Area’s history is brought to book
Fascinating insight into lost local buildings
A new book gives a fascinating view of lost heritage in Perthshire – the country piles, castles and manors that no longer exist.
Brothers David and Ian Robertson have just released the latest in their illustrated heritage booklet series, ‘Lost Country Houses of Perthshire’.
Its launch coincides with an exhibition on Lost Houses which has opened at Perth Museum and Art Gallery and runs until the beginning of July.
Published by the Friends of Perth and Kinross Council Archive, the book picks 26 examples from all over the county.
Changing economic circumstances through the 20th Century meant that many families could no longer afford to maintain the large mansions which their Victorian ancestors had built or enlarged.
Wartime use by military and other public authorities left many country houses in poor repair and needing substantial and costly restoration.
As a result, particularly in the years following the Second World War, many estate owners simply chose to abandon or demolish these mansions and move into smaller, more manageable houses.
The Robertsons’ guide looks at the lavish, lovely and some ludicrous buildings lost between about 1860 and the end of the 1950s.
Many of these Perthshire homes were let out annually for their shooting and fishing rights, like Dalpowie House on the Murthly estate, south of Birnam, which was rented for 10 years by the artist Sir John Millais.
Glenturret Lodge was built in the 1830s as a shooting lodge for the Murrays of Ochtertyre, but was demolished around 1960, prior to the site being flooded when the level of Loch Turret was raised to provide a new water supply.
New Murthly Castle, a giant, unfurnished holiday venue, was just too much to maintain and was blown up in 1949.
Further afield, once stood Ardoch House, at Braco.
Originally the home of the Stirling family, it was abandoned in the 1950s after wartime use for evacuee children from Glasgow, and pulled down in the 1980s.
Then there’s Balgowan House, west of Methven. It was the childhood home of General Thomas Graham. It was again used to house evacuee children during WWII.
That was Balgowan House’s last decade of habitation, as it was blown up by the Royal Engineers in 1947 and the rubble used for road building. Duncrub Park at Dunning is another loss to Perthshire’s heritage.
Completed in 1863 for the 10th Lord Rollo, Duncrub was one of the largest mansions in Perthshire, said to have had more windows than there are days in the year.
After the 11th Lord died in 1946, the house was sold and demolished in 1950. Stone from the house was used to extend Morrison’s Academy in Crieff.
A list is provided of a further 27 country houses lost since the Inchbrakie House, two miles east of Crieff
Picture: Alex Graeme
Dunira House, near Comrie, burned to the ground beginning of the 1960s, and the authors intend to look at these in a second book in due course.
Another casualty of the Beatles decade was Strowan House, just west of Crieff.
Once the home of the Graham Stirling family, it was occupied by the Polish Cavalry during the Second World War.
Copies of the book can be purchased from the AK Bell Library and at the museum in Perth, from various bookshops and heritage and visitor centres around the county.
Previous books written by the authors have included two books on the ‘Lost Gardens of Perthshire’ and another which describes the ‘Historic Trees of Perthshire’.
Many estate owners simply chose to abandon or demolish these mansions