George Crawford was hired in London by the Earl of Moray in 1646 to paint at Moray House in Edinburgh's Canongate and at Donibristle House in Fife. The Earl also hired English plasterers and joiners to work on new interiors at Donibristle in a wing built by the Scottish architect John Milne. Moray bought furnishings…
This post is about the furnishings of tower houses, and the documentary record. The first thing to note is that Scottish furnishings from the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries are very rare. This may be contrasted with the apparent survival of quantities of English chunky Jacobethan furniture, and it occurs to me that a rather smaller…
This post is about the early wall paintings at Kinneil House, West Lothian, Scotland, based on a talk given to the Friends of Kinneil; partly about how the paintings were restored, and came to look as they do today, and partly about what they may have meant in the sixteenth century. The paintings are a…
An English diplomat Thomas Randolph wrote that the merry men of Edinburgh had a joke, that Inchkeith Island in the Forth, between Edinburgh and Fife, ought to be called the Isle des Femmes, because there were so many women on it. Usually called the Island of Horses, Mary of Guise, queen regent of Scotland preferred…
Buying timber for building in early seventeenth-century Scotland: from Sweden or on the shore of Leith. Much timber for furniture and building was imported from Norway and Baltic sources and ports, as far east as Königsberg, now Kaliningrad in Russia.[1] Imported timber for Edinburgh and the Forth valley was stored and sold at the ‘Tymber…
This post is based on research for the National Trust for Scotland presented at a Gladstone’s Land Study Day, 11 November 2015, and discusses makers and the materials of the fabric of Gladstone’s Land in Edinburgh. Thomas Gladstones bought the house around 1618, planning to extend the property southward into the Lawnmarket, and use the…
James V of Scotland left an extensive archive with the treasurer’s accounts (in Scots, published with some abbreviation) and exchequer rolls (published, Latin). In addition there are two series of household books (National Records of Scotland E31 & 32, Latin, unpublished) and some inventories of household goods. Much of the building work on royal palaces…
In 1890 William Fraser recorded a household and teind income account book for Coldingham Abbey in 1592. Fraser noted the physical condition of the booklet as 'partly decayed' or 'much mutilated at the beginning'. He printed a brief summary of the contents and the historical background, and while 'none of the entries contain special historic…
My PhD research Vanished Comforts: Setting the Context for Furniture and Furnishings in Scotland, 1500-1650, was an AHRC-funded project involving National Museums Scotland and the University of Dundee, running from 2012 to 2016. The purpose of the research was to imagine and understand the use and purpose of rooms and planning in Scottish homes and…
Mary Dudley Sutton (1586-1644) was a cousin of Lucy, Countess of Bedford and a friend of Lady Ann Clifford. She married Alexander, Earl of Home on 11 July 1605 at Bedford House on the Strand. Latin verse in 1617 celebrated her marriage and her 'English hand' rebuilding Dunglass Castle as an example for the Union…
Objects and the archive 