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Carradale, Carradale House

Country House (19th Century)

Site Name Carradale, Carradale House

Classification Country House (19th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Carradale House Policies

Canmore ID 144853

Site Number NR83NW 11

NGR NR 80674 37787

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/144853

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

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First 100 images shown. See the Collections panel (below) for a link to all digital images.

Administrative Areas

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Saddell And Skipness
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

Architecture Notes (16 July 2001)

Naomi Mitchison and her husband bought the Carradale Estate in 1937 as their Scottish country home. Lady Mitchison lived mainly at Carradale in her later years and following her death the estate was sold and the contents of the house dispersed. The Royal Commission took the opportunity to record the house and its contents after her death. With the help of Mr and Mrs Salins who had looked after Lady Mitchison it was possible to photograph the rooms much as she had occupied them.

The house occupies a wonderful position looking due South over its own bay with spectacular views all around. The original house dates from the Mid Eighteenth Century and now forms the northern half of the main house. Its North façade appears to have been the entrance front with an advanced central bay containing the main entrance. Nineteenth Century plans show the remains of a perron stair which may have served the entrance. An Eighteenth Century key-stoned fireplace survives behind a cupboard in the original entrance hall now the TV room. The house appears to have had a hipped roof the present gables and bartisans having been added by David Bryce in the Nineteenth Century. The original house seems to have been similar to Saddell House further up the coast.

David Bryce was employed in 1844 to reorder and extend the house. He moved the entrance to the South creating a much more picturesque approach from the Southwest. He added a new Entrance hall leading into a saloon with a new top lit stair hall to the North and a large double aspect Drawing Room to the West. He also created a service stair serving every level of the house and a large new service courtyard to the Northeast. The original Dining Room lost its views to the South during the alterations so Bryce threw an ample bay out to the East catching an unexpected view of the island of Arran. A conservatory was added to the West leading off the Sitting Room sometime in the later Nineteenth Century

In about 1900 a single storey wing was added to the East off the entrance hall providing a cloakroom and a spacious library. This was the extent of the house acquired by the Mitchisons in 1937. They employed Powys and Macgregor of London to raise the floor level of the Victorian kitchen so that it was on the same level as the Dining Room and installed a new central heating system. In 1969 there was a fire that destroyed the service courtyard but thankfully did not effect the main house. The Mitchisons employed William Cadell of Linlithgow to design a new three storeyed service range in 1970. This provided a large modern open plan well lit kitchen adjacent to the Dining Room.

What made Carradale House such a fascinating topic for an in depth photographic survey was the way the Mitchisons used the house and Lady Mitchison’s inherently stylish decoration. The exuberant wallpaper in the stair hall was found in London. Antique family furniture, Lady Mitchison was a Trotter of Dreghorn, is mixed with Twentieth Century classics including chairs by Basil Spence and a sideboard by Gordon Russell as well as more utilitarian and rustic pieces.

Artists were invited to stay and their work adorns the walls. Most notable of these was Wyndham Lewis who drew the children and painted a glorious picture of Lady Mitchison which prompted the colour scheme of the Sitting Room where it hung. C E B Brett carried out a series of murals including “Homage A Monsieur Bosch” a version of the garden of earthly delights set in the grounds of Carradale which hangs appropriately in the hall, the principal route to the garden. A leopard prowls in his amusingly littered cage in the saloon fireplace. A dog kennel under the stairs is concealed behind a row of shops including “Mitchison’s Bizarre Bazaar and in the Television Room on a large cupboard Caradale House is set in a mythological landscape.

This was primarily a holiday home and it has a relaxed amusing ambience where the precious and the mundane jostle. The David Bryce designed baronial entrance could only be reached on foot everyone used the back door. The library was not as one would expect where she wrote but the home of the ping-pong table. Her main writing table was in the South facing bay window of the Drawing Room but there were a variety of desks and tables throughout the house where she wrote should the muse strike.

The diverse collections have been dispersed and the estate has found enthusiastic new owners. The photographic record carried out the Royal Commission provides a lasting record of this most unusual artistic holiday house on the West Coast of Kintyre.

Architecture Notes

NMRS REFERENCE

Carradale, Carradale House.

OWNER: Richard Campbell.

ARCHITECT: David Bryce 1844

William Burn 1844 addts. William Cadell.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

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