Front Hall at Blair Drummond

Category

Library Item

Item no

16054

Title

Front Hall at Blair Drummond

Description

A grand wooden staircase leads up to a hallway. The bottom half of the walls are covered with ornate dark wooden boiserie style panelling. A patterned rug runs up the centre of the staircase. To the side are various plant pots, two of these are balanced on top of two ornate posts. The banister begins halfway up the stairs. In the centre of the back wall is a large fireplace with a clock above it. The heads of dead cattle hang on the walls. The ceiling is patterned with moulding decoration and a small light fitting in the centre.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1875

Size

22.6 x 28.8 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

Blair Drummond House was built between 1868 and 1872 by the architect J.C. Walker. It replaced an earlier mansion dating from 1715. Blair Drummond was purchased from the Stirling Home-Drummond Moray family in 1916 by a wealthy tea merchant named Sir James Kay. In the 1970s the grounds were turned into a safari park. The house is now run as a community for young people with special needs by the Camphill Trust.

This image comes from a set of family photograph albums known as the Moray Albums. They belonged to a family known as the Stirling Home-Drummond Moray's, an aristocratic, well-connected Scottish landowning family. Originally the name was Drummond, but became hyphenated in 1741 when Agatha Drummond of Blair Drummond married Henry Home of Kames. Their grandson, Henry Home-Drummond married Christian Moray, eldest daughter of Colonel Charles Moray of Abercairny and his wife, Anne Stirling. The Stirling name was added due to the inclusion of Anne Stirling's lands.

The albums contain many pictures of the extended family and other aristocratic connections as well as images of the stately homes at Blair Drummond and Abercairny. The family travelled frequently too through Great Britain and to the continent for holidays in Switzerland. Portraits include Charles Stirling Home-Drummond Moray who became 9th Laird of Blair Drummond, 19th of Abercairny and 11th of Ardoch in 1876 and his wife Lady Ann Georgina Douglas. Their son, William Augustus married the Hon. Gwendolen Edwardes, daughter of the 4th Baron Kensington and there are photographs of the Kensingtons in the second album.

The family used many residences of their extended family as well as their own, which are represented in the albums. The original house at Abercairny; Abercairny Abbey was started in 1805 and demolished in 1960. The present Abercairney House was started in 1842 and is still in use by the family. Their hunting lodge, Connachan Lodge is still in existence and is sometimes rented out. Firle Place, Lewes, Sussex which also appears in the albums is still owned by the Gages.

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