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34-629: Castle Forbes is a 19th-century country house in the Scottish baronial architecture style near Alford in Aberdeenshire , Scotland . The 6,000-acre (2,400-hectare) Vale of Alford estate has been home to the Lords Forbes and their ancestors for over six hundred years. An earlier house on the site was named Putachie. The present building overlooking the River Don was built in 1815 by

68-542: A Scottish national identity during the 19th century, and some of the most emblematic country residences of 19th-century Scotland were built in this style, including Queen Victoria 's Balmoral Castle and Walter Scott 's Abbotsford , while in urban settings Cockburn Street, Edinburgh was built wholly in baronial style. Baronial style buildings were typically of stone, whether ashlar or masonry . Following Robert William Billings 's Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland , architectural historians identified

102-707: A folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-century English landscape gardening and French landscape gardening often featured mock Roman temples , symbolising classical virtues. Other 18th-century garden follies imitated Chinese temples , Egyptian pyramids , ruined medieval castles or abbeys , or Tatar tents, to represent different continents or historical eras. Sometimes they represented rustic villages, mills and cottages, to symbolise rural virtues. Many follies, particularly during times of famine, such as

136-541: A former dairy building was converted into a small perfumery . The structure is a category B listed building and the grounds are included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland . There is a prehistoric stone circle located to the north of the castle. Scots Baronial Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th-century Gothic Revival which revived

170-478: A general term, "folly" is usually applied to a small building that appears to have no practical purpose or the purpose of which appears less important than its striking and unusual design, but the term is ultimately subjective, so a precise definition is not possible. The concept of the folly is subjective and it has been suggested that the definition of a folly "lies in the eyes of the beholder". Typical characteristics include: Follies began as decorative accents on

204-768: A pink sandstone similar to Belfast Castle . Castle Oliver had all the classic features of the style, including battlements, porte-cochère , crow-stepped gables , numerous turrets, arrow slits , spiral stone staircases, and conical roofs. This form of architecture was popular in the dominions of the British Empire. In New Zealand it was advocated by the architect Robert Lawson , who designed frequently in this style, most notably at Larnach Castle in Dunedin. Other examples in New Zealand include works by Francis Petre . In Canada, Craigdarroch Castle , British Columbia,

238-536: A use which was lost later, such as hunting towers. Follies are misunderstood structures, according to The Folly Fellowship , a charity that exists to celebrate the history and splendour of these often neglected buildings. Follies ( French : fabriques ) were an important feature of the English garden and French landscape garden in the 18th century, such as Stowe and Stourhead in England and Ermenonville and

272-472: Is a superb example dating from the 1880s. Important for the dissemination of the style was Robert Billings 's (1813–1874) four-volume work Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland (1848–1852). It was applied to many relatively modest dwellings by architects such as William Burn (1789–1870), David Bryce (1803–76), Edward Blore (1787–1879), Edward Calvert (c. 1847–1914) and Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864–1929) and in urban contexts, including

306-475: Is in accord with the general meaning of the French word folie ; however, another older meaning of this word is "delight" or "favourite abode". This sense included conventional, practical buildings that were thought unduly large or expensive, such as Beckford's Folly , an extremely expensive early Gothic Revival country house that collapsed under the weight of its tower in 1825, 12 years after completion. As

340-503: The 17th Lord Forbes , to designs by the architect Archibald Simpson . However, after Simpson encountered structural problems and the original section of the house (from c. 1731) began to crack, Simpson was dismissed and the work was completed by the City Architect of Aberdeen, John Smith . Today it is occupied by Malcolm Forbes, 23rd Lord Forbes and is open to residential guests. The estate offers fishing and golf . In 1996,

374-527: The County of Flanders in the 16th century and was abandoned by about 1660. The style kept many of the features of the high-rising medieval Gothic castles and introduced Renaissance features. The high and relatively thin-walled medieval fortifications had been made obsolete by gunpowder weapons but were associated with chivalry and landed nobility. High roofs, towers and turrets were kept for status reasons. Renaissance elements were introduced. This concerned mainly

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408-640: The Great Famine in Ireland, were built as a form of poor relief , to provide employment for peasants and unemployed artisans. In English, the term began as "a popular name for any costly structure considered to have shown folly in the builder", the Oxford English Dictionary 's definition. Follies are often named after the individual who commissioned or designed the project. The connotations of silliness or madness in this definition

442-857: The Picturesque , Scots baronial architecture was equivalent to the Jacobethan Revival of 19th-century England , and likewise revived the Late Gothic appearance of the fortified domestic architecture of the elites in the Late Middle Ages and the architecture of the Jacobean era . Among architects of the Scots baronial style in the Victorian era were William Burn and David Bryce . Romanticism in Scotland coincided with

476-511: The gardens of Versailles in France. They were usually in the form of Roman temples, ruined Gothic abbeys, or Egyptian pyramids. Painshill Park in Surrey contained almost a full set, with a large Gothic tower and various other Gothic buildings, a Roman temple, a hermit's retreat with resident hermit , a Turkish tent, a shell-encrusted water grotto and other features. In France they sometimes took

510-512: The British Empire. The Scottish National War Memorial was the last significant monument of the baronial style, built 1920 in Edinburgh Castle after World War I . The Scottish baronial style is also called Scotch baronial, Scots baronial or just baronial style. The name was invented in the 19th century and may come from Robert William Billings's book Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland , published in 1852. Before,

544-1012: The Scots baronial style was "a Caledonian reading of the gothic". Some of the earliest evidence of a revival in Gothic architecture is from Scotland. Inveraray Castle , built starting from 1746 with design input from William Adam , incorporates turrets. These were largely conventional Palladian style houses that incorporated some external features of the Scots baronial style. William Adam's son's, Robert and James continued their father's approach, with houses such as Mellerstain and Wedderburn in Berwickshire and Seton House in East Lothian, but most clearly at Culzean Castle , Ayrshire, remodelled by Robert from 1777. Large windows of plate glass are not uncommon. Bay windows often have their individual roofs adorned by pinnacles and crenulations. Porches , porticos and porte-cocheres , are often given

578-707: The Scottish Renaissance style finally gave way to the grander English forms associated with Inigo Jones in the later part of the seventeenth century. European architecture of the 19th century was dominated by revivals of various historic styles. This current took off in the middle of the 18th century with the Gothic Revival in Britain. The Gothic Revival in architecture has been seen as an expression of romanticism and according to Alvin Jackson ,

612-522: The architecture often had little in common with tower houses, which retained their defensive functions and were deficient with respect to 19th-century ideas of comfort. The revival often adapted the style to the needs and technical abilities of a later time. In Ireland, a young English architect of the York School of Architecture, George Fowler Jones , designed Castle Oliver , a 110-room mansion of about 29,000 sq ft (2,700 m ), built in

646-561: The building of Cockburn Street in Edinburgh (from the 1850s) as well as the National Wallace Monument at Stirling (1859–1869). Dall House (1855) and Helen's Tower (1848) have square-corbelled-on-round towers or turrets. The rebuilding of Balmoral Castle as a baronial palace and its adoption as a royal retreat from 1855 to 1858 by Queen Victoria confirmed the popularity of the style. This architectural style

680-709: The castle treatment. An imitation portcullis on the larger houses would occasionally be suspended above a front door, flanked by heraldic beasts and other medieval architectural motifs. Important for the adoption of the style in the early nineteenth century was Abbotsford House , the residence of the novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott . Rebuilt for him from 1816, it became a model for the Scottish baronial Revival style. Common features borrowed from 16th- and 17th-century houses included battlemented gateways, crow-stepped gables , spiral stairs, pointed turrets and machicolations . Orchardton Castle near Auchencairn, Scotland

714-492: The cylinder of their main bodies are particular the Scottish baronial style. They can be seen at Claypotts , Monea , Colliston , Thirlestane , Auchans , Balvenie , and Fiddes . Such castles or tower houses are typically built on asymmetric plans. Often this is a Z-plan as at Claypotts Castle (1569–1588), or on an L-plan as at Colliston. Roof lines are uneven and irregular. The Scottish baronial style coexisted even in Scotland with Northern Renaissance architecture, which

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748-467: The empire at Vorontsov Palace near the city of Yalta, Crimea. The popularity of the baronial style peaked towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the building of large houses declined in importance in the twentieth century. The baronial style continued to influence the construction of some estate houses, including Skibo Castle , which was rebuilt from 1899 to 1903 for industrialist Andrew Carnegie by Ross and Macbeth. Isolated examples included

782-519: The form of romantic farmhouses, mills and cottages, as in Marie Antoinette 's Hameau de la Reine at Versailles. Sometimes they were copied from landscape paintings by painters such as Claude Lorrain and Hubert Robert . Often, they had symbolic importance, illustrating the virtues of ancient Rome, or the virtues of country life. The temple of philosophy at Ermenonville, left unfinished, symbolised that knowledge would never be complete, while

816-538: The forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period . Reminiscent of Scottish castles , buildings in the Scots baronial style are characterised by elaborate rooflines embellished with conical roofs , tourelles , and battlements with machicolations , often with an asymmetric plan. Popular during the fashion for Romanticism and

850-488: The great estates of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, but they flourished especially in the two centuries which followed. Many estates had ruins of monastic houses and (in Italy) Roman villas; others, lacking such buildings, constructed their own sham versions of these romantic structures. However, very few follies are completely without a practical purpose. Apart from their decorative aspect, many originally had

884-411: The houses designed by Basil Spence , Broughton Place (1936) and Gribloch (1937–1939), which combined modern and baronial elements. The 20th-century Scottish baronial castles have the reputation of architectural follies . Among most patrons and architects the style became disfavoured along with the Gothic revival style during the early years of the 20th century. Folly In architecture ,

918-556: The style does not seem to have had a name. The buildings produced by the Scottish baronial revival by far outnumber those of the original Scottish "baronial" castles of the Early Modern Period. Scottish baronial style drew upon the buildings of the Scottish Renaissance . The style of elite residences built by barons in Scotland developed under the influence of French architecture and the architecture of

952-463: The stylistic features characteristic of the baronial castles built from the latter 16th century as Scots baronial style, which as a revived idiom architects continued to employ up until 1930s. Scottish baronial was core influence on Charles Rennie Mackintosh 's Modern Style architecture. The style was considered a British national idiom emblematic of Scotland, and was widely used for public buildings, country houses, residences and follies throughout

986-452: The temple of modern virtues at Stowe was deliberately ruined, to show the decay of contemporary morals. Later in the 18th century, the follies became more exotic, representing other parts of the world, including Chinese pagodas , Japanese bridges, and Tatar tents. The Great Famine of Ireland of 1845–1849 led to the building of several follies in order to provide relief to the poor without issuing unconditional handouts. However, to hire

1020-456: The windows that became bigger, had straight lintels or round bows and typically lacked mullions. The style drew on tower houses and peel towers , retaining many of their external features. French Renaissance also kept the steep roofs of medieval castles as can be seen for example at Azay-le-Rideau (1518), and the original Scottish baronial style might have been influenced by French masons brought to Scotland to work on royal palaces. The style

1054-640: Was built for Robert Dunsmuir , a Scottish coal baron, in 1890. In Toronto, E. J. Lennox designed Casa Loma in the Gothic Revival style for Sir Henry Pellatt , a prominent Canadian financier and industrialist. The mansion has battlements and towers, along with modern plumbing and other conveniences. Another Canadian example is the Banff Springs Hotel in the Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. The style can also be seen outside

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1088-515: Was often employed for public buildings, such as Aberdeen Grammar School (about 1860). However, it was by no means confined to Scotland and is a fusion of the Gothic revival castle architecture first employed by Horace Walpole for Strawberry Hill and the ancient Scottish defensive tower houses . In the 19th century it became fashionable for private houses to be built with small turrets. Such buildings were dubbed "in Scottish baronial style". In fact

1122-690: Was preferred by the wealthier clients. William Wallace 's work at the North Range of Linlithgow Palace (1618–1622) and at Heriot's Hospital (1628–1633) are examples of a contemporaneous Scottish Renaissance architecture. Wallace worked for the Countess of Home at Moray House on Edinburgh's Canongate , an Anglo-Scottish client who employed the English master mason Nicholas Stone at her London house in Aldersgate. The baronial style as well as

1156-531: Was quite limited in scope: a style for lesser Scottish landlords. The walls usually are rubble work and only quoins, window dressings and copings are in ashlar. Sculpted ornaments are sparsely used. In most cases the windows lack pediments. The style often uses corbelled turrets sometimes called tourelles, bartizans or pepperpot turrets. The corbels supporting the turret typically are roll-moulded. Their roofs were conical. Gables are often crow-stepped. Round towers supporting square garret chambers corbelled out over

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