| Penicuik House and Estate |
7th June 2021. Sky was looking promising. I headed to Penicuik Estate. Plan being to photograph Penicuik House and a view of the Penicuik Estate behind the house.
From Penicuk House web site https://www.penicuikhouse.com/thehouse
"Penicuik House was designed and built in the 1760s by Sir James Clerk, 3rd Baronet of Penicuik, with John Baxter the ‘elder’, a renowned builder of that period, responsible for many of Scotland’s most distinguished 18th-century country houses. Later extended with two large wings by the eminent Victorian architect David Bryce in 1857, the house quickly became established as one of the finest second-generation neo-Palladian houses in the country until a fire in 1899 devastated the roof and interiors and left the once-magnificent building in ruins. Penicuik House perfectly embodies the ideals of Palladian architecture in its simplicity and symmetry and is unquestionably one of the finest examples of this style in Britain today.
On the 16th of June 1899, disaster struck. A fire broke out causing large-scale destruction of the interior of the grand house and completely gutting the roof. During the fire a great deal of effort was channeled into salvaging the furnishings:
“Pictures, pianos and potted palms were bundled out of the great iconic portico, down the steps and onto the circular lawn, while the fight with the fire continued hour by hour.”
Sadly, the house could not be saved and, due to problems with insurance, funds were unavailable to meet the cost of rebuilding the main house. The adjacent stable block was converted instead, creating a new family home in 1900 for Sir George, 8th Baronet, and his wife Aymée.
For nearly 100 years, this great Palladian mansion stood as a majestic ruin and the focal point of one of the greatest Scottish landscaped policies. But each year wind, weather and vandalism took their toll, and the fabric of what remained of the building became ever weaker and more unstable.
By the early 1980s a crisis had been reached and the shell of one of the grandest houses in Midlothian faced a new threat. Its continued existence as a romantic ruin, deeply evocative of the age that gave it birth, was in danger of demolition by order of the Local Authority on the grounds of safety. This situation led to the formation in September 1985 of the Penicuik House Preservation Trust, which was publicly launched in February 1987. "
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