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Mellerstain House is a stately home around 8 miles (13 kilometres) north of Kelso in the Borders, Scotland. It is currently the home of the 14th Earl of Haddington, and is a historical monument of Scotland. [1]
The older house or castle at Mellerstain included an old five-storey tower, ruinous in 1700. [2] Mellerstain was built between 1725 and 1778. [3] The architect William Adam initially designed the east and west wings for George Baillie (1664–1738) and his wife Lady Grisell (1665–1746), daughter of Patrick Hume, Earl of Marchmont. Work ceased after the wings were completed, and it was another 45 years before George Baillie commissioned Robert Adam to design and build the main mansion house. George was the second son of Charles, Lord Binning (1697–1732), heir to the 6th Earl of Haddington, and he inherited the Mellerstain estate when his aunt Grisell, Lady Murray, died in 1759. He had changed his name from Hamilton to Baillie as a mark of respect.
The mansion house is possibly the only remaining complete building designed by Robert Adam, as most of his other works were additions to existing buildings. The Adelphi, London, in London, was a speculative neoclassical terraced housing development by the Adam brothers but is now largely demolished, leaving Mellerstain House as an important record of Robert Adam's work.
The interior is a masterpiece of delicate and colourful plasterwork, comprising a small sitting room (originally a breakfast room), a beautiful library (a double cube design), a music room (originally the dining room), the main drawing room, with original silk brocade wall coverings, a small drawing room (originally a bed chamber) and a small library (originally two dressing rooms). The main entrance hall leads to a long corridor with a staircase to the bedroom floor, from which there is a small back staircase leading to a large gallery room running north to south.
Original wallpapers, hand printed in the 18th and 19th centuries, can be seen in the bedrooms. The Great Gallery displays costumes, fans, embroideries and documents. [4]
The house stands in 80 hectares of parkland, with an Italianate formal terraced garden at the rear, with a sweeping stretch of lawn descending to a lake. These gardens were designed around 1910 by Sir Reginald Blomfield.
Robert Adam was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his older brother John, Robert took on the family business, which included lucrative work for the Board of Ordnance, after William's death.
Robert Baillie was a Scottish conspirator incriminated in the Rye House Plot against King Charles II. He was executed for treason.
Lady Grizel Baillie, née Hume, was a Scottish gentlewoman and songwriter. Her accounting ledgers, in which she kept details about her household for more than 50 years, provide information about social life in Scotland in the eighteenth century.
Earl of Haddington is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1627 for the noted Scottish lawyer and judge Thomas Hamilton, 1st Earl of Melrose. He was Lord President of the Court of Session from 1616 to 1625. Hamilton had already been created Lord Binning in 1613 and Lord Binning and Byres, in the County of Haddington, and Earl of Melrose, in the County of Roxburgh, in 1619. These titles were also in the Peerage of Scotland. The title of the earldom derived from the fact that he was in possession of much of the lands of the former Melrose Abbey. However, Hamilton was unhappy with this title and wished to replace it with "Haddington". In 1627 he relinquished the earldom of Melrose and was instead created Earl of Haddington, with the precedence of 1619 and with limitation to his heirs male bearing the surname of Hamilton. This derived from the fact that he considered it a greater honour to take his title from a county rather than from an abbey. Hamilton was a member of the prominent Scottish family of that name and descended from John de Hamilton, younger son of Walter de Hamilton, who was granted the feudal barony of Cadzow and who is also the ancestor of the Dukes of Hamilton and Dukes of Abercorn.
Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London. It was originally a private Neo-Palladian mansion owned by the Earls of Burlington and was expanded in the mid-19th century after being purchased by the British government. Today, the Royal Academy and five learned societies occupy much of the building.
Castle Coole is a townland and a late-18th-century neo-classical mansion situated in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Set in a 1,200-acre (490 ha) wooded estate, it is one of three properties owned and managed by the National Trust in County Fermanagh, the others being Florence Court and the Crom Estate.
George Baillie-Hamilton-Arden, 11th Earl of Haddington,, was a Scottish landowner and representative peer.
Charles Hamilton, Lord Binning, was a Scottish nobleman, politician and poet.
Wedderburn Castle, near Duns, Berwickshire, in the Scottish Borders, is an 18th-century country house that is now used as a wedding and events venue. The house is a Category A listed building and the grounds are included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.
Patrick Hume, 1st Earl of Marchmont, known as Sir Patrick Hume, 2nd Baronet from 1648 to 1690 and as Lord Polwarth from 1690 to 1697, was a Scottish statesman. His grandfather was the poet and courtier Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth and Redbraes who died in 1609.
Charles Baillie, Lord Jerviswood was a Scottish advocate, judge and politician
George Baillie-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Haddington DL, known as George Baillie until 1858, was a Scottish Conservative politician.
Tyninghame House is a mansion in East Lothian, Scotland. It is located by the mouth of the River Tyne, 2⁄3-mile (1.1 km) east of Tyninghame, and 3+3⁄4 miles (6.0 km) west of Dunbar. There was a manor at Tyninghame in 1094, and it was later a property of the Lauder of The Bass family. In the 17th century, it was sold to the Earl of Haddington. The present building dates from 1829 when the 9th Earl of Haddington employed William Burn to greatly enlarge the house in the Baronial style. In 1987 the contents of the house were sold, and the house was divided into flats.
Marchmont House lies on the east side of the small village of Greenlaw, and near to a church in Polwarth in Berwickshire, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. It is about five miles south west of Duns, about 19 miles (31 km) west of Berwick-upon-Tweed and about 40 miles (64 km) south east of Edinburgh. Situated in a gently undulating landscape, the estate is intersected by Blackadder Water, and its tributary burns. With the Lammermuir Hills to the north and views towards the Cheviot Hills in the south, this part of Berwickshire, sometimes referred to as the Merse, is very scenic and contains rich and fertile agricultural land.
Thomas Hamilton, 7th Earl of Haddington was a Scottish nobleman.
Lady Grisell Baillie was the first woman to be created a deaconess in the Church of Scotland.
George Baillie was a Scottish politician who sat in the Parliament of Scotland from 1691 to 1707 and in the British House of Commons from 1708 to 1734.
Sir Alexander Murray, 3rd Baronet was a Scottish baronet and politician. He was a son of Sir David Murray and his first wife, Anne Bruce.
John George Baillie-Hamilton, 13th Earl of Haddington, was a British peer and politician of the Conservative Party. He was also a photographer and explorer of the paranormal.
Julian Billingham or Bellingham (1673-1730) was a member of an aristocratic 17th-century Scottish family and a maker of soap.
