Mount Stuart, Bute

Although I took these pictures yesterday I made the collage today.

Last year we saw a TV programme with Susan Calman looking round the house and thought it looked amazing, so planned to make the trip to the island to see it after it re-opened.

The red sandstone house was built in late 19th century by the third Marquis of Bute. The tour only takes in part of the house but what a stunning place. The craftsmanship is superb. The marble chapel has the same floor design as the Sistine Chapel and Westminster Abbey. The Marble Hall is over 80 feet high. The ceiling is a representation of the northern night sky, set with Crystal prisms in shapes of the constellations. Each side of the gallery has 3 zodiac stained glass windows designed by Horatio Walter Lonsdale. The marble comes from Carrara and Sicily - the colours are beautiful - some pillars are mainly green and other have yellowish hues or purple. Enormous tapestries were made in the Dovecote Studios which were owned by the family.

The marble staircase is Carrara marble and fossilised limestone containing 325 million year old fossils quarried from County Durham.

It is one of the most stunning houses we have visited. There’s a strange mix of religious stained glass and astrology. Paintings by Titian and Tintoretto were on display. The woodwork was beautifully carved and the ceilings were interesting too.

There were guides in most rooms giving information and answering questions. I asked how they got the money to fund the house and was told the Marquis had bought coal mines in Wales which he’d leased out to mining companies. Reminds me of the people who benefitted indirectly from slavery, though they themselves owned none. Despite their wealth, they weren’t above sending a factor out to St Kilda to extract rent from the people barely making a subsistence living from the poor land there. Another friend remarked on my Facebook post that Anthony Beevor, a military historian, had accused a more recent Marquis of having funded Franco.

It is blowing a hoolie and raining now but we got in a couple of miles along the beach before it started. No view of Arran today!

The pictures - top left, the exterior which overlooks the Clyde, below it, the constellation ceiling and below that, a painted panel on a ceiling in a bedroom, top middle, the marble chapel, below that, the marble staircase, top right, one of the marble pillars and below that, the marble hall.