Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 564035
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/564035
Meldrum House, from 1625, 17th and 18th century. Baronialised mansion with much earlier nucleus, hinted at in vaulted ground floor and history of 'weel-connectit' families involved (Meldrums, 1236 - mid-15th century; Setons to 1670, then son of Urquhart of Cromarty). Symmetry of Archibald Simpson's recasting, 1836-9, a neo-Jacobean three-storey block with two-storey advance pavilions and centre porch to south-west, was lost in W L Duncan's alterations of 1934-7 in which the top storey was removed, the south-east pavilions and porch demolished and a new entrance constructed at the northwest. Now dominated by grandiose (?)17th century external stair to first floor, with balustrades, Simpson's slender angle-towers and the pair of Dutch gables on the opposite façade. There is a tradition that the stair came from
Castle Fraser where it had given access to the original, first-floor, entry. The upper floor was once occupied by a row of four posters for the unmarried sisters of the family.
Taken from "Aberdeenshire: Donside and Strathbogie - An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Ian Shepherd, 2006. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
