Dalmeny House, Edinburgh

Dalmeny House is a two-storey Tudor Gothic country house designed by William Wilkins and built between 1814 and 1817. It is arranged as a U-plan main block with principal elevations facing southeast and northeast, and service wings to the northwest. The building is constructed in polished and droved ashlar sandstone with Coade stone detailing throughout. All elevations share common features: a base course, a string course at first floor level, a cornice, and crenellated parapets at eaves level. Octagonal corniced piers with decorative carved panels mark the external angles and frame the elevations, and all stone mullioned and transomed windows carry hoodmoulds.

SOUTHEAST (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION

The entrance front is seven bays wide and asymmetrical. At its centre, a two-storey porch breaks the eaves line. It has a Tudor-arched entrance door with moulded reveals and a two-leaf panelled timber door, with a hoodmould above enclosing armorial panels. A three-light pointed-arched window is centred at first floor above the porch. Below the cornice runs a decorative frieze with cusped panelling to a stepped parapet. The corner piers are octagonal, rising to corniced pinnacles with strapwork to the shafts and ogee dome caps.

The bay immediately to the left of centre is recessed at ground floor level with a three-light window, then corbelled out at first floor with a two-light window. The penultimate bay to the left is wide and advanced, framed by octagonal piers rising to panelled pinnacles, with two-light and four-light windows at ground and first floors sharing hoodmoulds and armorial panels inset in the frieze between them; the frieze and parapet here match those of the entrance porch. The outermost bay to the left has four-light and three-light windows at ground and first floors respectively. To the right of centre, the adjacent bay has three-light windows at both floors. The penultimate bay to the right contains a two-storey, seven-light mullioned and transomed canted stone window. A small window has been inserted at first floor level in the outermost bay to the right.

NORTHEAST ELEVATION

The northeast elevation is seven bays wide and symmetrical. Its centre bay rises to three storeys, breaking the eaves as a tower with octagonal piers at the corners rising to crenellated turrets; it has four-light windows at ground and first floors and a three-light window at second floor. The two-bay flanks to either side of the tower are recessed and regularly fenestrated with four-light windows. The outer bays are gabled, each framed by octagonal piers rising to panelled pinnacles, with five-light windows slightly advanced at each floor. Armorial panels sit over the ground-floor windows, and a crenellated parapet is superimposed on each gablehead with an armorial panel centred above.

NORTHWEST ELEVATION

The northwest elevation is asymmetrical. To the outer left it comprises a symmetrical, regularly fenestrated three-bay block — advanced, with four-light windows in the centre bay and three-light windows in the flanking bays. To the right is a lower two-storey range over a basement, with a gabled bay advanced at the outer right.

SOUTHWEST ELEVATION

The southwest elevation is asymmetrical, made up of the two- and three-storey elevations of the main block and the service wing, which flank a courtyard entrance to the right and left respectively. The main block presents a near-symmetrical three-bay elevation with an additional bay recessed to the left and an octagonal pier clasping the corner to the outer right. A single-storey crenellated stone porch projects from the centre bay, with four-light windows in the flanking bays; above, a two-light window is centred at the floor above with three-light windows in the flanking bays. The outermost bay to the left has a two-light window at each floor. The service wing presents a four-bay elevation (grouped one-two-one); the basement is concealed by a later 20th-century tea-room addition, and the upper floors are regularly fenestrated.

COURTYARD

A large pointed-arched Gothic-traceried stair window centres the northeast side of the courtyard. A window is aligned at first floor level, with windows in the flanking bays and narrow windows inserted between the centre and outer bays. The southeast and northwest sides show a variety of additions and inserted windows.

WEST WING

The west wing is a single storey over a basement and is three bays wide, presiding over the courtyard to the west. Its west elevation is near-symmetrical and two storeys in appearance, with a round-arched door centred at basement level, a bipartite window to the left bay, and irregular fenestration to the right bay. At principal floor level, a loft door with a cast-iron balcony is centred, with bipartite windows in the flanking bays. The northwest elevation is single storey over a concealed basement, three bays wide, and near-symmetrical. The centre bay has a canted window with two-light windows to each face. Pointed-arched doors flank the centre bay, the left one infilled and the right one with a panelled timber door. The outer bays are recessed and advanced to left and right respectively, with a bipartite mullioned window in the left bay and a two-light window in the right bay. A crenellated parapet runs at eaves level.

WINDOWS, ROOFS, AND EXTERNAL DETAILS

The mullioned windows are glazed with metal casements and fixed-light multi-paned glazing. Traceried windows have leaded and stained glass. Other openings have timber sash and case windows. Roofs are finished in graded grey slate, piended at parapetted gables, with a low-pitched copper repair to the east corner. The chimneys are clustered Tudor Gothic stacks comprising corniced plinths to octagonal shafts decorated with fleur-de-lis, rampant lions, and Tudor roses, with moulded bases and ornate copes. Profiled cast-iron gutters serve the courtyard elevations.

INTERIOR

The interior has an outstanding decorative scheme. The entrance hall and corridor have fan-vaulting; the corridor also retains 16th-century Flemish stained-glass windows and Tudor arches. The stair hall has a three-bay hammerbeam ceiling with battlemented pendants; the stair itself has a wrought-iron balustrade and a timber handrail. The Library retains Wilkins's original bookcases and doors, with reed jamb shafts and lotus leaf capitals. The Drawing Room has groins and paterae to the cornice. The Napoleon Room has a coffered arch. The Dining Room has a fretted centrepiece and bracketed cornice. The private apartments on the first floor are on a smaller scale, some with panelling and reed jamb shafts.

TERRACE, GARDEN WALLS, RAILINGS, GATES, AND GATEPIERS

A coped droved ashlar sandstone retaining wall runs along the southeast, northeast, and northwest elevations, with polygonal bastions at the west corners. A coped ashlar sandstone wall encloses the garden to the south, with two-leaf timber gates. The ashlar sandstone gatepiers have octagonal shafts with bases and caps, and are flanked by dwarf walls with decorative cast-iron railings.

HISTORICAL NOTES

The Moubray (or Mowbray) family, who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, were the lords of Barnbougle, Dalmeny, and Inverkeithing, and sold the estate in 1615 to Sir Thomas Hamilton. His grandson sold it to Sir Archibald Primrose of Carrington, who later became Lord Justice General of Scotland. Sir Archibald's eldest son by his second marriage, also Archibald, was created Earl of Rosebery in 1703. The family lived at Barnbougle Castle until the early 19th century, when the state of neglect of that house had become such that a wave reputedly washed into the dining room while the family were at supper. The son of the 4th Earl commissioned Dalmeny House, which was completed in 1817, three years after William Wilkins and Jeffry Wyatt had both been asked to submit plans. Wilkins's original proposal was for a neo-classical house, while Wyatt's was Tudor Gothic. The Earl wished to employ Wyatt, a former Cambridge associate, and so asked him to submit a Tudor Gothic design, which was accepted. Although the design incorporates elements of classical symmetry, it was based on East Barsham Manor, a Tudor mansion in Norfolk built by Sir Henry Fermor around 1520. The Coade stone ornamentation at Dalmeny was, as a domestic commission, second only to Buckingham Palace as an order from the Coade factory, with over 300 cases of Coade stone shipped to Leith over three years. The hammerbeam ceiling in the main hall is comparable to Wilkins's later ceiling in the Hall of King's College, Cambridge. The west block originally contained a dairy, servants' bedrooms on the first floor, a lamp house, an oast-house, and a joiner's shop.

Dalmeny House is listed as a group with Barnbougle Castle, Barnbougle Gate Lodge, Dalmeny House Boundary Wall, Chapel Gate Lodge, East Craigie Farmhouse, East Craigie Gate Lodge, Edinburgh Gate Lodge, Dalmeny House Gardener's Cottage, Dalmeny House Home Farm, Dalmeny House Home Farm Laundry, Leuchold, Leuchold Gate Lodge, Longcraig Gate Lodge, 1–4 Long Green, Newhalls Gate Lodge, Dalmeny House Stable Block, and Dalmeny House Walled Garden (each listed separately).