Menornima; Decorative Day

After Fyvie, I headed up into Banff. I had time on my hands and ended up staying there for three weeks. There were a couple of dreary days, but for most of it, there was proper summer. On one of those days, I finally got myself organised to visit Duff House. This is not, as it turned out, one to strike off the lists of my National Trust membership. This one is under Historic Scotland's care, which is odd because they generally watch over ruins, not standing buildings. However, it was to do with the fact that this place had been used as a prisoner of war camp during WW2. Anyway, it meant buying a ticket, but it wasn't horrible at £8 for a senior... and, unlike the NT houses and castles, there was a working lift to reach all the floors! I did the first floor before lunch, then the other two floors in the afternoon. Thus, you are getting two parts again! First floor this week, the other two next Thursday.

The lift opens out onto the Hunting Room. This is where, originally, all the relevant equipment, such as guns and rods, would have been kept. The house, you may gather from the look and feel of that first glimpse, is a Georgian construction, and something of a folly of sorts. It was commissioned by politician William Duff of Braco, First Earl of Fife, who was a rather frustrated aristocrat and who sought to improve his status by throwing up this pile. He and the architect, William Adam (Scotland's top bloke at the time) had a falling out over money. Adam was not only the designer, but the builder/contractor and in a move known and experienced by countless self-builders for ever and ever, Adam sought to gain more by advising changes and seeking to have the stone provided by his own workshops (at premium cost, natch)... anyway, it got settled after five years, but Adam was off the case and the full building was never completed. There had been two wings planned, but only the central building was finished. 

No great loss, I feel. What is left may be relatively small for this type of building, but it's really a lovely wee package! The next room was the boudoir of Jean, Duff's second wife, who bore him seven sons and seven daughters... phew. At least she had this beautiful, restful, chintz-heavy bolt hole to sit and recuperate. Those are El Grecos on the far wall... At which point, I'll mention that this is also an 'outbuilding' for the National Galleries of Scotland, so the walls were laden. This was an appropriate choice, given William and Jean had great fondness for art, and the walls in their day would have been equally as laden.

The main reception hall has two full-height doors opening onto the grand stairs up which all guests would step from their carriages. 

I am showing you the main rooms, but at the corner of each floor are four 'towers' in which more intimate rooms are to be found - dressing rooms, collection rooms, sewing rooms. The ceilings in those are rather lower: as a result of the wings not being completed, which would originally have housed the serving staff, store rooms, and kitchens, emergency staff accommodation was created by building spiral stair cases into the towers, lowering the ceilings of the corner rooms and putting in mazanine floors into which the staff would be fitted - five feet high. Think house elves... The kitchen and stores were moved into the basement rooms, which had been planned to be for wine and cheese only. 

This is the Prince of Wales room... so named because in 1883, before he became King Edward VII, the then prince visited and slept in this very bed. His host was the 6th Earl of Fife. (A note for those familiar, this 'Fife' does not refer to the county on Scotland's east coast, but to an area in Ireland... Willie Duff had been hoping for a title better than that, but had to make do...)

For much of my visit, I had the company of one of the wardens, Rosemary, who, it turned out, hailed from Australia! She married a man local to here and thus has been as long here as I had been down under. I was asking her about the dusting (noting the need for it around those decorative legs and feet as well as the incredible chandeliers). She said that it had to be done by professionals and nobody was allowed to have a go, no matter how great the need!

The last large room on the first floor was the grand dining room. Looking at the ceiling, it is to be noted that the decorative work here was made using the 'innovative new technique of papier mache' rather than the heavier and more costly plaster (as seen in the grand entrance hall). I would have soooo loved to have lain on the table and taken a 'mandala' shot!!! That might have caused a bit of a ruckus, though.

Okay, that's the first part, I'll leave you with a fabulous external shot, taken from the seat under the Copper Beech as I had my lunch...