Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 566825
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566825
House of The Binns, from 1612, ?Sir James Murray of Kilbaberton
Lovely U-plan Renaissance villa created by Thomas Dalyell from a three-storey courtyard manor-house. A king's favourite, constructing a villa near the king's palace at Linlithgow, he may well have used the king's architect, Murray of Kilbaberton. Half a century later, General Sir Tam Dalyell further extended the building. All was clothed in fashionable castellations in 1812 by Robert Burn. Possibly entered from the north, one of the turnpike stairs on that façade was originally corbelled from the first floor. The principal block, harled with stone dressings, was two-and-a-half storeys above ground-floor kitchens and cellars, which can still be seen on the west.
A Laigh Hall was created out of the original cellar in 1621, raising the ceiling and thereby squashing the principal floor, and General Sir Tam created the adjacent Business Room or Closet. The glory of the piano nobile is the two great Renaissance chambers with outstanding plasterwork by Alexander White - particularly the deep, elaborate frieze in the High Hall, the King's Chamber and the Vaulted Chamber. Painted panelling and ceilings. The first country house to be donated to the National Trust for Scotland. NTS: open to the public; guidebook available.
The 1829 Binns Tower, in the same livery as the house, was built by Sir James Dalyell, 5th Baronet, following an after-dinner wager. Restored, 2002, by The Pollock Hammond Partnership. Merrylees Cottages, a characterful row enlivened by obelisk-capped skews, hood-moulded windows and door at the centre.
Taken from "West Lothian: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Stuart Eydmann, Richard Jaques and Charles McKean, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
