Rammerscales House

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Rammerscales House

Rammerscales House is a mansion near the Scottish village of Hightae in the Council Area Dumfries and Galloway . In 1971 the structure was included in the Scottish monument lists in the highest monument category A.

history

Due to the location in the middle of the contested areas in the Scottish-English borderland, numerous records of the history of the lands were lost. In the 14th century, the Rammerscales estate was part of the Holmain estate . It was the Scottish King David II who awarded Holmain to the Carruthers clan in 1361 . The Carruthers clan was in turn subordinate to the Douglas clan . In 1587 the Carruthers are listed among the lairds in the region. Robert Carruthers married Margaret Dalziell in 1687 and was awarded Rammerscales. In the course of the Jacobite uprising in 1745 , the Carruthers supported the Jacobites . In the following years, numerous supporters of their possessions were expropriated. Possibly this also applied to the Carruthers and Rammerscales. All that is known is that the property was put up for sale in court in 1758.

The local doctor James Mounsey acquired Rammerscales. Mounsey had lived in Russia for some time and was the personal physician of the future Russian Empress Catherine the Great . There are no records of the building that was on the site at the time. Mounsey had today's Rammerscales House built around 1760. Legend has it that the unusually high number of doors in Rammerscales House was explicitly requested by Mounsey. He made enemies in Russia and feared a Russian attack on his life. In order to always have an escape route available, he had each room equipped with two exits. However, the legend cannot be confirmed any further and several passages have been closed with masonry over the centuries.

After his death in 1773 the property passed to his eldest son James . This was in military service and does not seem to have permanently lived in Rammerscales House at any time. He died in 1780 while serving in the West Indies . His two brothers inherited the property. After the last of the two died in 1797, it fell to his three sisters. However, these lived in other places and showed no interest in the building. It was subsequently sold to the Glasgow sugar industrialist James Bell for £ 7,700 . In the early 19th century and again in the middle of the century, the interior was redesigned. Small jobs were carried out around 1938.

description

The building is isolated in the surrounding forest of Rammerscales Wood about 1.5 km southwest of the village of Hightae. The Georgian , three-story mansion has an elongated floor plan. The masonry is made of red sandstone . The east-facing front is three axes wide. The lower entrance area is designed with two Doric columns. A triplet window with a final cornice is installed above it . The side facades are five axes wide. At the back there is a small extension. The façades end with a surrounding eaves on corbels . A mounted balustrade conceals the slate-covered hip roof .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  2. ↑ a b c History of Rammerscales House
  3. ↑ Entry on Rammerscales House  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)

Web links

Coordinates: 55 ° 5 ′ 5.1 "  N , 3 ° 26 ′ 22.8"  W.