Standing Building Recording

Date 4 November 2011 - 14 June 2012

Event ID 992945

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/992945

NT 2696 7407 Two short programmes of standing building recording were completed at Croft-an-Righ House, which lies NE of the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The work was completed as part of a programme of repair and conservation that focused primarily on the plaster ceiling at first floor level in the N range and the room immediately above. The work consisted of the detailed recording of newly exposed timber features, primarily a sequence of floor joists and fragmentary panelling in the N range at second floor level. The work was completed in two stages. The first on 4 November 2011 focused on the floor joists and the second on 14 June 2012 on a fragment of painted panelling. The results of the work suggest the sequence of building and repair at Croft-an-Righ consists of six main phases.

Phase 1: Purchase by the Earl of Airth The acquisition of Croft-an-Righ House happened around the second decade of the 17th century after the marriage of the Earl of Airth (c1591–1661) to Agnes Gray in 1612. The house was habitable by this time, but may not have had its current footprint.

Phase 2: Extension The Earl spent considerable expense on the extension to the house and commissioned masons, quarriers, slaters, wrights, smiths, glaziers, painters and plasterers. It is probable that the footprint of the current house emerged during this building campaign.

Phase 3: Rebuilding The house was destroyed in a fire shortly after the completion of Phase 2. However, as Gordon of Rothiemay’s view of Edinburgh (1647) shows an intact building with a turreted two-storey W range and a one-storey N range, the house was rebuilt between c1620 and 1647. The plaster ceiling over the first floor of the N range was probably created during rebuilding and it is possible that the space above the plaster ceiling was not used for any residential purpose.

Phase 4: The second floor of the N range The N range must have acquired its current profile after Gordon of Rothiemay had completed his view of Edinburgh. As the extant chimney disposition on the W range differs from that visible on Rothiemay’s view, it appears that the entire upper floor of the house was altered after completion of Phase 3. Phase 4 saw the introduction of dormer windows, fireplaces and decorated wooden wall panelling to the second floor of the N range. The panelling is characterised by the rhythmic arrangement of stiles, rails and panels, and expresses classical architectural ideas rather than the typical appearance of Scottish pre-Civil War wooden wall and ceiling decoration. It is not clear whether the panelling received its painted decoration immediately after the installation of the wooden walls. The style of the marble imitating decoration appears to be 18th-century in character rather than 17th-century, although the panels could have been repainted during the 18th century.

Phase 5: Restructuring The second floor of the N range shows evidence for significant restructuring that must have been completed before c1892. This building campaign saw the installation of three separate rooms, a wall cupboard and a lath and plaster ceiling. It also included the reinforcement of the 17th-century ceiling joists, in an attempt to relieve the load bearing ceiling timbers from vertical load. This operation coincided with the creation of a new substructure for a new set of floorboards and may also have involved concealing the decorated wooden panelling with wallpaper and fabrics.

Phase 6: Remodelling the second floor All but one of the partitions were removed after the publication of Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland in 1892. This operation saw the installation of grooved-and-tongued floorboards and industrial plasterboard. Plasterboard was invented in the USA by the late 19th century and appeared in Europe no earlier than WW1, suggesting that this work took place in the second quarter of the 20th century.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

Funder: Historic Scotland

Gordon Ewart, Kirkdale Archaeology

Thorsten Hanke,

2012