Standing Building Recording

Date March 2007 - June 2007

Event ID 558782

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/558782

NS 2705 0216 Review of the analytical understanding of Robert Adam’s mansion of c1782–90 (with wings added by Wardrop and Reid, 1880–3) as part of a conservation plan for the site was undertaken between March and June 2007. Drawings in the Soane Museum show both the original scheme for the house (c1782) and a modified scheme (c1785). Evidence at basement level to the W suggests the earlier scheme had already

been embarked upon before the redesign. New drawings of the circular library were also identified at the Soane by Stephen Astley, Drawings Curator.

The interior of the new castle was cleared of debris, particularly at basement level. This process was supervised and significant building materials retained and recorded. A hierarchy of historic woodwork moulding details was recorded and sampled.

The exterior of the new castle and adjacent stable block was recorded by rectified photography by Mason Land Surveys Ltd. Internally a laser-scanning exercise by Mason’s was used as a basis for a drawn record by Addyman Archaeology, upon which was mounted rectified photographic imagery and analytical detail.

Forecourt, stable block and service court Evolution of designs for the forecourt area and adjacent stables was assessed. An extremely ornate design for the whole by Robert Adam (1785–9) was abandoned for a far simpler scheme (perhaps only finalised and executed after Robert Adam’s death in 1792) that was itself never fully realised. A 1789 design for the service court frontage was reversed and employed for the forecourt elevation, though in plan the internal arrangements of the range remained essentially the same. It appears that a central entrance from the forecourt into the service court was completed, but blocked in at a relatively early stage; the end pavilions and the paired stables were also completed. Other structures in the block, such as the

coachhouse, are of 19th-century date.

Within the service court survives a further single-storied building, the dairy. It was re-roofed in the later 19th century but appears to have formed part of the late Adam / early post-Adam scheme.

To the E of the new castle was a small two-storied summerhouse, square in plan and somewhat cut into the natural slope. This structure, which had seen modern extension and conversion to a granary store, was recorded in detail prior to its demolition. The original summerhouse seems to have formed part of the

sub-Adam works at Dalquharran, its details very similar to the dairy in the service court. The building had been re-roofed in the later 19th century, apparently with a lantern or skylight at the apex, and its interior reordered. Materials from the structure were retained for reuse. A further small structure nearby, the former gas house, of late 19th-century date, was also recorded prior to demolition.

Archive deposited with RCAHMS.

Funder: Private client; Michael Laird Architects.