Ardgowan House - Last day of OPP

Friday was the last day of the Open Palace Programme which was a bit sad. We travelled by bus up to Ardgowan House. It was close to where we caught the ferry to the Isle of Bute the other day.

Ardgowan House is a 18th century mansion which is privately owned by Sir Ludovic 'Ludo' Shaw Stewart, who inherited it from his father when he was 17 years old. 

He talk us on a tour of the house and informed us of its history, and also the history of the Stewart family. Since the 15th century, the Ardgowan estate has been held by the Stewart family. 

Ludo informed us of some discoveries that have been found - one is a pair of 18th century shoes found under the house which are now on display. Another is a Bronze Age axe head which he showed us and passed it around. The axe head was discovered under the ground in the field in front of the house, and indicates that the area has been inhabited for 4000 years. Also a Roman silver coin was found in the fields. The name Ardgowan means 'Hill of the smith' in Gaelic.

He gave us a history of Robert the Bruce, and the history of Inverkip Castle of which there are remains on the estate. The Stewart family is descended from Robert the Bruce's great grandson, Robert the 3rd. 

The first stone of the house was laid in 1798 and building was completed in 1801. There is a certain mystery around the construction of the house, and the reasons why it was built by Sir John Shaw Stewart. He had no children so the house was passed onto his nephew Sir Michael. With 76 rooms, it was built in the style of Robert Adam, the neoclassical architect.

Sir Michael made some changes to the house - he removed the external staircase which lead up to the Library (which used to be the Front Hall) so originally the entrance to the house was up these outside stairs. The Chapel was added in the 19th century, and during WWI and WWII the house was used as a hospital (similar to Mount Stuart).

The house was recently used for the filming of Agatha Christie's Ordeal by Innocence, the mini series that was released last year. Here is an interesting article about the filming:

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/942974/Ordeal-by-Innocence-Agatha-Christie-drama-BBC-house-owner-Bill-Nighy-Alice-Eve-Ardgowan

As mentioned in the article, Sir Ludo told us of the ordeal of having the crew, 160 people, living in the house for 6 months. It was originally filmed in the summer of 2017, but then last year they had to reshoot it with Ed Westwick's part recast because the actor was accused of sexual assault. So the scenes had to be reshot in the winter of 2018.

Sir Ludo showed us a key that he found in an auction, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for the Glasgow School of Art. A couple of months after he bought the key, the Glasgow School of Art suffered a fire (for the second time) which meant most of the items didn't survive.

He also showed us some of the archives - letters of correspondence which are in boxes currently stored away in the Library.

After the tour and morning tea in the Drawing Room, the bus dropped some of us off at the airport to head home.

Holmwood House

Thursday morning's visit was to Holmwood House, a family home built in 1857-8 by Alexander 'Greek' Thomson for James Couper and his wife. The house was built with distinct Greek classical style architecture - this can be seen from the exterior with the Greek columns but also the interior decoration. We were met by the Curator and Conservator of National Trust of Scotland, who were also at Hill House. Along with Hill House, Holmwood is another property they manage.
After the property was sold by the Coupar family, it became a convent/school run by nuns who painted over the decorative Greek classical wallpaper. In the 1990s, the National Trust of Scotland bought the property and since then there has been a focus on restoring the interior of the house to its original design and Greek theme. The Conservator spoke to us on the details of this Interior Recreation Project, a lengthy process which has involved stripping back the layers of paint in the walls, and also repainting the original Greek wallpaper and also furnishing the rooms to match, but at the same time trying to avoid risk of damage. The dining room, which used to be the school chapel, is very much complete - the wall paint has been stripped back to reveal the original 19th century design and the wallpaper has been repainted in this theme. The frieze running along the top of the walls depicts scenes from Homer's Iliad. Also the ceiling and chandelier have been gilded.
They only have 3 or 4 photographs of the interior and how the interior looked in the mid 18th century, and they don't really own any records in terms of furniture. The only resource is 'Villa and Cottage Architecture' which contains an article on the house including some etchings.
The other room they have restored is the Hallway. They are currently undergoing restoration on the Stairway, and the remaining rooms (eg. Parlour, Drawing Room and bedrooms upstairs) have yet to be restored. They have done paint scrapes in some of the rooms which has revealed the under layers of paint.
We got given a task to analyse the Parlour and the Stairway and to suggest what could be done with these spaces.
On Thursday evening the whole group had drinks at a pub to celebrate the last night of the Open Palace Programme. We shared amongst each other and our highlights and our lowlights.

Hunterian Conservation Store and Kelvingrove

On Wednesday we walked to the Hunterian which is one of University of Glasgow’s leading museums - it holds the collection of William Hunter and has 1.5 million objects. A Collections Assistant gave us a tour of the collection store/archives. It contains a large amount of James McNeill Whistler’s work (paintings) and also Charles Rennie Mackintosh (elevation plans and furniture).
I think it is one of the best collection stores I’ve seen - everything is well organised and there is a lot of space and the compactuses are high tech (eg. you push a button and it opens). They also have a high tech barcoding system where you scan an object using an app on the phone and it updates the database.
Their collection includes zoology and entomology, so a lot of taxidermy. We were told of some of the issues they’ve faced in the past, such as pests (moths and carpet beetles) so all the deer heads on the walls had to be placed in the freezer to preserve them from the pests.
We had a workshop on ‘Packing Objects for Movement and Storage’ which I found very informative. I haven’t had any experience packing artefacts in boxes - I’ve only packed documents and building plans into boxes. On the table there was a pile of material which can be used when packing an object - these include Tyvek, cotton tape, plastazote (cell foam) and insect pins. We got given objects to pack using these materials. I had a ‘samian fragment’ of a lion pouncing from the Balmuildy Roman fort. It was essentially a small slab of pottery which I rested on some plastazote, then I created a border of foam around the slab to cushion it and these border pieces were secured with insect pins. Then there was a strip of Tyvek across the top of it with more plastazote, then tissue paper to fill the gap. One of the things to consider is not putting too much pressure on the object but keeping it secure.

After this I went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. The museum had a wide range of items including taxidermy, art, furniture, and objects relating to Scottish history. Some of the paintings I found interesting was one of the Necropolis painted in 1840 (the same view I saw on Wednesday) and also Salvador Dali’s ‘Christ of Saint John the Cross’.

On Wednesday night we had a group dinner at Jamie Oliver’s Restaurant in Glasgow.

St Mungo Museum

We travelled by train to St Mungo Museum in Glasgow on Tuesday morning. It is a religious life and art museum named after St Mungo the patron saint of Glasgow. The Learning and Access Curator spoke to us on the challenges of exhibiting sacred items and how the museum tried to avoid segregation of different religions, instead taking on a thematic approach and mixing items from different religions together.
We got given an exercise to discuss any difficult or controversial issues that may arise when preparing a display about religion. Some of the issues include:
- interpreting the objects in the wrong way and thus causing offence
- issue of ethics (for example, displaying of relics/human remains)
- putting a modern interpretation on an object and taking it out of its historical context
- trying to avoid preference over one religion to another
The Museum’s aim is to promote mutual understanding and respect between people of different faiths and of none.
The Museum is set up with a few different galleries - the Gallery of Religious Art, the Gallery of Religious Life (religion in everyday life) and the Scottish Gallery. There is also a temporary exhibition space. In the Gallery of Religious Life, there is a room with 6 displays showing the 6 main religions (6 faiths that have significant communities in Glasgow). These are Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism.
In terms of interpretation of displays, they use comparative/inter disciplinary and thematic displays, key interpretative text and personal testimony.
Some of the challenges they face are displaying controversial subjects and objects, Aniconic religions, and having a Western interpretation of religion.
We got given a practical exercise to choose objects from a table and create an imaginary exhibition from them on a particular topic (eg. worship, prayer, pilgrimage, feasting, fasting, gender). My group chose the topic of items being taken out of their religious context and being popularised in modern culture (eg. the cross being used by secular people as jewellery and house decoration - this also applies with Buddhist statues in the home).
We got time to explore the Museum and go up to the temporary exhibition on Angels called ‘Heavenly Creatures’ which was interesting. We also walked up to the Necropolis and got a view over Glasgow, and also Glasgow Cathedral.

In the afternoon, a group of us went to the Willow Tea Rooms (Charles Rennie Mackintosh tea rooms) for afternoon tea which was nice.

Isle of Bute

On Monday Morning we took a bus and then a ferry to the island of Bute. There were great views of the island from the ferry.

We reached the extraordinary palace of Mount Stuart on the island and were given a tour. I think out of all the palaces and castles we’ve been to this trip, this mansion blew us away the most. Built in 1880 by John 3rd Marquess of Bute, the wealthiest man in Europe at the time, it is a rich example of Victorian Gothic architecture. It was the first house in Scotland to have electricity, a telephone system, and a heated indoor swimming pool. It has 127 rooms and up until 1995 it was a family home. It is incredibly lavish and ornate down to the last detail. First we entered the very grand marble hall with the marble staircase - the tour guide pointed up to the constellations mapped out on the ceiling and the Zodiac stain glass windows, one window for each Zodiac sign. The details and colours in the windows were hard to capture in my photos of them.
We went into the Dining Room which has paintings by Titian and Tintoretto - the guide informed us that they have the most valuable collection of Renaissance paintings.
In each room there is minute detail in the carvings of the friezes and columns, and they contain animals. For example, in the Dining Room the frieze contains squirrels carved into the wood, and in
the columns there are birds, caterpillars, butterflies and even a spider in a web.
We went into the Library - they have a Purple Library, Red Library and Blue Library. Currently they have a temporary exhibition on Mary Queen of Scots, primarily focusing on her execution including a 1895 film which goes for 18 seconds. Also in the Library there are books in 21 different languages.
We went up the marble staircase, which contains 21 types of marble, and into some guest bedrooms which each have en-suite bathrooms.
One of the rooms is Lady Gwendolyn’s Sitting Room - there is a bed in there even though it actually wasn’t used as a bedroom. The Guide said that they have a lot of weddings at Mount Stuart, and this is the room where the brides’ parents would sleep.
The ceiling of the 3rd Marquess of Bute and Lady Gwendolyn’s bedroom is covered with shields with a rope, and each knotted rope represents a Stuart marriage dating from 1300. The bedroom also contains a solid silver, platinum and gold picture depicting Jesus turning water into wine, a gift given to Lady Bute on their 25th wedding anniversary.
We went into another bedroom which is attached to a Conservatory - this was used as an operating theatre during WWI where patients were looked after. There were more intricate animal motifs in this room around the bed, including a lion with a nightcap on and a badger playing bagpipes. Also the face of Truffles the cat. There is a big mixture of 1880s and 1980s in the room - the bed for example was actually a 1980s addition.
We ventured into the White Marble Chapel where they still host wedding ceremonies. We also got taken down to the swimming pool, which wedding guests are able to use, and it includes a sauna which was put in in the 1970s.

After a fancy lunch in the Purple Sitting Room, we had a session with the Archivist which was really interesting. She had items laid out on the table for us to look at. In 1877, the first house built for the family was destroyed by fire so we were shown photographs of the house before and afterwards, including floor plans for the first house and the new house. There were detailed drawings of each stained glass window and an illustration of gold cutlery used by the 3rd Marquess of Bute. The Archivist told us that the actual cutlery she discovered accidentally whilst cleaning out some objects and then realised that they matched the illustration. The cutlery had been missing for 80 years. It was cool to see the actual cutlery and the drawing. The archives also contained the marriage contract of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his pistols, and a first edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

Then I walked down to the shoreline - I was told that otters have been spotted here but I didn’t see any. I also walked around the gardens which are massive. Then before heading back on this bus, we provided feedback and suggested ideas to the staff about temporary exhibitions they could have, and also how they could improve visitor engagement and attract more visitors.
I think this site visit was my favourite out of the places I’ve been to so far.