Haddo House

Haddo House is a significant building originally designed by William Adam, with detailed alterations and sculpture by John Baxter, constructed between 1731 and 1736. The central block is a 77-foot square, three-storey structure made of ashlar granite, featuring quoin angles and seven-window facades on the east and west sides. The west facade has a central section that is slightly advanced and pedimented, adorned with urns, and topped with a piend roof and parapet. The building includes two-storey quoined rubble-built wings with 24-foot radius quadrants, each having five windows on the front and court sides. The first floor of the wings was heightened in 1780, and there is evidence that the first floor of the quadrants was also raised around the same time.

Internal alterations were made, including the replacement of the staircase from the first to the second floor, and external stairs on the east side were added by Archibald Simpson in 1822. The kitchen court features an entrance archway and cupola, which were altered by J. & W. Smith in 1843. The house also contains a large aisleless early decorated chapel with a wooden barrel roof, a vaulted ante-chapel, and a stair leading to the first floor of the north wing, designed by G.E. Street between 1876 and 1881.

The west elevation has a porch and colonnade supported by red granite Roman-Doric columns, which replaced the original curved stairs to the first floor. The main block features bay windows at the north and south centres, a new internal staircase from the ground to the first floor, and a general replanning of the main floor. Other renovations included the renewal of chimneys, rebuilding the kitchen court arch (while retaining the cupola), and reconstructing the south side of the kitchen court as a nursery wing, which was demolished after fire damage in 1930. These works were carried out by C. E. Wardrop of Wardrop and Reid between 1879 and 1881, with fine neo-Adam interior work by Wright and Mansfield of London.

Among the surviving elements of the original Adam-Baxter interior is the old first-floor centre west entrance hall, which features an 1845 bust of Queen Victoria by Baron Marochetti, as well as Simpson's staircase.