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.