The House of Dun, c.1720-c.1750 : inception, development and realisation
Abstract
The House of Dun (near Montrose) was built to designs by William
Adam (1689-1748) for David Erskine, Lord Dun (1673-1758), a judge of
the court of session. The history of its inception is complex and
intriguing. First proposals for the house were drawn up by
Alexander McGill (d.1734) in January 1723. These were sent for the
appraisal of Lord Dun's cousin, the exiled Jacobite John Erskine,
Earl of Mar (1675-1732), an amateur architect of considerable
ability. Mar provided counter-proposals for a house on a square
plan dated Paris, April 1723, and a scheme for an elaborate formal
garden. Neither McGill's nor Mar's designs were realised.
William Adam subsequently provided two designs (both
illustrated in Vitruvius Scoticus) for the house, the second of
which was realised. Although the house has a datestone which bears
“1730", documentary evidence suggests that Adam's final plan was
arrived at after his earlier version had been ammended by Mar in
1731. The resulting design is the product of a symbiotic exchange
of ideas in which Adam developed the triumphal arch motif for the
main facade of the house first suggested by Mar in 1723 and again in
1731.
The various schemes are documented in the form of both
monograph reports, and in Mar's case, several original drawings.
The main sources for these are the Erskine of Dun MSS at the
Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh: GD 123, and West Register House
for Mar's drawings plus one letter (RHP 13256-8, 13288/1-8 and
13289). Notable for its plasterwork by Joseph Enzer (d.1743),
several accounts for the fitting-up of the house survive, as well as
unattributed pencil sketches for a house based on Mar's design of
1723, and a plan for a formal garden. The dissertation makes
extensive use of these sources to examine the history of the
inception of the house and the contemporary garden, which may carry
with it, important implications about the associative work of Mar
and McGill pre-1715 and the emergence of William Adam as the most
notable architect of the post-Bruce generation in Scotland.
Type
Thesis, MLitt Master of Letters
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