Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 6 on 6/2/2003.

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Follies and rogue architecture

ALISTER G. FIRTH HAS TRAVELLED AROUND SCOTLAND IN SEARCH OF CURIOSITIES TO PHOTOGRAPH. HERE ARE A FEW OF HIS DISCOVERIES

It was the great landscape designers and architects of the 17th and 18th centuries who came up with the idea of creating follies to embellish the gardens they created and the houses they built. When the sons of wealthy families returned from the Grand Tour, they not only brought back with them the spoils of their adventures through Europe, but ideas as well. They were inspired by the Coliseum in Rome and the Parthenon in Athens, and every respectable country estate needed to have a small ruin, a piece of created antiquity to catch the eye.

The trend continued through the 19th and 20th centuries, and rural Scotland today is resplendent with quirky, eccentric distractions. Photographer Alister G. Firth has captured a selection for our perusal.

BORDERS
SKIRLING, LANARKSHIRE
LORD CARMICHAEL’S FIGURES
The picturesque village of Skirling, a few miles from Biggar on the A72 to Peebles, was the seat of Baron Carmichael of Skirling, who became the first Governor of Bengal in 1912. He gave the village a selection of wrought iron figures depicting animals and flowers. Carmichael’s house, built in 1908, is now a five-star bed and breakfast, and there is also a selection of these figures over the house and boundary fence.

HUNDY MUNDY, BERWICKSHIRE
A great name for a folly eye-catcher at Mellerstain House, home of the Earls of Haddington. Situated on the north / south axis of the house, this two-dimensional, turreted gothic archway dating from 1770 has smaller than normal openings in.....

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By Alister G Firth

Section : Scottish Follies

Page number : 24