Mount Stuart lies a few miles south of Rothesay, Isle of Bute, in breath-taking countryside and with wonderful views. The climate is the most benign in Scotland and many trees and shrubs too tended even for the south of England can be seen in the gardens.

Walter, 3rd High Steward of Scotland, held land in Bute from at least as early as 1204. Robert II (13 -13 ) had not less than twenty-one children, eight of whom were born out of wedlock. The eldest of these, named John, was created Hereditary Sheriff of Bute in 1385 and from him the present Crichton-Stewart family, Marquesses of Bute, descend. In 1498 James I made the then Stuart of Bute Hereditary Captain of Rothesay Castle.

After the castle's destruction in 1685 the family lived in the Old Mansion House in Rothesay High Street. The name "Mount_Stuart" is first found when Queen Anne created Sir James Stuart, 3rd Baronet, to be Earl of Bute, Viscount Kingarth, Lord Mount Stuart, Cumra [sic] and Inchmernock [sic], 14 April 1703. The 2nd Earl had plans drawn up for a fine Georgian house on the present site in 1716 and the family moved in to their new abode in 1719. The central block was destroyed by fire on the morning of 3 December 1877 but out of the ashes emerged the present building, commissioned by the 3rd Marquess from the noted Scottish architect, Sir Robert Rowand Anderson. The side wings of the old house were retained to be used as offices, staff accommodation and storage. The new house was very much a Gothic dream-come-true-in-stone of its creator, John Patrick, 3rd Marquess of Bute. Every tiny detail had to be approved by him before it could go ahead and it is not therefore surprising that it was left unfinished at his death in 1900. The late John, 6th Marquess and his wife, Jennifer, put a tremendous amount of energy and loving attention into restoration work and completing some of the details of the building. They also commissioned new decoration, stained glass, sculpture and cabinet-work to be in keeping with what was already there.

Mount Stuart has been described as a "Gothic_Firework" of a building and it cannot fail to impress all who see it, whether they admire the Gothic style or prefer the relative tranquillity of the Georgian classical. Almost all the contents of the original house were saved from the 1877 fire and the walls are now hung with wonderful family and other portraits and the place is a treasure-house of wonderful things. However, it is the building itself, in all its masterly detail and ornamentation, red Corsehill sandstone from Dumfriesshire, marble, alabaster, stained glass and all, that is the real wonder. In the basic plan, a square within a square, the main reception rooms are on the first floor, the piano nobile, raised above the ground floor and vaulted basements. In the centre stands the masterpiece of the house, the Marble Hall, almost sixty feet square and rising the full height of the building, lit from above by twelve stained-glass windows and flanked by lesser halls to north and south. A great marble and alabaster staircase rises at one side, the ceiling decorated with stars. Also on the first-floor level to the south, there are three libraries, leading one out of the other, with an original Victorian heated swimming pool (a world first) below, while to the north stands the chapel, lit from above by a hidden cupola glazed in pink, throwing a wonderfully warm glow onto the white marble beneath. A telephone was installed in 1887 and the house was the first in Scotland to be wired for electricity. Many well-known designers and master-craftsmen were involved in the whole project and the work is fully documented in the family archives preserved in one of the Libraries and the Muniment Room.

The house was so unloved by the 4th Marquess that in 1920 he advertised it for sale "conditional_to_its_complete_demolition_and_removal_by_the_purchaser_ ..._suitable_for_re-erection_as_a_Hotel_Hydro,_Restaurant,_Casino,_Public_ Building,_etc.". Happily, there were no takers.

The Horoscope Room This is the bedroom of the Third Marquess. It is one of the three principal bedrooms fitted out by William Frame in the late 1880s with carvings by Nicholls. Its glory is the elaborate astrological ceiling with panels depicting exotic birds and plants and, in the centre, surrounded by a frieze of miniature castles, an astrological depiction of the position of the planets at the time of the Third Marquess's birth on 12 September 1847. Frame was in correspondence with W. C. Jordan, of Roath, Cardiff, in 1885 about this; the astrologer replying that, "This_would_give_a_stature_very_similar_to_the_old_ Duke_of_Wellington_and_much_of_his_features,_again_compare_it_to_Napoleon_ the_3rd._....". The vitrine is part of a set of mother-of-pearl and ebony inlaid Arts and Crafts furniture designed by Robert Weir Schultz for the 3rd Marquess. The Egyptian furniture was inspired by that found in King Tutenkhamun's tomb in 1922. The chimney-piece was designed in 1893 by Anderson, as were the Gothic arches of marble. The new timber doors here were designed by Stewart Tod and filled with engraved stained glass by Alison Kinnaird.

The Conservatory This has been recently restored and given a marble basin. Designed by Anderson for the 3rd Marquess as an observatory, it was used as an operating theatre when Mount Stuart served as a hospital during the Great War. The furniture here includes four remarkable early 20th century Italian chairs and table attributed to Bugatti.

Further Reading:

1). The Rt. Rev. Sir David Hunter Blair, Bt., OSB: John Patrick, 3rd Marquess of Bute, KT (1847-1900): A Memoir. John Murray, London, 1921.

2). J. Mordaunt Crook: William Burgess and the High Victorian Dream. John Murray, London, 1981.

3). Gavin Stamp: Robert Weir Schultz, Architect, and his Work for the Marquesses of Bute. Mount Stuart, 1981.

4). Sam McKinstry: Sir Robert Rowand Anderson: The Premier Architect of Scotland. Edinburgh University Press, 1981.

5). Anthony Crichton-Stuart [and others]: Mount Stuart House and Gardens. Mount Stuart Trust, 1995.

RANDOM ADDITIONAL NOTES

Mount Stuart is one of those houses which leaves a strong impression on the mind. One either loves it or loathes it but cannot remain indifferent to it. Even if you visit it with a preconceived idea about disliking late-Victorian high-Gothic, you will still leave with a sneaking feeling that there is something to be said for it after all. It is so over-the-top in so many ways that it fairly takes the breath away. In the days of the late Lord Bute's grandfather, the 4th Marquess, advertisements appeared offering the house for sale, free of charge, to anyone who would removed the building entirely from the Island of Bute; not surprisingly there were no takers. The style of architecture was so deeply unfashionable and so detested by the owners that the house was little used and fell into a premature decay within thirty years of the death of its creator and before some of its decorative features were even finished. Happily today it is back in favour, having been lovingly restored by the 6th Marquess and his lady, and is now open to the public.

Even to this day there are things which remain to be done, some of the plans for which would now be prohibitively expensive to complete. Marble and alabaster pillars which would have made the famous Apprentice's Pillar at Rosslyn Chapel seem positively ordinary will forever remain plain and unadorned; but they will be no less beautiful because of the wonderful colours and figurations of the marbles. The Roman poet Ovid, in his attempt to describe the sun god's palace in the sky, tells us of the wonderful materials of which it is made and then says 'Materiam superabat opus' ('the workmanship exceeded the materials') but this description would not have done for Mount Stuart; both materials and workmanship are breath-taking.

The red sandstone exterior may not be to everyone's taste but as soon as you get inside you marvel and gasp. It is like entering a soaring cathedral furnished with the contents of the world's finest museums. Even after some recent sales to cover inheritance tax, etc., the furnishings, hangings, paintings, furniture and libraries of books are unsurpassed in almost any other private house in Scotland. The great diningroom has five full-length eighteenth-century Alan Ramsay portraits on one wall. The sideboard beneath is about thirty feet long and the rest of the room is to the same scale. On the other side of the Marble Hall is the drawingroom, of the same proportions, the ceiling of which is an effusion of entwining foliage and heraldry which, on looking closer, resolves itself into a family tree, showing the arms and coronets of the different generations.

The family chapel is entirely of white marble, lit by a hidden cupola glazed with pink glass, which always puts the writer in mind of the lines in Keats's St. Agnes Eve "A_casement_high_there_was_..._and_threw_warm_gules_on_ Madelane's_fair_cheek".