Aviary, Culzean Castle

Aviary, Swan Cottage and Associated Structures, Culzean Castle Estate

This outstanding group of estate buildings for rearing and housing waterfowl dates from the late 18th and late 19th centuries, with later additions. Together with the ornamental landscape of the wider Culzean estate, it represents a remarkable survival of a complete Regency-era wildfowl complex, reflecting the fashionable tastes of the period in Gothick, Classical and Chinoiserie styles. The group forms part of the A-listed Culzean Castle Estate, which is acknowledged as the epitome of the Picturesque movement in Scotland and a work of international importance.

Historical Background

Culzean has been associated with the Kennedy family since the Middle Ages, when Gilbert the 4th Earl of Cassillis gifted the estate to his brother Thomas Kennedy in 1569. In the 1660s, the barmekin around the tower house was breached to create terraced gardens, orchards and a walled garden, while the caves beneath the castle were fortified as secure stores. The estate became the principal Kennedy family seat when Sir Thomas Kennedy (1726–75) became the 9th Earl of Cassillis in 1759, and a continuing programme of improvements was undertaken throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The 10th Earl began rebuilding the Castle to designs by Robert Adam. His successor Archibald (1770–1846), the 12th Earl and later 1st Marquess of Ailsa, commissioned numerous practical and ornamental structures from about 1810 onwards, engaging architects and landscape designers to create ponds, gates, lodges and pavilions in the Picturesque manner. The 3rd Marquess modernised and enlarged the Castle in the 1870s. In 1945 the 5th Marquess divided the property, making over the Castle and its immediate policies to the National Trust for Scotland.

The Swan Pond was originally designed for the 10th Earl of Cassillis by landscape designer Thomas White of Retford as a habitat for wild and domestic fowl. It was subsequently rebuilt and enlarged to take in the whole of the old Cow Park for the 12th Earl — who later became the 1st Marquess of Ailsa — probably with the advice of Thomas White's son, during 1814–16. Swan Cottage was built at the time of this enlargement to designs by Robert Lugar, and appears as the "Pheasantry at Cullain" in Lugar's book Plans and Views of Ornamental Domestic Dwellings, meaning it must have been designed before the book's publication in 1811. The Aviary was completed around 1820. The 3rd Marquess of Ailsa had the Geese House built on an island at the west end of the pond in the 1880s, possibly to his own design, and was also responsible for refurbishing the pond with the retaining wall and Boat Steps in 1900–03.

Thomas White (1736–1811) was a pupil of the landscape architect Lancelot "Capability" Brown and practised across numerous Scottish estates including Airthrey (now the University of Stirling campus), Buchanan Castle, Champfleurie and Scone Palace, as well as Culzean. His son Thomas (1764–1836) continued the practice after his father's death, including further work at Culzean.

Robert Lugar (1773–1855) was a successful architect to the gentry during the Picturesque era, specialising in Gothick and Cottage Ornée idioms. His works include Balloch (now Ardoch) Castle (1809) and Tullichewan Castle (1808), both in Dunbartonshire and in the castellated style. His published works helped spread the Cottage Ornée style across the British Isles. Several buildings at Culzean were either designed by him or drew on his published designs: Swan Cottage, Hoolity Ha' Lodge and bridge, and probably Swan Pond Bridge and the Pagoda, as well as three lodges demolished in the 1950s. Lugar also designed lodges and other buildings for the 1st Marquess of Ailsa at St Margaret's, Twickenham and Isleworth during the same period. The Culzean estate's other octagonal cottages designed by Lugar, erected as gate lodges at Pennyglen, Glenside and Morriston, were demolished in the 1950s to facilitate road widening.

Swan Pond

Designed by Thomas White and Thomas White junior, constructed in 1790 and 1816, and refurbished in 1903. An irregularly shaped artificial pond of 13 acres (0.05 km²). A bridge crosses the inflow burn at the southernmost tip of the pond. An outflow sluice is located at the north-west corner. Near the south-west bank there is an artificial island with a geese house, approached by causeway stones. A retaining wall with parapet and broad steps sits at the south-east bank.

Retaining Wall and Boat Steps

Dating from 1903. A low curved wall with square piers flanking boat steps leading down into the pond, surmounted by urns standing on square pedestals. Constructed in cement-rendered concrete.

Swan Pond Bridge

Attributed to Robert Lugar, circa 1816. A single flat-arched footbridge to the south of the pond, with vermiculated voussoirs. The low rubble parapet has lime harl and slab coping. Ashlar dressings. Flagstone pavement. Lugar may have been responsible for designing this footbridge, which crosses the burn at the southernmost tip of the pond.

Swan Cottage

Designed by Robert Lugar, built 1816. A combined single- and two-storey ornamental estate cottage on a flattened octagonal courtyard plan, in the Cottage Ornée style. The two-storey octagonal core has a pyramidal slate roof. An open-sided prostyle porch with a pitched roof has a Tudor arch opening on the north-east and pointed arches to the sides. Verandas on square timber columns flank the porch on either side, terminating in pavilions with arched open fronts; these open-fronted pavilions were probably intended as places for plucking fowl. Single-storey wings splay back to enclose a courtyard to the south-west.

The building is of rubble construction in the Cotswold manner, with ashlar dressings; the porch is of tooled ashlar. First-floor windows are timber-framed casement type with double pointed arch motif astragals, set in square apertures with roll-moulded surrounds. Ground-floor windows to the north are timber-framed, set in apertures of biforate pointed arches with columnar stone mullions. Double casement timber-framed windows with diagonal glazing bars appear to the side and rear of the cottage. The chimney stack is of ashlar, comprising two diagonally set square shafts. A photograph dated 1959 held at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) shows the cottage with a different chimney stack, which was altered during stonework repairs of 1990–91.

Lugar's published plan demonstrates his strict geometrical control of elements arranged around an octagonal court. The executed building has an additional floor compared to the published version, providing the cottage with an upstairs bedroom.

Interior (inspected 2010): The ground floor of the cottage, now used as a shop, has late 20th-century plasterboard walls, plain cornices and a ceramic tile floor. The north-west wing contains stores and a scullery for the shop, with original roof beams still evident. The south-east wing is arranged as an open-plan dwelling supplemented by an octagonal room, with a coombed ceiling in the upper storey, accessed by a steep narrow staircase.

Aviary

Designed by Robert Lugar, built 1820. A single-storey, twelve-bay, rectangular-plan building in a hybrid Gothick-classical style, forming the south-west range of the Swan Cottage courtyard. The south-west elevation is articulated by Doric pilasters and fenestrated by a glazed timber ogee arcade. The building is of rubble construction with an ashlar front to the south-west. The pavilions have pitched slate roofs. The plain rear (north-east) elevation faces the courtyard and has a simple timber door.

Survey drawings made by Ian G. Lindsay around 1950 reveal that the arcade on the west elevation was originally a framework for wire mesh, before being glazed.

Interior (inspected 2010): A corridor runs along the south-west side, with cages of timber and mesh on the north-east side. Public lavatories have been installed in the end pavilions.

Geese House

Attributed to the 3rd Marquess of Ailsa, built 1882. A low single-storey building on an octagonal plan, with an octagonal central court containing a tree. Seven sides have three pointed arch apertures each; one side has two square apertures. Brick construction with ashlar facing and a sloping slate roof. The building continues the octagonal theme established by Swan Cottage and the Pagoda; a version on a square plan was also drafted. It is situated on the artificial island at the west end of the Swan Pond, approached by causeway stones.