Architecture Notes
Event ID 834417
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Architecture Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/834417
NS52SW 16.00 50726 23016
NMRS REFERENCE
Building account at Yale University - typescript
EXTERNAL REFERENCE
Building accounts at Yale University - paid 13 Oct 1758 and 29 August 1759
Boswell occupied the new house by 17 Aug 1762.
Window glass 20 April, wrights and sawyers 1 Nov 1760.
Window tax (31 windows) 9 July 1760 for the year May 1759 - May 1760.
Sources: The Yale Editions of the Private papers of James Boswell, 331A Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut. Quote from letter (7/4/1976) from the Editor to Mr Gordon P Hoyle.
A The Biographer definitely did not add the gazebos to Auchinleck House. It is clear I should say from the corresspondence between Boswell and Temple, that they had not been completed by the summer of 1767, though the main house had been then habitable for some time. Temple visited Auchinleck House in early July, 1767, by himself, Lord Auchinleck and Boswell both being kept in Edinburgh by the Session. In some "Instructions" which Boswell wrote for Temple, he asked Temple to "look at the front" and to "advise as to pavilions". On 19 October 1767 Temple wrote to Boswell, "Persuade my Lord to cut down the row of trees that spoils the meadow, and not to make the wings to the house little bandboxes, but in proportion to the body of the building; otherwise, tell his Lordship from me that the whole will look like a giant with the arms of a dwarf." I feel sure that Lord Auchinleck completed the gazebos soon after that. Whether he modified his design because of Temple's comments I do not know. If they had been built while Boswell was laird (September 1782- June 1795), there would surely be some references to them in Boswell's journal or letters (especially to James Bruce or Andrew Gibb) or in such estate papers as we have. Furthermore I don't think that Boswell was in funds for building at any time during his lairdship.
(Undated) information in NMRS.
Five bay Classical mansion block with pediment over central three bays, four pavilions of different stone with towers linked by screen walls. Dated c. 1760 by an unknown builder for Lord Auchinleck, father of James Boswell, biographer of Dr Johnson.
Restored in the late C20 and now let through the Landmark Trust.
Photographed on behalf of the Buildings of Scotland publications.
RCAHMS 2009.
