Duff House

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Duff House from the southwest

Duff House is a Georgian- style castle located near Banff , Scotland.

The house was commissioned by William Duff , Lord Braco, and built under the direction of William Adam . The foundation stone for this was laid on June 11, 1735 and the main building was built in its main features by around 1740. However, the interior work and the completion of the entire ensemble dragged on until the 1760s, whereby the original plan remained unfinished. Even in this state, Duff House is the grandest new castle in Scotland in the early 18th century.

Edification

Duff House in 1779

The house was built for William Duff, Lord Braco and from 1759 Earl of Fife. He handed over his plan to build a new castle near the town of Banff / Aberdeenshire to William Adam, Scotland's leading architect at the time. Even if the original plans have not been preserved, an engraving for Vitruvius Scoticus provides information about the design, but it was not carried out. This envisaged connecting the four-story main wing with two symmetrical wings with pavilions , similar to the design for Hopetoun House . The great fortune of Lord Braco enabled him to have a completely new building instead of just converting an existing building as originally planned. However, during the construction he got into a legal dispute with his architect, which not only delayed the construction, but also led to Lord Braco himself never moving into the castle and leaving it as a shell.

draft

The middle block of the house presents itself as a cuboid with an elaborately designed, classicist facade. The rows of Corinthian columns in the center of the southern and northern fronts are particularly striking . The house is bordered by domed towers at all four corners. In this way it is reminiscent of Castle Howard and Houghton House . The interior design is based on the French Rococo and is lavishly equipped with carved paneling , pilasters , paper mache ceiling decorations and stencil painting.

history

After Lord Braco did not move into Duff House, he appears to have given it to his eldest son, Lord MacDuff, who lived there until 1809. The following Earls of Fife also lived in Duff House until the sixth Earl , who since his marriage to Princess Louise , the eldest daughter of the late Edward VII. Wore a Duke of Fife, the title, in 1906 the towns of Banff and Macduff handed . Since then it has been used alternately as a hotel, sanatorium and prisoner of war camp. After the Second World War , it was gradually renovated . Since 1995 it has been part of the National Galleries of Scotland . As a result, a collection of paintings by El Greco , JP Cuyp , François Boucher and Allan Ramsay's Mrs. Daniel Cunyngham as well as furniture by Thomas Chippendale can be seen in the house.

literature

  • Ian Gow, Timothy Clifford: Duff House . National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 1995, ISBN 0903598558 .
  • Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd: Castles and Seats of Aristocracy in Scotland . Könemann, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-8290-0404-4 .

Web links

Commons : Duff House  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ian Gow: The History of Duff House . In: Duff House , p. 29 ff.
  2. ^ Ian Gow: The History of Duff House . In: Duff House , p. 33.
  3. ^ Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd: Castles and Seats of Aristocracy in Scotland , p. 187.
  4. ^ Ian Gow: The History of Duff House . In: Duff House , pp. 43-44.

Coordinates: 57 ° 39 ′ 31.2 "  N , 2 ° 31 ′ 11.7"  W.