has been continuously occupied since its erection in 1685 by Sir George Mackenzie, who was in that year created Viscount Tarbat and later Earl of Cromarty. For the last half-century it has been the offices of a firm of chemists. It is the only structure so far noted in these Inventories in which the contemporary panelling, modelled plaster work, and decorative paintings are at all complete and well-preserved. The house stands 500 yards south-west of the western wharf of Granton Harbour, on an old raised beach just above the 50-feet contour line and within a small park, all that remains of the extensive pleasure grounds and 100-acre park mentioned by Lord Cockburn (1), whose father tenanted the property from 1796-7 for a period of thirty-five years.

Viscount Tarbat, on acquiring the estate, laid out his new house in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a paved court, as the fashion of the time was. In an inscription on the building he modestly designates the structure a cottage, though it is quite a commodious mansion.

The entrances were two in number, and were centrally situated in the north and south wings. The northern was the principal, the main approach being from the north-east, where the fine entrance gate-piers still remain in situ. They are contemporary with the present south front of the house, which was embellished by Tarbat in 1696, and probably superseded the plainer entrance gate adjacent. The iron gates are said to have been removed to Gogar House (NT17SE 9) and thence to Sauchieburn in Stirling.

The house is a low-set harled structure of two storeys in all wings but that on the south, where upper chambers are contrived within the roofs. The north front is simple but distinctive. The lateral wings have coupled roofs received on skewed gables of eccentric form. The central portion has a fiat roof surmounted by a good balustraded parapet with well-moulded stone balusters square on plan and diagonally disposed like those on the look-out of Woolmet House (NT36NW 36). Midway in its length the balustrade is interrupted by a panel bordered with carving rather reminiscent of the churchyard and inscribed: ‘GAZÆ CONGESTÆ NIHILI/IMPENSÆ USUI SUNT / CUM GLEBIS / AUGENTUR ET LABORES / IN NOSTRUM ERGO / ET AMICORUM SOLATIUM / TUGURIOLUM HOC / EDIFICARE CURA-RUNT/ GEORGIUS ET ANNA / VICECOMITES A TARBAT / ANNO ÆRÆ CHRIST 1685 / INTRA TUM HOSPES / NAM HOSPITIUM EST / NUNC NOSTRUM / TUNC ALTERIUS / POSTEA VERO / NEC SCIO NEG CURO CUIUS / NAM NULLI CERTA DOMUS / Viven-dum ergo dum licet esse bene’: ‘Riches heaped up are worth nothing, laid out they are of service. To add field to field is to increase labour. Therefore, for our own comfort and that of friends, George and Anna, Earl and Countess of Tarbat, had this cottage built in the year of Christ 1685. Enter then, guest, for the lodging is now ours, by and by it will be another's, but whose afterwards I neither know nor care, for to no one is a house sure. Let us enjoy life, therefore, while it lasts.’

[For a detailed architectural description, see RCAHMS 1929 pp. 32-36].

RCAHMS 1929, visited 9 February 1921.

(1) Journal of Henry Cockburn, ii, p.143.